The “temple-state theory” of Mesopotamian economy was first propounded by A. Deimel. Unfortunately, he unjustifiably considered his reconstruction to be normative for the whole area and the entire history of Mesopotamia. Subsequent research by Gelb and Diakonoff has shown that temple holdings and economy were but one form of economic life during the third millennium. It would appear that in the course of the third millennium a large part of the “Gross National Product” was in fact produced by the holdings of private owners, the community lands owned by clans, extended families or, to use Diakonoff's term, obschinas. Little attention has, however, been paid to the fact that only a minor share of these products could have been accumulated, re-invested or utilized through long-distance trade by private entrepreneurs. Temple economy most probably participated in the accumulation, redistribution and mobilization of goods to a much larger degree than its own production.

The problem of why, how and when economic goods, and later still, land itself came into the ownership of the temple, an originally non-economic organization, is still open to debate. According to Gelb, land was owned by the tribe, the clan or the community during the early—not defined more precisely—periods of Mesopotamian history, in the time of the primitive communities. He went on to propose that land came under temple ownership when with the fully established centralized state organization and more advanced agricultural economy, the village land controlled by tribes and clans gave way to public land controlled by the crown, temple and nobility. Diakonoff suggested that temple estates gradually absorbed public or community holdings during the Uruk IV–III period at the latest, but perhaps at an even earlier date. Both opinions give a terminus ante quem rather than a chronologically exact date.

Die gegenwärtigen Vorstellungen zur Chronologie der Ǧamdat Naṣr- und der beginnenden Frühdynastischen Zeit im südlichen Babylonien werden immer noch weitgehend von den Ausgrabungen im Diyālā-Gebiet bestimmt. Das liegt einerseits an dem Fehlen eines vergleichbaren Arbeitsprojektes in Babylonien, andererseits an der noch nicht erfolgten Auswertung vorhandener und publizierter Ausgrabungen in dieser Region.

Eine dieser lange Zeit brachgelegenen Auswertungsmöglichkeiten bietet der sog. Ǧamdat Naṣr-Friedhof in Ur. In den frühen dreißiger Jahren von Sir Leonard Woolley ausgegraben, stellen die Funde aus diesen Gräbern immer noch den einzigen größeren, zusammenhängenden Fundkomplex dieser Periode aus Süd-babylonien dar. Im folgenden sollen nun die Ergebnisse einer neuerlichen chronologischen Auswertung und die daraus resultierenden Vorstellungen zur sozialen Unterschieden in diesem frühen mesopotamischen Gräberfeld dargestellt werden.

Der schon in den dreißiger Jahren fertiggestellte endgültige Bericht über die Ausgrabungsergebnisse des sog. Ǧamdat Naṣr-Friedhofs wurde von L. Woolley im Rahmen des vierten Bandes der Ur-Publikationsreihe veröffentlicht. Der Autor legte dort das Material, nach einer frühen statistischen Methode in klassischer Dreiteilung geordnet, vor. Diese Methode stützte sich auf die Kombination der Gefäßbeigaben und die Stratigraphie der Gräber. Da der Hauptteil des Friedhofs in zwei getrennten Ausgrabungsschnitten, X und W, vorgefunden wurde; und diese, neben vielen Ähnlichkeiten auch Unterschiede eigentümlicher Art aufwiesen, hielt L. Woolley den größten Teil der Funde aus W für spärer, als die aus X. Nach dem Vorkommen dreifarbig-bemalter Ǧamdat Naṣr-Ware datierte er den gesamten Fundkomplex in eben diese Zeit.

This paper contributes in small part to the re-examination of the assumed relationship between Sumer and the surrounding areas. It is concerned with metals, metal-working and metal goods, and more particularly with the weapons which begin to appear in some profusion during the third millennium both in Sumer and in other areas round about. The thesis proposed here is in two parts. On the one hand, it will be argued that between Sumer in the ED III period and north-west Mesopotamia there are striking parallels in the use of materials, the techniques of manufacture and the objects produced, parallels which suggest that the developments were simultaneous in both areas. On the other hand, it will be suggested that the northern products were not derivative or simply produced in tandem with those of Sumer, but that they show evidence of originality and equal participation in the process of innovation and development.

