The region of ancient Mesopotamia has long been a focal point for archaeological investigations. Since the early explorations of the nineteenth century, the discipline has been transformed along with the region, witnessing colonialism and independence, as well as coups and conflicts. At the end of the twentieth century, international archaeological investment experienced a significant decline in this region, due to ongoing war and embargoes. In the wake of the Iraq War, foreign archaeological teams have begun flooding back into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the southern governorates. However, the approach to excavations has changed a great deal since the fall of the Ba'ath government. Where once there was a strict policy of segregation between foreign and local archaeologists, collaborations are now encouraged. The difficulty now has become finding how to build and sustain these relationships, re-opening lines of exchange and learning. This article approaches this question with the case study of the 2017 excavations at Ur in the Dhi Qar governorate in the south of Iraq.

Through philological and historical analysis focused on Gudea's slave dossier, this article elucidates the causes and mechanisms that brought Iranian slaves to early southern Mesopotamia. The slave dossier documents a brief but intensive influx of Elamite slaves to Lagash on the lower Tigris during the reign of Gudea, ca. 2130–2110 B.C., who fought the powerful polity of Anshan in Fars. The author argues that consequent political instability and economic inequality in Elam fuelled three mechanisms of slave relocation. First, royal troops brought captives. Second, the palace bought foreigners from abroad and locally. Third, royals received Iranians as gifts or tribute (“kids led by one's side”) from locals and Iranian states in areas where Gudea campaigned. Finally, locals gave their Iranian slaves back to the palace as gifts. On a theoretical level, the study distils four elements shared by all forms of slave mobility: the giver and the receiver, the economic and political relations between them that cause slave transfer, the physical and social spaces between which the transfer occurs, and the slaves and their demographic characteristics.

This article presents the preliminary results of the joint Kurdish-Italian Faida Archaeological Project (KIFAP) conducted by the Duhok Directorate of Antiquities and the University of Udine at the Assyrian Faida canal and rock art complex in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Investigation of this extraordinary and seriously endangered archaeological site was launched in 2019 and has led to the exploration of an 8.6 km-long irrigation canal cut into the limestone bedrock of the Chiya Daka hill range in the outskirts of the village of Faida, south of Duhok. Ten monumental sculpted rock panels carved along the canal's eastern bank were brought to light, representing an Assyrian ruler depicted at both ends of each panel, framing the cult statues of seven deities standing on pedestals shaped like striding animals. This article discusses the canal's role in the wider context of the Northern Assyrian Irrigation System and the function of the Assyrian hydraulic networks as economic infrastructures with transformative effects on the landscape and staple food production of the empire's core. The Faida bas-reliefs are examined from an archaeological and art historical perspective, and hypotheses are proposed about their religious and ideological meaning, as well as their dating and the identity of the king or kings who commissioned them.

The unprovenanced tablet MAH 16070 has the size and shape of many administrative documents and contracts from controlled excavations at Fāra, ancient Šuruppak. It contains low numbers (1 and 2) of various commodities (most made of metal, some obscure) alternating with well-documented personal names. The purpose of the text is not immediately apparent. It has no obvious parallel among previously published distribution and offering lists. Expressions pointing to the background of the document are ša3 e2-gal “interior of the palace” (o iv 5), e2 geme2 “handmaids’ house” (r iii 5’), and lugal e2 du3 at the very end of the text (r iv 2’), which could mean “(for) the king, (to) build (his) house”, although other interpretations are possible.

This short paper publishes a new manuscript of the literary composition “Letter from Sîn-šamuḫ to the god Enki” (ETCSL 3.3.19). K.8755 is one of the tablets which proved to be Old Babylonian in spite of their assignment to the British Museum's Kuyunjik Collection. It preserves parts of ll. 8–15 of the composition and probably belonged to a multiple columns tablet. The present paper offers a score transliteration of the lines concerned, based both on the recently published copies and the online photos of the other mss. It provides a number of new readings and interpretations on individual lines.

