I am indebted to Mr. C. J. Gadd and Dr. Naji al Aṣil for permission to publish these two axe-heads. (Copyright with the Directorate General of Antiquities, Baghdad, and British Museum, London).

Plate XXXI, 1 is in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, No. 26948, and measures 19.5 cms. in length. It was bought with a collection of tablets in 1898 and has no known provenance. Plate XXXI, 2, 3 is in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, No. IM 11494, and is said to have been found at Khafajah. This axe measures 20 cms. and bears an inscription along its upper edge which Mr. Gadd has kindly read as follows:—

The sockets of both these axes are remarkably similar and the heavy moulding round the edge of the shaft-hole is characteristic of many Iranian axes from Luristan. (See my Western Asiatic Shaft-hole Axes, Iraq XI, 1, pl. XXXVIII, 3 and introduction to Types 11 and 12). But while the Luristan examples have only a swelling or boss behind the socket, the British Museum and Baghdad axes have a definite hook which may have been used if the hafting was strengthened by binding which would have passed round the hook and the shaft of the axe. A similar socket with moulding and hook is found on the axe found by Professor M. E. L. Mallowan at Chagar Bazar which has an engraved scroll pattern round the border of the socket and the hook. (See Iraq IV, 2, pl. XV, and p. 152 and Iraq XI, 1 and p. 103).