A Snake goddess accompanied by a winged acrobatic figure is alone shown (Plate I a) in repeated cylinder seal impressions on a tablet dated year 9 of the reign of Warad-Sin of Larsa, 1826 B.C. by the middle chronology, 34 years before the first year of Hammurabi of Babylon.

Though the tablet originated at Larsa it seemed that the seal with its lovely but mysterious couple must be of Syrian origin. So far as can be discerned in the impressions they are rendered with a grace and delicacy that at least equal the best Old Babylonian work. Hair extended behind the head as on both of them finds its closest contemporary comparisons in hair styles common in Syrian work (Plate I b). In the latter, however, the effect is of definite shaping whereas here the hair looks almost wind-blown. Acrobats too occur quite often in Syrian glyptic, but not apparently in the pose of ours. To this we must return.

In 1942 the Ashmolean Museum acquired, by gift of the National Art Collections Fund, the small head of a young bull carved in stone, of which five views are given in Plate III. This object is numbered 1942.167 in the Accession Book of the Department of Antiquities, and it is exhibited in the Near Eastern Gallery. The head has been commonly described as “Sumerian”; but no one, as far as I know, has attempted to refine on that description or even to prove that it is correct. In fact, the more carefully the object has been examined in recent years the more doubts have arisen about its identification. I am grateful, therefore, to the Editor of Iraq for printing a description of this little enigma detailed enough, I hope, to enable some perspicacious reader to suggest its proper interpretation.

Three questions present themselves: where was the head made; when was it made; and what was it made for? Its known history does not take us far. The head was first seen in 1942 in the hands of a Baghdad antiquities dealer, who told the Director of Antiquities1 that it had been found “in a tomb not far from Ur”. This was a stereotyped formula from which nothing could be inferred except that the object probably did come from Iraq, otherwise the owner would gladly have said that it was an import.

Although W. K. Loftus is best remembered today for his pioneer excavations at Susa and Warka, one of his most remarkable single discoveries was made in April, 1854, at Tell Sifr in Iraq. For the first three months of the year, accompanied by Boutcher as artist, he had been engaged on excavations at Warka sponsored by the Assyrian Excavation Fund. He then moved his expedition to Senkara (Larsa), a site fifteen miles south-east of Warka, called to his attention through a rapid visit there by Baillie Fraser in 1834. Among the large mounds visible from Senkara across the ancient canal, Shatt al Kar, is that of Tell Sifr, which promising local reports of its contents induced Loftus to explore. Indeed the mound had already been honey-combed by a notorious group of clandestine excavators searching for gold in Parthian graves. It was they who had named the site ‘Sifr’ after the numerous copper objects they discovered there, much no doubt to their chagrin. Within a matter of days the party of Arabs despatched by Loftus had “cut some enormous gashes into the little conical mound, which crowns a low platform nowhere exceeding forty feet above the desert”. The discovery with which this paper is concerned was made on the south-east side of the tell and may best be described in the excavator's own words:

“A trench was dug into the south-east side of the principal mound, according to instructions, and soon came against a brick wall, which, from its position, supported by a three-feet buttress, and its elevation in two-inch gradines, was evidently the exterior of a building. Its thickness was not ascertained, but it encased an internal mass of mudbrick, as explained by some other trenches. Following this wall for a distance of about six feet, the workmen discovered a number of copper articles arranged along it, which form a very curious and quite unique collection, consisting of large chaldrons, vases, small dishes and dice-boxes (?); hammers, chisels, adzes, and hatchets; a large assortment of knives and daggers of various sizes and shapes—all unfinished; massive and smaller rings; a pair of prisoner's fetters; three links of a strong chain; a ring weight; several plates resembling horses' shoes, divided at the heel for the insertion of a handle, and having two holes in each for pins; other plates of a different shape, which were probably primitive hatchets; an ingot of copper and a great weight of dross from the same smelted metal. (Here Loftus notes: ‘The whole of the articles obtained from Tell Sifr are deposited in the British Museum’). There was likewise a small fragment of a bitumen bowl overlaid with thin copper; and a piece of lead.” Loftus believed he had found the stock-in-trade of a copper smith, but was puzzled by their ‘connection with the public edifice, near which they were uncovered’. He inferred the date of this copper hoard from the Old Babylonian tablets and envelopes found close to them. This archive had been carefully stacked upon bricks with a cover of reed matting. Impending seasonal floods brought the work at Tell Sifr to a premature end. The site has never subsequently been scientifically examined.

