The mounds of Jemdet Nasr, 100 km south of Baghdad, were subjected to two seasons of excavations in 1926–28. These campaigns yielded a tremendous assemblage of artefacts which have never received the full publication to which they are undoubtedly entitled. In order to rectify this shortcoming a programme of publishing all known items from the 1920s seasons is now well underway, with museum work completed on the Jemdet Nasr collections in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Field Museum, Chicago. It is intended to publish the 1920s material as Volume 1 of the series Jemdet Nasr Excavations, which will continue with volumes concerning our own recent work at the site. Pending completion of study of Jemdet Nasr items in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, it has been decided to present this preliminary survey as an indication of the wealth of material retrieved during those two seasons in 1926 and 1928, and in order to address questions that have arisen in the subsequent decades. The main issues of debate have been whether or not it is justifiable to speak of a Jemdet Nasr period, distinct from the Late Uruk and Early Dynastic periods, and a concern to specify items of material culture, particularly pottery, which may assist in the identification of such a period in both temporal and geographical terms. Recent and future excavations at the site, and elsewhere, are likely to provide some of the pointers, but it is perhaps too often the case that excavations of the early part of this century are dismissed as below modern standards and therefore not worthy of detailed study. It is hoped that this article can show the value of re-analysing old excavations from a contemporary viewpoint, particularly by drawing upon comparative material from a range of other excavated sites in order to place the Jemdet Nasr assemblage within a wider Mesopotamian context.

It was purely by chance, in 1989, that I saw in a newspaper an article announcing a competition sponsored by the Iraqi government to solve the riddle of how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were irrigated. This proved to be the start of a project, which culminated in the submission of an entry for the competition in June 1990. As everyone is aware, the outbreak of hostilities in the Gulf followed soon after, ending any further communication on the matter.

Since that time, a considerable amount of further information has come into my possession, which has enabled me to expand on the initial written thesis. In this respect, I am particularly indebted to Dr. Irving Finkel's article in The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (1988), which brought together all the ancient source material that is so difficult for an amateur like myself to obtain, and also to Joan Oates' Babylon (1979 and 1986) for much valuable background information.

I trust that my theories may prove to be of interest and perhaps also stimulate further discussion not only on the Hanging Gardens themselves but also on the much neglected subject of water raising devices of antiquity.

In a previous article we reported a study of Ancient Mesopotamian cylinder seals. The purpose was to provide insights, based on experimental evidence for the change from stone to metal drills in seal manufacture. These findings were correlated to earlier research in which the proportion of medium and hard stone seals (Mohs 5–7) e.g. hematite, quartz, etc. to those of soft stones (Mohs 1–3) e.g. steatite, marble, etc. was documented. The time span encompassed the beginning of cylinder seal history at Uruk (4% medium and hard stone seals) at the end of the 4th millennium B.C. through the Sasanian period c. A.D. 200–600 (99% medium and hard stone seals). Inferences were drawn relating the tremendous increase in the proportion of hard stones to advances in the technology of hard stone seal manufacture. The growing fashion for hard stone seals was attributed to their desirability as status symbols as well as to economic factors. These findings and explanations in no way contradicted the important well documented multi-functional purpose of seals for legal, political, amuletic and funerary use as well as for the protection of property.

The purpose of the present article is to provide comparable data for Minoan seals. We sought evidence for the following questions:

(1) What was the proportion of medium and hard stone seals to soft stone seals during the time frame of Minoan history?

(2) What were the tools and technology used for the manufacture of Minoan seals and how did these change over time?

(3) What inferences might be drawn from this data to Minoan culture and history?

(4) What comparisons could be made to Mesopotamian glyptic?

The pair of amulets which form the subject of this brief contribution were bought in October 1933 by R. du Mesnil du Buisson from a local peasant while visiting the site of Arslan Tash, a town in northern Syria, some 160 km north-east of Aleppo, near the present-day border with Turkey. The site, which is the location of the ancient Assyrian colony Hadattu, had been excavated a few years earlier, and it is not impossible that the objects had in fact been stolen from the excavation. Both amulets are now preserved in the National Museum in Aleppo.

