A third season of excavation by the joint Kuwaiti-British team took place at the Ubaid-related site of H3 in northern Kuwait during the spring of 2001. Permission to excavate was again granted by Dr al Rumayhi, Secretary General of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, to whom we are most grateful. The work was only possible because of the generosity of a number of funding bodies: the NCCAL in Kuwait; the British School of Archaeology in Iraq; the Institute of Archaeology, University College London; the Charlotte Bonham-Carter Charitable Trust; the Central Research fund of London University; the Society for Arabian Studies; and, above all, Kuwait Shell, our industrial sponsor. The success of the season was due to their generosity and to the dedication and skill of all members of the two teams.

Objectives this year included the continuation of work in the multi-cellular building in Area A identified in the second season, and the uncovering of the building visible on the surface in the adjacent Area C. The multi-cellular building proved to be structurally complex and had an unexpected depth of deposit in its chambers. These deposits proved to be extremely rich in finds which will greatly enhance our understanding of the site when analyses are completed. In Area C, the new building was defined and excavated to its base although its relationship with the adjacent building(s) in Area A remains to be defined. Limited work was also carried out in the previously excavated military dug-out, or foxhole, Area F, where work was completed. Two teams worked in Area A which was subdivided this season into an east and a west sector, while a third team investigated Area C.

The new program of excavations of the Syrian-American Expedition to Tell Hamoukar, Hassake province, northeastern Syria, began with an initial season in Fall 1999. The project includes among its goals the study of the expansion and contraction of settlement on the site, as well as the relationship of the urbanization process on Hamoukar to regional settlement trends. Our initial step was to document the chronology and scale of this process through a controlled surface collection on Tell Hamoukar itself. In addition, we made some initial attempts at documenting the archaeological landscape near the site by recording traces of ancient roads (hollow ways) and making controlled collection of field scatters.

In 1999, the joint expedition of the Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago initiated excavations and surface reconnaissance at the site of Tell Hamoukar in the northeastern corner of Hassekeh Province (Figs. 1–2). We need to acknowledge, with gratitude, the help and encouragement rendered by Dr Sultan Muhesen, then Director General of Antiquities, and by Sayyid Abdul Messieh Bagdo, of the Antiquities office in Hassekeh.

McGuire Gibson arrived in Damascus on August 24, 1999 and began to implement logistical arrangements with the co-director, Muhammad Maktash. Actual excavation of the site of Hamoukar began on September 9 and ended on October 31.

Hamoukar has been a subject of interest to a number of scholars through the years because of its size and surface pottery, which includes southern Uruk IV types. The presence of even earlier 4th millennium local Late Chalcolithic pottery as well as Ninevite V and mid-3rd millennium types makes the site crucial in addressing a number of important questions. The complexity of settlement in the early 4th millennium, the nature of the Late Uruk occupation and its relation to other sites with similar material in Syria and Turkey, and the history of the site in the Akkadian and post-Akkadian periods can all be elucidated by excavation here.

The two sites of Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in southern Iraq are among the most significant historically for our understanding of the 'Ubaid culture. Al 'Ubaid is the type site while Eridu has yielded, not only the best known 'Ubaid occupation sequence, but also evidence of the development of the settlement from its beginnings as a village to its later floruit as a town, complete with a temple and an extensive extra-mural cemetery. Both sites have been partially excavated, Al 'Ubaid on two occasions and Eridu by at least four expeditions. The results of all these various explorations have been published so that we have a good idea of the nature of both sites. I was able, with T. J. Wilkinson, to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu in June 1990 (Fig. 1). During our visits we found indications of the firing of 'Ubaid pottery on the surfaces of both sites; this discovery was unexpected since the existence of pottery kilns had not been mentioned in the published accounts. The purpose of this note is to draw the attention of archaeologists to these remains, to describe them briefly and to discuss their significance.

The opportunity to visit Al 'Ubaid and Eridu came during a reconnaissance of prehistoric sites in Iraq carried out with the encouragement of Dr Muayad Said Damerji, then Director General of the State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq. I wish to thank Dr Damerji and his staff for the welcome they extended on that occasion and the assistance they provided. I also wish to express appreciation and thanks to T. J. Wilkinson, then the Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition in Iraq and an old friend and colleague, who accompanied me on the reconnaissance and gave valuable help throughout.

Mesopotamian history tends to be phrased in terms of stages: Early Dynastic city-states replaced by imperial Akkad, bureaucratic Ur III replaced by the more individualistic Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods thanks to the influence of the Amorites, etc. Lost in this process is a sense of the longue durée of Mesopotamian civilization, the basic and largely unchanging aspects of its society, economy and politics. In this paper I will explore one of these transitions, that between Ur III and Isin-Larsa/Old Babylonian times, by examining the nexus between the cuneiform and archaeological records.

My aim is to explore the circumstances that resulted in the unearthing of the textual record upon which our understanding of the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods is based. Where did these tablets come from and what were the circumstances that both led to their preservation and allowed them to be recovered so that we could read them? To answer these questions, it will be necessary to look at the interconnections between the survey data, excavated data and the written record.