The second season of excavations at Tell Taya lasted from the beginning of December, 1968, to the end of February, 1969. They were again sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, which provided equipment and the loan of the Rimah dig-house, and were financed largely from the School's Jebel Sinjar Fund, set up by an anonymous donor to assist research on northwest Iraq during the third millennium B.C.; part of a grant to the writer, given by the Gerald Averay Wainwright Fund (Oxford University) for work on this period, was also used.

The staff consisted of the writer as director; Mr. Hugo Blake, who worked mainly on site Si, as assistant-director; Miss Nina Shaw, who was responsible for the conservation and registration of objects, and also did much of the photography; and Miss Ann Hechle, who recorded the pottery. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Postgate were with us for a time, and in the absence of inscribed material the former undertook part of the surface survey while the latter helped on the excavation generally. All members of the staff, however, did far more than this bare list of assignments might imply, and I am deeply grateful for their devoted perseverance through what was said, at Tel'afar, to be the worst winter in living memory. The Iraq Directorate-General of Antiquities was represented by Sd. Mahfudh Abdullah and Sd. Nehad ar-Rawi, and we were as usual indebted, both to them and to many other government officials in Baghdad, Mosul, and Tel'afar, for their invaluable interest and support.

Dr. P. R. S. Moorey has recently established the identity of a ridden animal on terracotta relief plaques of early 2nd-millennium B.C. Mesopotamia as a true, if very small, Equus caballus. The presence of this species in this region at so early a date has, until now, often been seriously doubted. Also quite recently, a distinct strain of small-pony-sized horse (of 1.20m or under at the withers) has been identified in Iran. The slenderness index of its metapodials (one of the most commonly used criteria for determining equid species) has been found to fall within that of the hemiones. Hence it seems possible that some remains of harness animals of the late 3rd or early 2nd millennium B.C. hitherto dismissed as those of onager may actually have belonged to a true, if very small, Equus caballus. In the light of these facts a review of the pertinent figured evidence has seemed desirable. This has revealed the later continued use of a categorically small pony alongside that of the large pony or small horse.

Plate VI a shows a boy astride an animal that has long been called “an immense wolfhound”. It has a small head and ears, slender limbs, a full mane, and a long, full tail. This equid and others on similar plaques from this period seem definitely smaller and lighter than the Przewalski horse, whose height of 1.30m or more places him just under or already within the “large pony” class of the modern horse-show ring.

To judge from the reliefs in the palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud, elaborately patterned clothes were very much in vogue in 9th century B.C. Assyria. Even soldiers in battle may wear gaily decorated skirts. The patterns consist mostly of floral or geometric designs on the order of those first seen on royal garments on post-Kassite kudurrus. Since such patterns are brightly coloured in the wall paintings at Til Barsip or on the enamelled bricks at Assur, we are led to believe that the designs carved on the reliefs represent embroideries.

A small number of figures (only some of them royal) on the reliefs from Nimrud wear robes decorated with unusually complex patterns, consisting of figures of animals, monsters, genii, kings and some narrative scenes. This special kind of embroidery caught Layard's attention and he painstakingly recorded the designs in his Monuments of Nineveh, published in London in 1853. From these drawings a picture has been formed of 9th century B.C. Assyrian textiles. The embroidery patterns have been used to date Assyrian motifs, as well as to identify the Assyrian prototypes for elements in Assyrianizing art from other areas. The export of such textiles has been credited with spreading Assyrian motifs abroad. The importance which these special embroideries have in Assyrian studies is, then, out of proportion to the tiny scale, or to their incidental contribution to the aesthetic effect of the sculpture of the palace.