The purchase of the amulets was announced by du Mesnil in a meeting of the Société nationale des Antiquitaires de France in 1937 and this was soon followed by the editio princeps of the first amulet. His article, often justly praised as a remarkable achievement, is accompanied by a set of very reasonable photographs, but, owing to the rounded edges of the tablet and the use of light coming from one direction only, a number of signs cannot actually be seen on them. To supplement the photographs, the editor provided handcopies of the inscriptions; these naturally reflect his own readings of the often problematical text, rather than being an accurate facsimile of each individual sign. With few exceptions most of the subsequent students of the amulet have inevitably had to base themselves on du Mesnil's photographs, and this has not always led to readings better than his. It was not until 1970 that a new impulse was given to the study of the first amulet by the publication of an article by F. M. Cross and R. Saley. These authors were able to use two new sets of photographs (each using light coming from opposite directions) provided by the Museum in Aleppo, and presented several new readings based on these photographs. It is much to be regretted that of this double set of photographs only a single one was published in their article, so that most of their readings cannot be checked. This oversight is only partly compensated by the subsequent publication of a few more of Cross and Saley's photographs by W. Röllig. The next major step forward was a short but very informative article by A. Caquot, who was able to use a cast of the amulet in the possession of R. du Mesnil du Buisson which had been made at the time of its discovery. Caquot's new readings confirm most but not all of those proposed by Cross and Saley, and subsequent treatments of the text usually follow either or both of these authorities.

En 1976, Ismaïl Hijara reprenait le chantier préhistorique de Tell Arpachiyah, dans la banlieue de Mosul, pour une ultime campagne. Ce site avait été exploré dans les années 30 par Max Mallowan et avait livré les premiers niveaux stratifiés de l'époque de Halaf. Cinquante ans après la fouille, ces résultats servaient encore de référence pour la périodisation halafienne, mais ne pouvaient donner de réponse à de nombreuses questions. La principale concernait la chronologie et le développement de la phase “Halaf ancien”. C'est en souhaitant y répondre qu'I. Hijara relança la fouille du site en ouvrant trois tranchées sur la butte principale. Une succession de niveaux architecturaux fut mise en évidence. Au cours de leur dégagement, plusieurs tombes apparurent dont trois, localisées aux abords de la tholos TT 8, firent l'objet d'une publication séparée. Un vase trouvé dans l'une de ces tombes nous retiendra plus particulièrement.

Il s'agit d'une céramique provenant de la tombe G2. Celle-ci est décrite comme une inhumation collective appartenant au niveau VII (Halaf ancien ou moyen). Quatre crânes y étaient placés séparément dans des céramiques (trois dans des vases ouverts, le quatrième dans une jarre). Une série de six autres céramiques et un vase en pierre accompagnaient ces inhumations. Un de ces vases porte un décor peint iconographié que nous reproduisons Fig. 1 tel qu'il a été publié. On ignore toutefois si ce vase contenait un des crânes ou s'il faisait partie du dépôt funéraire.

Two unpublished terracottas from Ur, now in the British Museum, and a terracotta from Ur, now in the University Museum, Philadelphia, deserve attention for the contribution they can make to the problem of identifying the well known “goddess on a goose”. I am grateful to Carole Mendleson for the catalogue descriptions for Nos. 1–2.

(1) B.M. 127484. U. 17163 (Diqdiqqah), Plate VIIa. 60 × 78 mm. Chair relief. Bottom part only remaining. A figure, almost certainly the same goddess as No. 2 below), wearing a flounced and pleated skirt. She is seated on a standing “goose” and faces to the right with her feet resting on a seated “goose”. The entire scene is on a platform. This appears to be a sideways view of the scene shown in B.M. 1933–10–13, 215 (see No. 2 below) though there is no sign of flowing streams. The relief is well made with details of the standing bird's feathers clearly shown.

Smooth reddish clay, buff on the outside; feet of the chair broken off.

The cuneiform Akkadian tablets published here belong to a private collector in England. They were bought from a dealer in 1981. Most of them are closely associated by prosopography, seal impressions and types of text with those excavated at Meskene, ancient Emar on the Euphrates, and published comprehensively by D. Arnaud, in: Recherches au Pays d'Aštata, Emar VI. 1–4 (Paris 1985–7), as well as a few now in private hands and published in various journals.

Owing to many problems in fixing the chronology of the Late Bronze Age, exact dates cannot yet be given to these texts, although useful synchronisms have emerged from published Emar material. No. 26 in the main corpus mentions the Kassite king Melisihu, dated c. 1186–1172 B.C. or 1181–1167 B.C. No. 201 in the main corpus mentions Ini-Tešup king of Carchemish son of Šahurunuwas and grandson of Šarri-kušuh (a.k.a. Piyassilis). The latter had been installed in Carchemish by his father Suppiluliumas I and confirmed by his brother the Hittite king Arnuwandas, prior to the time of Emar archives, when the Nuzi records may already have come to an end and Assyria under Assur-uballiṭ I (1365–1330) had begun to assert its power.

