Le Musée du Louvre a acquis en 1951 sur le marché parisien des antiquités, deux pièces appartenant toutes deux et depuis de longues années à des collections privées. Il nous parait intéressant de les faire connaître ici puisque leur origine mésopotamienne ne peut faire de doute, alors même que nous n'ayions pu obtenir aucun renseignement sur leur provenance exacte. Les ressemblances indéniables avec le matériel retrouvé dans la région de la Diyala, permettent toutefois et de les authentiquer et de les replacer dans leur horizon géographique et leur milieu historique. Nous remercions vivement notre collègue et ami, le professeur M.EX. Mallowan qui nous donne cette occasion.

It was not only in temples and upon tables of offerings that sacrifices were performed in early times in Mesopotamia, for certain detached areas were hallowed, and in them sacrifices were offered, constantly repeated on precisely the same spot. The ritual directions for the preparation for these ceremonies must have been both explicit and stringent, for the evidence reveals a scrupulous adherence to every detail, perpetually repeated every time the place was used. These particular places of sacrifice are known as “Opferstätten”, the designation given them by the excavators at Uruk-Warka, who were the first to interpret the evidence correctly; it is, indeed, to Dr. Lenzen's perspicuity and detailed observations that we owe most of the information we possess concerning them.

As is well known, al-Fārābī formulated his political philosophy on more than one occasion. The most comprehensive statements of his political views are to be found in two texts which engaged the attention of the German orientalist Dieterici and whose Arabic titles may conveniently be rendered the Ideal State and the Political Philosophy. It is apparently these two works which are mentioned together in terms of the highest praise by the Qāḍī Ṣā'id of Toledo (died 462/1070). The general position developed in both works is the same, but the relation between them remains quite obscure. As certain topics receive greater development in the Political Philosophy it is natural to think of it as later in date than the Ideal State, which is said to have been begun at Baghdad in 330/941 and completed at Damascus in the following year. If this is correct, the Political Philosophy, like Plato's Laws, was produced in the last years of its author's lifetime. (Al-Fārābī died in 339/950.)

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).

The subject of this article is a type of palace known in North Syria from the ninth to the seventh century B.C. There is no proof that the ancients called it bît hilani, but it is probable that the Assyrians, when using the term, had such a palace in mind. However, whether or not the designation is justified, we shall be dealing with concrete architectural forms. For the purpose of this article the bît hilani is a palace with two long narrow rooms, both with their main axis parallel to the façade. The first is a portico with from one to three columns, often placed at the top of a low flight of steps. Stairs to the upper storey are set to one side of the portico.

The most important contribution to the subject of Urartian archaeology is the publication in 1950 of a preliminary report on the excavations at Karmir-Blur. This (Karmir Blur, I) is a short work of 97 pages accompanied by 16 half-tone illustrations and 64 text figures by B. B. Piotrovsky (Akademii Nauk Armyanskoy S.S.R.., Erivan, 1950). Its importance lies in the fact, first, that it is the first controlled excavation of any importance which has taken place in Urartian territory, and second, in the nature of the material discovered and described. The care with which the excavation was evidently conducted further adds to its importance. As copies of this work outside the “Iron Curtain” must be exceedingly rare, we have thought fit to present a detailed and illustrated summary for the benefit of Western students. The book, too, may be condensed with some profit, as it repeats itself in different chapters yet lacks enough cross-references.