At present, all the metalwork excavated at Nimrud by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq between 1949 and 1963 is being catalogued with a view to publication. As the amount of gold jewellery is relatively small, and because as a group it seems to form an easily separable entity, it has been decided to isolate it from the main corpus of metal objects and publish it independently. The authors are grateful to Professor Sir Max Mallowan for permission to publish this material, to Dr. Isa Salman, Director General of Antiquities and to Dr. Fawzi Rashid, Director of the Iraq Museum for permission to examine the gold jewellery now in Baghdad and for their unfailing help, when the work was undertaken in the Iraq Museum.

It must be stressed that this article is confined exclusively to gold jewellery. Apart from pieces of gold-leaf used in overlaying ivory, which were found in some quantity, a few other pieces of goldwork were excavated, which cannot be recognised as jewellery and will appear in the main corpus of metal objects. Considering the extent of the excavations at Nimrud, it is immediately surprising that so few examples of gold jewellery were found: the only reasonable explanations for this paucity would seem to be firstly that Kalhu was very thoroughly ransacked in the years marking the end of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and secondly, that the communities settled on the mound after 612 B.C. were not sufficiently prosperous to have much enjoyed articles such as gold jewellery.

A fragment of a sculptured miniature column was found in Shrine 10 situated to the west of the Great Temple at Hatra. This shrine has been assigned to Nergal on epigraphical and iconographical grounds. The fragment comprises the upper part of the column with a rectangular capital (measuring 8.7 × 7.7 cm.) surmounted by a hollow incense receptacle (diameter 6 cm., height 3 cm.). The fragment is carved with low reliefs on four sides. On one side is a relief of a male figure (Plate XXXIII a), the legs of which, below the knees, are missing. He stands to the front with the head slightly turned to the left. His head is dominated by a mass of hair drawn to the back as indicated by very shallow incisions (Plate XXXIII b). An eagle with completely spread wings stands over the head. The figure wears an oval-shaped beard, the end of which is broken off. The features of the face are summarily and crudely indicated. Over his shoulders, he wears a chlamys fastened on the right shoulder with a brooch. The folds of his garment are visible on the shoulders and on the upper right arm. The rest of the body is left uncovered. A small rectangular object protrudes from his chest, but its purpose is not known to me. The right arm is raised to shoulder level, and with his hand he grasps a double axe, its upper end chipped off. He wears a plain bracelet on his right wrist. His left arm bends at the elbow and he holds in his hand a thick rope or a leash connected to an animal, of which the top part of the head is missing. The animal, carved frontally, could very well be a dog. The carving of the body of the figure is successful, for it shows some understanding of modelling, even though the figure is rather small to show further details. The muscles of the abdomen slightly bulge, indicating the movement of the right arm.

Among the material excavated at Kish by Stephen Langdon and now in the Ashmolean Museum is a small limestone fragment (Field registration number K.1884) bearing parts of six lines of an inscription in Babylonian script. W. G. Lambert has recently recognised in line 4 the name of Aššurnādin-šumi, regent of Babylonia 700–694 B.C. Lambert provided the transliteration here printed, and to him and to Professor O. R. Gurney are due the present writer's thanks for the suggestion that he undertake publication of the piece (see Fig. 1).

Ras Shamra (Ugarit) has been one of the outstanding archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. Its distinguished excavator, Cl. F. A. Schaerffer, in 1968 completed his thirtieth season at the site, and to mark the occasion his friends and colleagues were invited to contribute to a volume in his honour. The contributions proved so numerous that two volumes were necessary to contain them. One, which has not yet appeared, will be devoted to articles relating to Enkomi-Alashia. The remainder have been assembled in a new volume of the honorand's own series, Ugaritica. The circumstances are explained in a short foreword by A. Parrot.