The broad sweep of settlement and abandonment provided by the survey data collected and analysed by Adams and his students and colleagues (Adams 1965, 1972, 1981, Adams and Nissen 1972, Gibson 1972, Wright 1981) has a direct impact on our understanding of the archaeological contexts of the cuneiform texts. Sites are subject to forces of erosion so that periods of abandonment — even if temporary relative to Mesopotamia's four-thousand-year history — still selectively remove parts of the archaeological record. Since all texts derive from archaeological contexts they are by no means immune. Indeed unbaked clay tablets are some of the most fragile of the artifacts recovered from Mesopotamian sites, only surviving to the present when buried rapidly at the outset and remaining so until uncovered by the spade of the archaeologist or, more often unfortunately, the looter. Then there is also the issue of accessibility. In most instances both archaeologists and looters dig from the top of a site down, and generally not that far down. Thus most of our data, both archaeological and textual, derive from those levels closest to the exposed surfaces of archaeological sites.

The ancient city of Uruk holds a pre-eminent place in the history of early state development in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC. However, extensive evidence survives to indicate that the city underwent a very separate cultural flowering during the late first millennium BC, synchronous with the rule of the Seleucid successors of Alexander III of Macedonia.

Traditionally, the Seleucid period has been viewed as one of extensive cultural interaction (e.g. Colledge 1987), when the beneficial impact of Greek “Hellenism” was felt throughout western Asia (e.g. Droysen 1836; Tarn 1951). For this period, Babylonia, and particularly Uruk, are exceptional, both in the quality of preservation and the scope of work that has been conducted there. In addition to Uruk's substantial archaeological remains, we have the added survival of a variety of textual material relating to numerous administrative, economic and ritual activities. If we are to discuss processes of cultural interaction, it is imperative to attempt an integrated study of archaeological material and textual records, and although each type of evidence is limited by constraints of interpretation, a co-ordinated analysis will allow us to address various aspects of the impact of Seleucid domination.

The German excavators have published a wealth of material based on their investigations at the site, including an extensive ceramic corpus for the Seleucid period. The most recent publications of this material have coincided with a shift in approaches to the interpretation of Seleucid rule in western Asia, where attempts to avoid the oversimplification of traditional explanations of cultural interaction are now desirable. An interpretation of the Uruk ceramic material aiming to avoid generalised preconceptions is similarly possible.

In the middle of the third millennium, the ruling Akkadian elite introduced new traditions into Sumer which resulted, among other things, in a wide-ranging harmonization of their own gods with those of the Sumerian pantheon. A complete Sumerian-Akkadian syncretism, however, did not apply for all deities. During the reign of the Akkadian kings, a shift in influence between two important deities of the Sumerian pantheon occurred as the moon-god Nanna/Suen rose to prominence, displacing the sun-god Utu/Šamaš. Discovering when this shift took place is difficult to pinpoint because Sargonic Sumerian religion is poorly documented. Also, convincing archival data are only available from the time of Naram-Suen.

In the following I will argue, with examples taken from official art, that this shift most likely happened during the reign of Naram-Suen, when a new imperial ideology is discernible from visual imagery, showing the king assuming the role of the sun-god. Utilizing Ur III textual sources I will also demonstrate that the three gods shown on the seal drawn as Fig. I are depicted with their cult places: Enki/Ea in the Abzu, Utu/Šamaš in the fields, probably in an open-air shrine, and Nanna/Suen on the ziggurat, signifying — contrary to mainstream scholarly opinion — that ziggurats already existed in Sumer prior to the Ur III period.

The buildings on the citadel of Nimrud, ancient Kalah or Kalḫu, constitute a most impressive monument (Fig. 1; Postgate and Reade 1980), but the sporadic way in which they have been excavated leaves many questions unanswered. One puzzling area lies north and north-east of the great North-West Palace. It includes the ziggurrat, and the shrines of Ninurta, of Ištar Šarrat Nipḫi (formerly read Bēlat Māti) and of the Kidmuri (or Ištar Bēlat Kidmuri). Their interrelationships have yet to be established, and texts refer to further gods resident at Kalah. Excavations in this quarter were conducted by Layard, Rassam, Rawlinson, Loftus and Smith in the nineteenth century, and by Mallowan in the 1950s, and were resumed by staff of the Iraq Directorate-General of Antiquities in the early 1970s. This paper summarizes some of what we know or may deduce about the area, and defines some of the remaining problems; it does not include, except in passing, the relatively well-known Nabû Temple to the south. I have endeavoured to refer to all items except sherds found during British excavations in the area, but have not attempted the detailed publication which many of the objects, groups of objects, and pottery records may merit.

A possible arrangement of the buildings in this area of Nimrud about 800 BC is given in Fig. 2, but it is a reconstruction from inadequate evidence. The relative dates, dimensions, locations and orientations of many excavated structures are arguable, and the plans published by different excavators cannot be fully reconciled. Major uncertainties concern the ziggurrat, the citadel-wall, the Kidmuri shrine and the area between the North-West Palace and the Ninurta shrine. There are many minor uncertainties. My reconstruction includes speculative features, while omitting some excavated walls which I regard as secondary.

