The third season of excavations at Tell al Rimah lasted from March 1st to May 30th, 1966. It was sponsored jointly by the University Museum, Philadelphia, and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, assisted by grants from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels. The staff included Dr. Theresa H. Carter (Assistant Director), Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey S. Trik (architect and draughtsman), Mr. David Crownover and Miss Mary Ellen Didier (archaeologists) of the University Museum; Professor D. J. Wiseman and Miss Barbara Parker (epigraphists), Miss Elizabeth Dowman (registrar and conservator of finds), Messrs. Julian Reade, Geoffrey Turner and John Bellingham (archaeologists) of the British School. Sayyid Yasin Mahmud was the Representative of the Directorate General of Antiquities and gave valuable help with the recording of the dig in addition to his task of writing the Arabic catalogue. We were fortunate to have the assistance for shorter periods of Mr. Anthony Robertson-Pearce with the photography and Dr. Richard Adrian with the surveying, and Dr. Claudio Vita-Finzi of London University visited us to make a preliminary study of the evidence for climatic change in the area. Among other visitors whom we were happy to welcome were H.E. the British Ambassador (Vice-President of the School) and Lady Beaumont, H.E. the Mutasarrif of Mosul, Mr. G. H. Herridge (then Chairman of the Iraq Petroleum Company and a member of the Council of the School) and Mrs. Herridge, Dr. Faisal al Wailly (Director General of Antiquities) and Professor Fuad Safar (Inspector General of Excavations) with the staff of their expedition at Nineveh, and Professor Heinrich Lenzen, Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Baghdad. I must express my gratitude to all my colleagues for their help, to the local authorities for their cooperation and to the Director General of Antiquities and the Inspector General of Excavations for assisting us in every aspect of our work.

One of the most distinctive, if comparatively minor, characteristics of craftsmanship in the Early Dynastic period in central and southern Mesopotamia was the prevalence of incised drawing on stone, shell and baked clay. Since much of the work was small scale and often on very friable objects their survival is the more remarkable and clearly reflects a significant aspect of craftsmanship in the Sumerian period which did not survive the establishment of the dynasty of Akkad. In the following pages I have united a number of examples of incised drawing, some previously unpublished, in an attempt to explore further than is usual in the standard works on the history of art in Mesopotamia the scope and significance of this technique during one of the most important periods in the cultural development of the area. I have also included some preliminary observations on the role of incised drawings in the preparation of designs for execution in other media.

One of the intriguing aspects of studies on the Babylonian ‘prophecy’ texts has been the theory that, even though couched in familiar omen terminology and ostensibly predicting the future, the prophecies are post eventum and in fact reflect a specific historical period and real historical events.

It should be stressed that these ‘prophecy’ texts are in no way related to Old Testament prophecy and that they cannot be considered the collected utterances of a seer. Neither have they any relationship to the practices attested in Mari, which are probably of Western origin and not from Mesopotamia proper. The ‘prophecies’ must, I believe, be considered simply a peculiar part of the vast Mesopotamian omen tradition, from which the ‘prophecies’ appeared to differ only because they lacked protases (i.e. a clause ‘if such-and-such occurs’). The new material to be published here, however, shows that there are protases, at least in some cases. Of particular interest is the fact that some of the ‘prophecies’ can now be shown to be connected specifically with astrology.

The Chicago Oriental Institute excavations in the Diyala region have contributed much to our knowledge of the latter part of the Uruk period (including the Jamdat Nasr phase) as well as to more than six later stages of Mesopotamian history. The ceramic material of these periods has been thoroughly presented in Delougaz's long and valuable publication, Pottery from the Diyala Region. Some early and middle Uruk sherds were found, but not in their proper stratigraphical context; the earliest pottery excavated in situ dates from phases ‘c’ and ‘d’ of what Delougaz calls the ‘Protoliterate Period’, and these are equivalent to the late Uruk or Jamdat Nasr phase, which extends, in the E-anna sequence, from the end of Warka IV to the beginning of Warka II. This material comes from three sites: Tell Asmar, Tell Agrab, and Khafajah. At the two former sites deep soundings driven to virgin soil produced sherds of Protoliterate ‘d’, but the stratigraphical value of these soundings is limited, as the floor-levels could not be distinguished and the sequence had therefore to be determined by depth. Protoliterate ‘d’ material also came from in and under the earliest Abu Temple at Tell Asmar. Khafajah, however, produced much well-stratified material, especially from the Sin Temple; this was founded on debris of Protoliterate ‘c’ during the same phase, and continuously repaired and rebuilt at least until ED III b.

The coins here discussed are all surface finds from Tell Rifa‘at, one of the largest mounds in the ‘Azaz Casa, thirty-five kilometres north of Aleppo. They were collected together by the excavator of the site, Dr. M. V. Seton-Williams, during the course of three seasons' excavations at the site, 1956, 1960 and 1964. Although none of the coins is from stratified deposits, their range in time from the second century B.C. to the fourteenth century A.D. and their number afford an interesting sidelight on the later history of the site. They all fall within the range of the excavator's Level 1 : Roman to Hellenistic, first century A.D. to fourth century B.C., although the coin evidence now indicates occupation or interest in the area down to the fourteenth century A.D.