As is usual in a Festschrift, the thirty-eight articles are of very varied content. Most, though not all, are directly related in some way to the discoveries at Ugarit. Those of H. de Contenson, J. C. and L. Courtois and A. Bounni, indeed, are actual reports on the excavation of a particular part of the site. H. de Contenson describes in detail the Early Bronze and Obeid levels grouped together as “Niveau III”, to the south of the acropolis. His contribution— much the longest in the volume—will be of special interest to prehistorians on account of the wide variety of objects from these levels which it illustrates. J. C. Courtois reports on the “House of the Priest” or “Priest's Library” excavated in 1961, where a number of Ugaritic and Hurrian tablets came to light. L. Courtois describes the pottery found in a Late Bronze Age tomb; while A. Bounni gives an account of the discovery of parts of a Roman water installation which came to light in 1959 at the south-west corner of the mound during the construction of a modern road.

WIR verdanken Barbara Parker die Veröffentlichung eines zweifellos interessanten “kappadokischen” Zylinder-Siegels aus Privatbesitz in Iraq 29 (1967), 3–5 (Plate III). Die vorzüglichen Photographien (Plate IIIa-d) erregten sogleich mein Interesse und verleiteten mich zu einer—wie mir selbst schien— recht gewagten Lesung.

Frau Parker war inzwischen so freundlich, mir eine Abrollung dieses Siegels zu schicken, wofür ich ihr auch hier bestens danken möchte. Die Abrollung hat meines Erachtens über die Photographie hinaus nichts wesentlich Neues ergeben.

Ich möchte hier also die alte Fassung dieser kurzen Mitteilung mit einigen zusätzlichen Hinweisen auf die Abrollung und ergänzenden Bemerkungen zur Diskussion stellen.

Zunächst eine kurze Zusammenfassung: Das 1·9 cm lange Siegel aus Hämatit wird offensichtlich als echt angesehen; dies sei auch hier angenommen.

Das Siegel trägt eine Legende, die direkt, nicht in Spiegelschrift, eingraviert ist. Die bildliche Darstellung wird (auf p.3) in zwei Teile geteilt: die “central scene”—grob schematisch: eine sitzende und eine stehende Figur, einander zugewandt—, neben der “anscheinend ursprünglich eine aus vier Zeilen bestehende Inschrift gestanden sei”; zwei Zeilen der Inschrift seien später teilweise getilgt (“defaced”) worden. Beweis dafür sei das nur mehr undeutlich erkennbare Zeichen KI in der dritten Zeile. Dem wird ausdrücklich hinzugefügt, dass keine weiteren Spuren teilweise getilgter (“obliterated”) Zeichen erkennbar seien.

In the Iraq Museum are displayed two large fragments of a floor mosaic found during a series of emergency surveys and excavations, carried out in 1957–58 by the Directorate General of Antiquities of Iraq. The works were conducted in the plain on the Lower Zab river, south of Rānya (Arbil Liwa), which was due to be flooded on the completion of the Dokan dam.

This work was necessary because in the plain—known locally as Dasht-i-Bitawīyn and some 80 square miles in area—there were at least forty tells which would be submerged on the completion of the artificial lake.

The mosaic was found about 10 miles south of Rānya, at Tell Khwāris which is situated at the confluence of the Lower Zab and its tributary Rubar-i-Basalam. Tell Khwāris is 100 m. long, 80 m. wide and 4 m. high.

Nearby dwellers in the course of their agricultural works had dug a deep trench on the summit of the mound and had brought to light several pieces of the floor mosaic which were subsequently destroyed. Members of the Directorate General of Antiquities when informed of the discovery, were able to trace all extant parts of the ancient floor and remove them to Baghdad.