The use of waxed wooden writing boards in Mesopotamia can be traced back at least to the Ur III period and the indications are that at certain periods they were a major vehicle of cuneiform writing. This article deals with the use of writing boards at Sippar in the Neo-Babylonian/early Achaemenid period, based on the numerous references to their use in the archives of the Ebabbara. The word used for a set of writing boards was lē'u, normally written with the logogram gišDA but occasionally written out phonetically. This article presents a catalogue of the evidence from Sippar followed by an analysis of the purposes for which writing boards were used, an examination of the procedures and officials involved, comments on their manufacture and a review of the evidence concerning the end of the archives. An appendix gives editions of twelve new texts.

In the early 1980s a group of cuneiform tablets formerly in the collection of Sir Henry Wellcome housed at the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum arrived at the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery. The majority of these tablets were Ur III administrative texts that were published in Birmingham Cuneiform Tablets I–II. Other tablets in the collection included Old Akkadian, Old Babylonian and Late Babylonian documents, a Shulgi plaque, clay cones, inscribed bricks, a small group of astronomical texts, and a few unidentified miscellaneous tablets and fragments. One of these unidentified fragments turned out to be a hitherto unknown exemplar of Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi Tablet I, and is the occasion of the current study.

The Neo- or Late Babylonian tablet presented here adds to the increasing number of ancient Mesopotamian formal inscriptions extant in copies made by first-millennium scribes. Another such tablet from the Sippar library, containing a copy of two building inscriptions reporting the work of Gudea and Šulgi on the temple of Nanše at Sirara, has already been published.

The present tablet's existence was announced in Iraq 49 (1987) 249. The inscription copied on to it uses an early monumental script. The text (11. 1–13) is a dedication to the goddess Nanše made by a diviner called Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) for the well-being of an Amorite sheikh called Zabaya. This is most probably the fourth king of Larsa, who enjoyed the same name and title and reigned in the mid-twentieth century BC, in the usual chronology. The present text is accordingly catalogued by the Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia project under Zabaya of Larsa as E4.2.4.3 (Frayne, Old Babylonian Period, RIME 4, p. 112). Original inscriptions of this king have been found at Larsa and Maškan-šāpir.

The colophon (11. 14–18), apparently written over a poorly erased text, is in a conventional late script. The object on which the inscription was found is reported as a bronze “buck” (daššu), presumably a goat-shaped figurine. This was no doubt the object dedicated by Nanna-mansum (or Sîn-iddinam) to Nanše for his royal master many centuries before. Such bronze castings occur elsewhere in the written sources as ornaments on a bed (Nbn 206, 2: da-áš-šá-a-tum).

The Babylonian Almanac is a text that gives abbreviated prescriptions for the days of the year. Since it was last edited, by René Labat in 1941 (“Un almanach babylonien”, RA 38, 13–40), new sources for the almanac have steadily accrued. Two more copies of the text have been identified among the tablets of the library discovered in the temple of Šamaš at Sippar by archaeologists of the University of Baghdad in 1986. Both are full almanacs, that is, they give an entry for all the days of the year, unfavourable as well as favourable. The two sources share a common format, with each month occupying one column of text, so that the first six months of the year occupy the obverse of the tablet and the last six months fill the reverse. They are, however, not exact duplicates, for on some days their entries differ.

A new edition of the almanac and other hemerological literature is in preparation by Alasdair Livingstone. Consequently the present publication is limited to making available the Sippar manuscripts without further discussion.

On 9 October 1851 the British Museum purchased eight incantation bowls from Col. Henry Rawlinson. Of these, seven were written in Aramaic. They were recorded by the Minutes of the Trustees of the British Museum as coming from “a tomb at Babylon”, per se a most unusual provenance since incantation bowls are usually associated with domestic loci. The seven incantation bowls all name the same male client, one Mahperoz son of Hindo. Palaeographic studies on the typical Babylonian Aramaic script in which they were written reveal that they were the product of the same hand. The physical typology of the incantation bowls (hemispherical in form with simple rims measuring 0.6 cm thick and shaved bases) suggests that all seven were selected from the same workshop, and possibly even from the same batch of pottery. In such a situation, where the incantation bowls clearly form a group and were written for a single client, one might expect the texts to be duplicates.

Four of the seven bowls purchased from Rawlinson were inscribed with a common incantation text that Ben Segal has designated as Refrain A. This commences with a distinctive call for the overthrow of the world and heavenly order as well as the reversal of female cursers. Over the past one hundred and fifty years a dozen examples of this text have have come to light in a variety of international museums and private collections. The largest group is that of the British Museum which has no less than eight examples, including the four Rawlinson bowls as well as a small flat-bottomed stopper that Hormuzd Rassam obtained from Sippar during the excavations which the British Museum conducted at that site between 1881 and 1882. The remaining four examples of Refrain A are in the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and in collections of antiquities that are owned by the Churchs' Ministry amongst the Jewish People, St Albans, England, and Near Eastern Fine Arts, New York, U.S.A.