The famous Assyrian bas-relief showing a dying lion, missing for many years, has recently been presented to the British Museum. It was excavated at Nineveh in the 1850s but its subsequent whereabouts has been the source of much speculation. A photograph of it was taken by Mansell and Co. in the last century (Plate XV) and this photograph continued to be available; it has been reproduced in many books, which accounts for the notoriety the relief now enjoys.

The relief itself is cut down from a larger panel. It now measures 16·6 cm in height and 30·8 cm in length, and is 1·5–2·0 cm thick. At the back, on the right side, is a raised lip. The back itself is well-smoothed, but vertically scored lines are visible (Plate XVIa). On either side of the relief, there is clear evidence of saw marks where it has been cut down to size in modern times. It has probably been also cut along the bottom, but the evidence here is not quite so unequivocal. All along the top is a raised edge 0·5–0·8 cm wide that is probably the original top border of the relief; at any rate, it has the appearance of a finished edge with no signs of having been cut recently. At the bottom, the lion stands on a base line that does not quite extend the width of the slab. Probably in the last century the relief was set into a wooden frame (19·2 × 33·3 cm) with a walnut veneer (Plate XVIb). The frame is open at the back, but a vertical iron strip, held in position by four screws, keeps the relief in place.

Writing in 1931, Eckhard Unger observed that published Neo-Babylonian texts written at or referring to Dilbat and dated by the Neo-Babylonian kings were scarce; those dated by the early Achaemenid kings, up to the end of the reign of Darius I, were more numerous; the latest unequivocally dated text from Dilbat was VAS 6, 331, dated by Bēl-šimânni, one of the Babylonian rebels against Xerxes; Seleucid and Parthian texts from Dilbat were unknown. In 1976 these observations still held, and Joachim Oelsner contemplated the possibility that the dearth of later texts from Dilbat was connected with Xerxes' suppression of the Babylonian revolts in the early years of his reign.

Oppert-Menant, Doc. jur. 276 ff. No. VI was problematic. Its publication in 1877 did not include a facsimile of the cuneiform text, but relied on a transliteration that is now antiquated and partly incomprehensible, accompanied by a largely unsuccessful effort at translation. It was plainly written at Dilbat on 7/IX/14 Darius, called “Kings of Lands”. Oppert ascribed it to Darius I, but the omission of “King of Babylon” from the royal title (or at least from the transliteration of the title) suggests to a modern reader that Darius II was intended. Oelsner judged properly that as long as the cuneiform text was not available there was no way to assign the text confidently to the reign of one Darius or the other.

After over half a century systematic excavation is once again underway at Kish. A team of Japanese archaeologists led by Prof. Hideo Fujii has reopened the archaeological investigation of this large ancient site where many periods of occupation are to be found. This study focuses on only a small fragment of the history of settlement at Kish, drawing together the evidence for habitation on the site in the Kassite Period.

The evidence may broadly be separated into three groups: inscribed objects found at Kish; references to Kish in texts of the Kassite Period; and artifacts peculiar to the Kassite Period found on the site.

The history and results of the excavations conducted at Kish before the Second World War have been well summarized by Moorey [1978]. I do not intend to present an even briefer summary in this paper. Suffice it to note that the bulk of the material discussed below derives from the two major campaigns at Kish: those of de Genouillac in 1912 [1925; Gibson: 1972: 69–70], and those of the Oxford–Field Museum Expedition between 1923 and 1933 [Field: 1929; Langdon: 1924; Mackay: 1925, 1929; Watelin: 1930, 1934; Gibson: 1972: 69–70]. Important supplementary evidence is also contained in the results of the surface survey work conducted at and around Kish by Gibson [1972].

Khirbet Karhasan was excavated by the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq, as part of the Saddam Dam Salvage Project. The excavations brought to light a hoard of Middle Assyrian faience ornaments, which formed a coherent assemblage. Collections of similar ornaments are known from Assur and Nimrud where they have been variously interpreted as decorating the rich garments for a god, a divine image, and even the walls of temples. In the absence of any other persuasive view a hypothesis is advanced based on the evidence of archaeological context, iconographic associations and a viable reconstruction, that the ornaments are equally adaptable to the decoration of ceremonial horse-harness.

The tell of Khirbet Karhasan is situated on the right bank of the Tigris approximately 75 km north-west of Mosul. The site on the edge of a prominent terrace overlooks a broad floodplain. In 1986, prior to the flooding of the site, the Tigris channel was 3 km north of the tell. The tell was sheltered by low hills which formed the western slope of the valley some 500 m to the south of the site. The hills rose some 40 m above the tell to approximately 50 m above the floodplain.