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Some Bucket Handles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Dominique Collon
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Extract

As a student of Seton Lloyd's, I learnt at first hand about the Diyala excavations in which he had taken part, and this was a memorable experience. Among the many remarkable finds he made at Tell Asmar was a metal hoard of Early Dynastic III date. In the south-east corner of Room E 16:35 of the earlier Northern Palace, plastered into a hole in the wall and hidden behind a later cross-wall, was a pot and within it there were between 60 and 80 copper or bronze objects. “There were drinking cups, lamps, daggers, flat strainers with thin handles, a long drinking-tube with a perforated end. A number of finely wrought bowls both circular and boat-shaped, were nested together in groups, and the collection was completed by various small cooking-pots with bucket handles and vessels whose purpose was not apparent from their shape.” Among these objects were “a hollow knife or dagger handle which … proved to be of bronze and to contain the remnants of an iron blade”, a fluted bowl which recalls those of silver found in the later Tod Treasure and another bowl of bronze which bore a dedication to the god Abu which enabled the nearby temple to be identified since the hoard had presumably originated from it. It is, however, the aim of this paper to examine the two buckets from the hoard and to relate them to other buckets which show similar peculiarities of manufacture.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Spring 1982 , pp. 95 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1982

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References

1 Professor Lloyd was largely responsible for my decision to study archaeology and his lectures helped to confirm that decision which I have never regretted. It is therefore with tremendous gratitude and affection that I present this paper in honour of his 80th birthday.

2 Delougaz, Pinhas, Hill, Harold D. and Lloyd, Seton, Private Houses and Graves in the Diyala Region (OIP LXXXVIII, Chicago, 1967), 183 ffGoogle Scholar. and Pl. 36 (plan); Frankfort, Henri, Iraq Excavations of the Oriental Institute 1932/33 (OIC 17, Chicago, 1934), 37–39, Figs. 34–35Google Scholar; id., Illustrated London Mews (= ILN), July 22, 1933, 125.

3 OIC 17, 59–62 and Fig. 53. See also Moorey's reference to it above, on p. 30.

4 ILN, July 22, 1933, 125 Fig. 8 (top) and cf. de la Roque, F. Bissonet al., Le trésor de Tod (Cairo, 1953), Pls. V–XXXVIIIGoogle Scholar.

5 Delougaz, Pinhas and Lloyd, Seton, Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region (OIP LVIII, Chicago, 1942), 298 No. 12Google Scholar. Dedicated by a Lugal-kisal-si but not the king ofthat name—see Sollberger, E. and Kupper, J.-R., Inscriptions royales sumériennes et akkadiennes (Paris, 1971), 86, IE2b n. 1Google Scholar.

6 It has not, unfortunately, been possible to illustrate the Tell Asmar buckets which are in the course of publication by R. Ellis. I am indebted to Mr. Michael Müller-Karpe for this information and wish to thank him for his generosity in making available to me his notes and drawings of these and other Mesopotamian vessels and for supplying me with their museum numbers. I am most grateful to him for allowing me to discuss the question of these bucket handles with him. They will be dealt with in the section on “Doppelblechröhrenhenkelattaschen” in his Metallgefässe im Iraq, Prähistorische Bronzefunde (PBF) II/5 of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Bonn (Munich, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

7 Nissen, H. J., Zur Datierung des Königsfriedhofes von Ur (Bonn, 1966)Google Scholar.

8 Dunand, M., Fouilles de Byblos II (Paris, 1954), 377 No. 10585 Fig. 413 and Pls. LXXIIIGoogle Scholar.

9 I am indebted to Jonathan Tubb for this information. See also his article above, pp. 1 and 11 for further information on “duckbill” axes.

10 The Trialeti examples first focussed my attention on this problem when I took part in a seminar at Columbia University in New York, directed by Professor Ann Farkas, in which we attempted to find a date for the Trialeti kurgans.

11 E.g. Woolley, C. L., Ur Excavations II (London, 1934), Pls. 160b, 161, 16a, 164, 165, 171, 173b, 174Google Scholar.

12 BM 121262 (1928.10.10, 391) = U.11798 from PG/879—late Akkadian to early Neo Sumerian.

13 The concave sides and offset and recessed base make this vessel very similar to the Kültepe bucket though it is taller (de Genouillac, H., Fouilles de Telloh II (Paris, 1936), 91 and Pl. 91, 4Google Scholar). The vessel is in Baghdad (TG 2587) and was dated by the excavator to the Neo Sumerian period.

14 Dörpfeld, W., Troja und Ilion (Athens, 1902), 350–351, Figs. 276–278Google Scholar.

15 E.g. Amiran, R., Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land (Rutgers University Press, 1970), Pls. 2, 5Google Scholar.

16 Kühne, H., Die Keramik vom Tell Chuēra (Vorderasiatische Forschungen der Max Freiherr von Oppenheim-Stiftung 1, Berlin, 1976), Pls. 19: 1–2, Abb. 252 and see Pl. 40 and Abb. B for parallels and the discussion on pp. 50 and 113Google Scholar.

17 E.g. Woolley, C. L., Ur Excavations II (London, 1934), Pls. 235:45–51Google Scholar; 237:76, 77, 79; 240:113.

18 E.g. Frankfort, H., Cylinder Seals (London, 1939), Pl. XXIVfGoogle Scholar = id., Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region (OIP LXXII, Chicago, 1955), No. 987 and cf. p. 52. Inscribed sa6-sa6, nin-na-ni, ur-mes.