In view of the need for brevity this paper concentrates on a segment of the evidence, the weapons from the group of sites around Carchemish (Tell Kara Hassan, Serrin, Amarna and Hammam) whence Woolley obtained grave-groups by purchase in the early years of this century (Woolley, 1914; for more detailed information on the similar recovery of first millennium grave-groups from Deve Hüyük see Moorey, 1980: 1–4), from Carchemish itself (Woolley and Barnett, 1952: 218–26), and the metal objects from the hypogeum at Til Barsib (Thureau-Dangin and Dunand, 1936), the metal grave-goods from Woolley's excavations in the Royal Cemetery at Ur (Woolley, 1932) and the finds from the “A” cemetery at Kish (Mackay, 1925; Hrouda and Karstens, 1967; Moorey, 1978).

In the third millennium B.C. Shuruppak (modern Fara) was a major city located on the Euphrates in central Sumer. Today the mound of the ancient city extends for over a kilometre north to south. Including the high mound and the lower rise of one to two metres surrounding it, Shuruppak covers about 120 hectares. Only about 35 hectares rise about the 3 m contour, however, and nowhere does the mound rise much above 9 m.

There have been two major excavations at Shuruppak, by the D.O.G. in 1902—they crisscrossed the mound with trenches but recorded lamentably little stratigraphy—and by the University of Pennsylvania in 1931—when Erich Schmidt conducted limited excavations at four points on the mound. It is clear from these excavations that Shuruppak was inhabited from about 3000 to 2000 B.C.

In 1973 I visited the site and conducted a three-day surface survey with the help of my husband Christopher Martin, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (then under the direction of Diana Kirkbride), and the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities, with the aim of enlarging our knowledge of the settlement patterns at Shuruppak.

This paper looks at a group of fire installations in a preliminary attempt to analyse an economic sub-system which played some part in the life of a third millennium town in Southern Mesopotamia. It is hoped that this analysis may identify some problems which will be relevant when considering the direction of future research strategy at that site.

The fire installations in question all come from the area of Abu Salabikh known as 5I; this area lies in the dip of the saddle between two higher areas, Area A to the North, and Area E to the South. Area A is occupied by houses of ED III date and Area E by a public building of similar date. 5I is entirely different in character, the walls of the buildings are thinner, the plans less regular and we appear to be in an area of private housing with a number of narrow lanes. The pottery from the area is of ED I date and there is some evidence from the plans for rebuilding which suggests that here at least the period was of some duration. This is reinforced by the presence of a grave (Grave 193) which contains some typically ED I pottery but which was dug from a level completely eroded away.

To date we know four major Sumerian narrative poems dealing with the rivalry between Uruk and Aratta. They are written in standard literary Sumerian, and were composed very probably near the beginning of the second millennium. Together they may be said to constitute the “Matter of Aratta”. The use of this term, however, already indicates a first problem area. Is the mention of Aratta, and the theme of its defeat by Uruk in a struggle for supremacy, a sufficient reason to regard the poems as a group, or are there other and more formal features allowing us to define them as belonging to a specific type of narrative poetry?

A survey of the contents shows that there are indeed more points of concurrence than the mere struggle between cities. In every poem, a challenge is laid down by one of the rulers. This challenge, which may be military or diplomatic, is taken up by the other party so that, whatever the outcome, the ambitions of the challenger are held up for a while in the middle part of the poem. A major role is played by a messenger type who is instrumental in gradually bringing about the solution. These mediations may be merely repetitive, but can also be incremental, or a combination of both. Furthermore, parts of his mediating function may be taken over by others: champions may be used to effectuate the messages. Finally, in every tale the struggle ends with Uruk's victory, gained by non-military means, and exemplified by Inanna's behaviour: she ultimately grants victory to Uruk. These basic characteristics may be seen as a framework to all poems, and schematically represented as:

Initial situation: virtually equal protagonists; challenge and response: deadlock.

