The first post-war season of excavation at Tell Brak took place from March to May, 1976. The expedition, directed by the writer, was sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, and was generously supported by grants from the British Academy, the British Museum, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, the C.H.W. Johns Fund of Cambridge University, the Gordon Childe Fund of the Institute of Archaeology, and an anonymous Trust. I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to our supporters, and to the members of the staff who worked extremely hard in conditions that were sometimes difficult, for we were living in rented village houses and tents and relied entirely on local transport. They were Dr. T. A. Holland (Assistant Director), Miss Katharine Fielden (in charge of pottery), Miss Ann Searight (Conservator and Draughtsman), Mr. P. G. Dorrell (Photographer and Geomorphologist), Mr. J. D. Hawkins (Epigraphist and Registrar), Mr. J. E. Curtis and Mr. D. G. Jeffreys (Archaeologists), Mr. S. F. Hall (Architect) and Mr. J. Hanbury Tenison (Archaeological Assistant). We must also extend our warm thanks to the Director-General of Antiquities, Dr. Afif Bahnassi, and the members of his staff, especially Dr. Adnan Bounni and Sayid Kassim Tuweir who bore the burden of our arrangements in Damascus, and the Department's Representative in the field, Sayid Subhi Yunan. Without their unstinted and friendly assistance our work would not have been possible.