Satellite imagery and UAV (drone) photos taken at Lagash (modern Tell al-Hiba) after rainstorms and at times of elevated soil moisture show dense near-surface architecture that dates mostly to the Early Dynastic III period (c. 2600–2350 BCE) and covers several hundred hectares. Archaeological knowledge of Mesopotamian urban structure has mostly been limited to isolated excavated neighbourhoods, such as at third millennium BCE Tutub (Khafajah) or Eshnunna (Tell Asmar), and early second millennium BCE Ur (Tell al-Muqayyar). The morphology of Tell al-Hiba and the quality of the imagery sets create a unique situation that enables the reconstruction and comparison of neighbourhoods across almost the whole of the city of Lagash. Mapping of near-surface architectural remains, streets, and water features reveals a discontinuous city located within a watery, possibly marshy environment.

This article examines the conceptualization of medical symptoms of transgression and divine punishment in the Mesopotamian exorcistic corpus, with a focus on the association between māmītu and abdominal illness. It first demonstrates the metaphorical, and sometimes more literal, associations between taboo violations and eating, before situating the concept of māmītu within the context of broken oaths and transgressions against divine order. It then outlines the symptoms and treatments of māmītu in order to demonstrate a strong connection with the abdomen and digestive tract. Finally, within the context of the use of metaphor and analogy in Mesopotamian medicine, it suggests that the association between eating and transgression may have provided a reason for attributing abdominal symptoms to the punishment of transgression in the form of māmītu. The resulting case study provides insights into the intellectual frameworks by which Mesopotamian exorcists conceptualized the workings of illness and the body, especially in terms of the relationship between language and reality.

In this article the name of the Sumerian god Isimu is analysed as “who brings the shoots forth” and explained by the chthonic character of his master Enki. Investigated is as well the ratio behind the complex writing of his name and the names of other servants of Enki. Beside this it is shown that Isimu must have been known at least since the time of the archaic texts from Ur. There was also another Janus like mythical being, the male and female Ara, at one point identified with Isimu.

The present contribution presents a previously unidentified and unique tallying system found on Late-Babylonian tablets from the Eanna temple archive. The tallies are composed of a series of nine vertical wedges, grouped in triplets, followed by a Winkelhaken. The vertical wedges can stand for either 1 or 10, and the Winkelhaken concludes the series as either 10 or 100, respectively. So far, this system is attested only on administrative tablets from the Eanna from the first two decades of Nebuchadnezzar II's reign (ca. 604–585 BCE). While the tally system itself is unique, the grouping, or chunking, of verticals in triplets suggests Aramaic influence.

The Babylonian royal ritual text edited in this article prescribes the performance of two kinds of prayers: Šigû prayers and Emesal prayers. The text has four cycles, in each of which the target is one of the great gods (Marduk, Anu, Enlil, and Ea), as well as the minor gods functioning as intercessors on behalf of the king. The Marduk cycle is distinctive, compared with the other cycles, probably because of the special relation of Marduk with the king, kingship, and Babylon.

A 2016 study season and 2017 excavation season at the 95-hectare walled site of Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil plain have generated a variety of new results. Geophysical survey on the lower town revealed details of the Middle Bronze occupation in the southeast part of the site, including the city wall, a large open area, streets, houses, and a monumental temple comparable to examples from Tell al Rimah, Aššur, and Larsa. Excavations confirmed the Middle Bronze date of the temple and explored further Middle Bronze contexts elsewhere on the lower town. On the High Mound North Slope, Middle Bronze occupation included a fortification wall and large-scale architecture inside it. On the High Mound East, Late Bronze architecture of apparent elite character was documented. Archaeobotanical analyses complementing the excavations reveal the existence of naan-style bread in both Middle and Late Bronze contexts. Given radiocarbon and ceramic results, the Middle Bronze occupation at Kurd Qaburstan is datable to c. 1800 B.C., while the Late Bronze phases on the High Mound East belong to an early LB horizon in the 16–15th centuries B.C., perhaps predating the imposition of Mittani political authority in the region.

This paper studies a new record (FLP 1596) relating to a criminal gang that operated in Uruk in the fourteenth year of Nabonidus. It examines the form of the record and its unusual terminology. Above all, however, it seeks to relate an episode described in FLP 1596 to the broader history of this gang's activities presented in 2014 by M. Sandowicz.