Poetry is built upon two seemingly contradictory literary foundations; one of density or compactness, as the German word Dichtung well signifies, and the other of repetition. A poet repeats a word, phrase or motif to condense ideas into a small space.

My purpose in this paper is to suggest that there was in the Ancient Near East a literary convention of telling the story of the origin of mankind in a doublet. The first part of the story relates the creation of mankind in more general and abstract terms, whereas the second part of the story narrates it in more specific and concrete terms. The technique of bringing the two independent parts together into a unified narrative is quite similar to the way in which a bicolon in poetry is composed, namely, by the juxtaposition of two similar materials according to the principle of parallelism of the members. The difference is in the quantity of literary material. For this purpose, I would like to present three examples. A synoptic outline of the Sumerian, Akkadian and Hebrew stories is as follows:

The Sumerian story, Enki and Ninmah, describes the creation of man in two parts. These two parts of the story are parallel, being analogous to the two lines of a bicolon. If we label the members of this parallelism in respect to the key motifs of creation as,

A = Gods

B = Creation

C = Mankind

D = Decreeing of fate

E = Prescription of work to mankind,

Les documents dont il va être question ici appartiennent à un lot de textes administratifs provenant des salles Y et Z du Palais de Mari. Ils ont fait l'objet d'une thèse de doctorat à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles et seront publiés dans un prochain volume de la série des Archives Royales de Mari.

La localisation des salles Y et Z reste problématique. Ces désignations furent données provisoirement lors du dégagement, préalablement à la numérotation des salles. Actuellement, la seule hypothèse que je puisse avancer consiste à les identifer avec la cour 51 et la salle 171, toutes deux situées au nord du Palais, à l'ouest de la zone d'entrée.

Ces textes sont de nature administrative et touchent à des domaines très divers, Ils sont comparables en tous points aux archives éditées dans les volumes VII et IX des ARM.

On peut s'étonner que l'agriculture soit si peu représentée dans la documentation de Mari, par ailleurs si riche. Peu de textes nous renseignent sur les aspects pratiques de l'agriculture, et cela s'explique, en fait, par le caractère interne des archives administratives.

Ce qui importe aux scribes et aux responsables du Palais, c'est avant tout la bonne tenue des comptes de magasins, les entrées, les sorties et les transferts d'un service à l'autre. Dans le domaine agricole, seules les entrées de grain au Palais sont relativement fréquentes.

Par contre, si l'on aborde l'étude du personnel agricole proprement dit, le nombre de textes se réduit considérablement. Les quelques documents dont on peut croire qu'ils ont été écrits “sur le terrain” sont rédigés d'une main malhabile, ce qui laisse entendre qu'on envoyait sur place des scribes de rang et de qualité inférieurs.

L'architecture des sanctuaires mésopotamiens nous est avant tout connue grâce aux fouilles. Les documents écrits peuvent cependant apporter une contribution essentielle à cette étude, notamment en permettant d'identifier la nature des lieux exhumés par les archéologues. Un des exemples les plus fameux en ce domaine est la tablette séleucide publiée voici vingt ans par J. J. van Dijk, qui donne les dimensions (largeur, longueur et surface) du papāhum du “Bīt rēš” et de l'Irigal à Uruk.

Les trois tablettes qui forment la base de cette communication ont été découvertes dans la salle 115 du palais de Mari. Leur cas est toutefois différent de celui d'Uruk qui vient d'être évoqué; en effet, chacune d'elles décrit un sanctuaire qui n'a pas encore été découvert. Il s'agit d'abord d'un temple situé dans la ville de Kahat, vraisemblablement consacré au dieu Tešub; cette tablette a été identifiée par J.-M. Durand lors de l'inventaire des tablettes de Mari encore inédites, et je lui ai dévolu un article il y a plus de deux ans dont la publication a été malheureusement retardée. Depuis lors, deux autres tablettes du même genre ont pu être identifiées et étudiées. L'une d'elles fournit la description du temple de Bēlet-Apim dans la ville de Šubat-Enlil; le troisième temple ne peut malheureusement être identifié ni localisé en raison du mauvais état de la tablette.

Une telle contribution épigraphique à la connaissance de l'architecture religieuse mésopotamienne m'a semblé former un tribut approprié à la célébration de la British School of Archaeology in Iraq, en particulier à cause de la révélation qu'a constitué la fouille du temple de Tell al Rimah à la fin des années soixante.

The dominant feature of the walled town, now identified as Karana, is the temple ziggurat mound which rises prominently at the centre. In this paper we are concerned only with the phases of the principal temple in the second millennium. Suffice it to note that a small Neo-Assyrian temple dated to Adad-nirari III was placed later in the north-west angle formed by the earlier temple and ziggurat.

The great temple of Karana was entirely symmetrical in plan, and attached to a rectangular ziggurat on the east axis. The approach to the ante-chamber and cella was via a courtyard with surrounding rooms. Construction of temple and ziggurat was executed in mud-brick with an elaborate architectural decoration of multi-formed columns and pilasters across the façade of the ante-chamber and surrounding the courtyard. The principal phases of building activity are the Old Assyrian c. 1800 B.C., the Nuzi period after 1600 B.C., and the Middle Assyrian after 1400 B.C.

The additional decoration of major importance which concerns us in this essay consists of four carved stone members associated directly with the functioning of the ante-chamber door. One further piece to be considered with this group is a carved stone orthostat of a winged demon, which we date on stylistic grounds to the Old Assyrian period. It is discernible immediately to the trained eye that the five pieces fall into two groups: the earlier or Old Assyrian consists of Humbaba I, the Lady between Palms, and the Winged Demon; the later group, presumably executed by sculptors of the Nuzi period, consists of Humbaba II and the Bull-man between Palms. Additional evidence comes from the various find spots. It should be emphasized that although two of the stone blocks were excavated in situ, not one of the five reliefs occurred in original context.

This paper is concerned with a distinctive type of axe-head, examples of which have been found at Chagar Bazar and Nimrud (Pl. VII and Figs. 1–2). Both have four horizontal ribs encircling the socket and a rectangular-shaped projection at the base of the blade. The Chagar Bazar specimen comes from a level I grave, to which Sir Max Mallowan assigned outside limits of c. 1750–1600 B.C. He concluded, however, that the axe-head was unlikely to be much later than 1700 B.C. (Mallowan 1947, Pls. XLI: 1, LV: 15, pp. 187–8, 218). The same date was assumed for the Nimrud axe, which, although not from the same mould as suggested by Sir Max, is certainly very similar and is probably a product of the same workshop. Indeed, they are so close there can be very little difference in date between them. Subsequent writers on axe-heads have generally followed Sir Max's dating (Maxwell-Hyslop 1949, 107; Deshayes 1960, I, 188; Erkanal 1977, 16). Sir Max found confirmation for the early date of these axes in “an almost identical axe” found in level Ib at Kültepe (Mallowan 1956, 20–21; 1966, I, 346–7, n. 36), and thus belonging to the first half of the eighteenth century B.C. The Kültepe axe (Fig. 3:1; Özgüç, T. 1955, 69–70, Figs. 40a, 42) does in fact belong to a small group of Anatolian axe-heads that have been conveniently collected together by Erkanal (1977, Pl. 5, nos. 57, 59–61).

Considerable mystery surrounds the state god of Assyria, Aššur. Though this country was a little removed from the centres of Sumero-Babylonian culture and had distinctive traits of its own, compared with Syria and Elam it was definitely within the cultural milieu of Mesopotamia. This applies to religion also, where Adad and Ištar, for example, as worshipped in Assyria, are clearly the counterparts of the Adad and Ištar known from southern Mesopotamia. But the state god Aššur is different. He was peculiarly an Assyrian god without other cult centres, except when Assyrians established them, and he is not fully a deus persona. One seeks in vain for his identity. First, he lacks the family connections which are characteristic of all the major gods and goddesses of the Babylonians and Sumerians, uniting them in one big clan. Who was his wife? He sometimes is named with Ištar as though they were husband and wife, but this is not expressly stated, and one may wonder if the pre-eminence of Ištar in Nineveh does not explain this. They were the chief deities of the two main Assyrian cities. After a while Ninlil begins to appear as his wife, but this merely reflects his identification with the old Sumerian chief god—he is called “Assyrian Enlil”—and this use of Enlil's wife Ninlil merely underlines the lack of any native Assyrian wife of his. The same applies to the rare mentions of Ninurta and Zababa as his sons: they were long before sons of the Sumero-Babylonian Enlil. The only relative not clearly borrowed from southern Mesopotamia is Šeru'a, who, despite a little confusion, is not the same as Eru'a, a title of Zarpānītum, Marduk's wife. Yet even in Neo-Assyrian theological texts it is openly disputed whether she is Aššur's wife or daughter!

From Assyria and Babylonia in the first half of the first millennium B.C. comes a series of small figurines in the round and relief plaques, which are usually found beneath the floors of buildings within receptacles of baked or unbaked brick or (at Nineveh) stone slabs or (so far restricted to Aššur) pottery jars; the figurines themselves are almost invariably of sun-dried clay, very occasionally, perhaps, of terracotta or metal. Their purpose, as texts prescribing the rituals involved attest, was to avert evil from the buildings and sickness from the inhabitants. The British School's Nimrud complement comprises at least 136 relevant pieces from 66 separate deposits discovered in three buildings: the Burnt Palace, the Acropolis Palace (AB) and Fort Shalmaneser, and dating possibly from the reign of Shalmaneser III (?) or, at least, Adad-nirari III down to the fall of the Assyrian Empire in 613 B.C.

In this paper I shall deal with just one, but perhaps the most important, area on which the series sheds light, namely the question of the identification of the creatures represented by the various iconographic types. It can hardly be denied that the study of apotropaic figurines is of somewhat limited importance in itself. Where it succeeds is rather in the light which it throws upon other matters of more general and basic interest. It is vital here to recognize the official nature of the ritual and practice, and the consequent position of the iconography of the figurines in the official religion of the Assyrian state. And while there are no apparent documentary sources directly concerning, for example, the subjects of the apotropaic palace reliefs, there are texts ordaining procedures for apotropaic rituals involving figurines, which often enable identifications of analogous types.

The centenary year of Rassam's Jirjib sounding seemed an appropriate occasion on which to reconsider, and perhaps to some extent resolve, a rather odd set of problems to which this little-known operation had given rise. The matter is not one of great intrinsic importance, but does provide a useful cautionary tale for those scholars who have to deal with nineteenth-century records. What happened, essentially, was that in April 1882 Hormuzd Rassam, director of the British Museum excavations in Mesopotamia, passed through Der ez-Zor on the middle Euphrates. There, he reported to his employers, “I heard that some important antiquities had been found near Ras Alain, or the source of the Khaboor, in northern Mesopotamia on the river Jirjib. I sent at once, therefore, an agent thither to examine the spot”. Before the end of May, however, the kaimakam (or local governor) of Ra's al-‘Ain had stopped the work, and confiscated the “head of a black statue” which the agent had found “in the small space he was allowed to excavate”.

Other unpublished reports by Rassam are slightly more specific. There are said to have been “some statuettes in black basalt and bas-reliefs representing, I believe, hunting scenes”, or “sculptures in black basalt in which are represented antelopes, horses, armed men, bulls, and other figures”. Another report says: “the head of one of the statuettes representing a man was taken away from him [the agent] by the said Kayamakam, but he has brought a piece of a broken bas-relief with him to Mosul, which I have sent for to forward to England”. It is plain that Rassam, by then in Baghdad, never visited the mound in person.

Since the birth of Assyriology there has been recognized at the heart of the neo-Assyrian empire what J. N. Postgate has termed “the symbiosis of Aramaic and Assyrian writing systems”. In 1865 Sir Henry Rawlinson published several cuneiform tablets bearing notes in Aramaic on their edges. These notes were often written with a reed pen while the clay was still soft, the fibres of the point leaving their distinct marks in the clay (e.g. the two examples illustrated in Iraq 34 (1972), Plate LIVb, c). It may be that other notes were written in ink on hardened tablets, but have been erased in the course of time. Certainly ink was used for annotations on tablets in the neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, applied after the clay had dried, as it had been long before by the Egyptian clerks at El-Amarna. While the ink notes could have been added at any time after the tablets were inscribed, far from the places where the tablets were written, those applied while the clay was damp were clearly contemporary with the writing of the cuneiform, and originated in the same place. The purpose of these notes is clear: they were dockets or labels to identify the documents, such as “quittance deed of Hazael” (Iraq 34, 134–7). Their presence in the citadel at Nineveh implies there were scribes at work there who could not read cuneiform, yet who would need to distinguish one document from another. Nineveh is the only known provenance for such dockets, although there are some which have reached museums without any information about their discovery (the Hazael deed mentioned, a deed for the division of an inheritance now in Copenhagen, a corn loan in private hands, and a text in Brussels).

The discovery in 1979 of an anthropoid statue at Tell Fekherye (the site of Sikan, the sacred precinct of ancient Gozan) with an extensive bilingual inscription in Akkadian and Aramaic has renewed speculation about the extent of the Aramaic-Assyrian symbiosis in the earlier Neo-Assyrian period. First edited by A. Abou Assaf, it has recently been re-edited in a monograph by the latter together with Pierre Bordreuil and Alan R. Millard.

A date of around the 9th century for the statue is favoured by the Editors. This date seems reasonable on most grounds, though some adjustment up or down may prove necessary. Arguments based on Aramaic palaeography may be used to push the date higher. On the other hand, strong topical similarities with the Mati-ilu treaty (mid-8th century) may be sufficient grounds to lower the date (cf. comments to ll. 32, 34, 37). Abou Assaf first dated the statue to the 9th century mainly on art historical grounds. The Edition seeks to pinpoint this by identifying Sassu-nuri, the father of Adad-id'i, the statue's donor (l. 12), with the Assyrian eponym of 866.

The excavations at Kish from 1923–33 are an important episode in the annals of British archaeology—or to express it more accurately Anglo-American archaeology. For it was a combined Oxford University—Field Museum Expedition to Mesopotamia which conducted the excavations at Kish during these years. Much material was brought to light as a result of these excavations, but the reports from the period on the archaeological finds left much to be desired in terms of accuracy and completeness.

It is only in the past two decades after a long hiatus that the interpretation of the records and material from the expedition has been put on sound modern archaeological footing. This has resulted mainly from the labours of two scholars, P. R. S. Moorey of the Ashmolean Museum and McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago. In addition to the two monographic treatments of the archaeological record of Kish, Moorey's Kish Excavations 1923–33 and Gibson's The City and Area of Kish, one of the most interesting products of these studies is Gibson's article The Archaeological Uses of Cuneiform Documents which appeared in Iraq 34 a decade ago. Using Professor Gurney's card catalogue of the tablets in the Ashmolean collection as a basis Gibson outlined the “patterns of occupation at the city of Kish” as shown by the cuneiform tablets. The most important conclusions in the article concern the texts from the Chaldean and Achaemenid periods and their effect on the assessment of the archaeological data from Late Babylonian Kish.