In 1973 the journal Iraq published the results of our first three seasons of excavations at the Hassuna settlements of Yarim Tepe I and the Halaf levels of Yarim Tepe II, situated in the Sinjar Plain of Northern Iraq. Following that publication the Soviet archaeological expedition, under the direction of R. M. Munchaev, continued its extensive studies in the area up to and including 1980. Prior to 1976 its major efforts had been centred on the separate tells of Yarim Tepe I and II, which were excavated over large areas down to virgin soil. This article presents the general results of our studies in the earliest levels of these sites and is a direct continuation of our 1973 article.

In parallel with the excavations at Yarim Tepe I and II the Soviet expedition undertook a survey of a considerable part of the Sinjar Plain in the vicinity of Telafar, in the course of which were discovered a number of settlements belonging to various early stages in the development of the agrarian cultures of ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest period (8th–7th millennia bc) is represented by a preceramic fortified settlement, Tell Maghzaliyah, which is situated on the southern slopes of Jebel Sinjar in the vicinity of Telafar. Culturally and chronologically the settlement can be compared with Jarmo and Çayönü Tepesi.

In general this article concerns harps and lyres in Mesopotamia. We begin by considering sound holes on harps and proceed to inquire into the names of both types of instruments and the geometrical shapes associated with the instruments and sound holes.

On the sides of the vertical harps on the Assyrian Palace reliefs in the British Museum one observes a characteristic geometrical figure inscribed in a consistent manner. The figure resembles a rectangle the sides of which are concave (Plate Xa).

The oldest (653 B.C.) vertical harps shown on these reliefs are played by seven members of King Teumman's Elamite orchestra (S. W. Palace at Nineveh, BM 124802, detail here, Plate Xb). Most of these harps are marked with a pair of concave-sided rectangles. There are six clear marks, five places are too eroded to show distinct marks and three places seem to lack marks. The sculptor's skill and care varies from harp to harp and the workmanship seems generally poor for the instruments where the rectangles are missing.

The excavations by the State Organization of Antiquities at a small shrine at Hatra proved to be important in various aspects. The shrine, which is located to the east of the Great Temple, is oriented towards the west. The excavator believes, on architectural and archaeological grounds, that it has two building phases. In the first, the shrine consisted of a broad cella built of ashlar masonry with three entrances on the west side; the middle opening is the widest and is decorated with an arch. The façade with three entrances is also found in shrines V, IX, X. The lintel of the central entrance bears an Aramaic inscription stating that certain persons had constructed the shrine and dedicated it to the worship of GND’, the Arab god of Fortune. The narrow staircase, which led to the roof, is enclosed in the thickness of the southern wall. This architectural feature was not found in the rest of the small shrines, the staircases of which were built along one side wall, but it is common in the larger temples, i.e. Šaḥiru, Šamaš, and the Great Iwans in the Great Temple enclosure.

The floor of the rectangular niche, which had the same function as the cella, is reached by a few marble steps. The excavator has found fragments of a cult statue, an inscribed relief of a priest, and an altar. Like most of the small shrines, in its early phase the shrine had a low bench, made of marble, running along the inside of the broad cella's wall.

The Babylonian Flood Story contains a conundrum which has stimulated various solutions, none of them convincing. Recent advances in lexicography seem to dismiss them, but an entirely unrelated observation suggests a way to interpret the texts in keeping with Babylonian beliefs and practices.

After Ea had told Ut-napishtim how to prepare for his escape from the Flood, he gave him an explanation of his strange conduct for his fellow citizens. The gods had taken a dislike to Ut-napishtim, so he would go to dwell with his patron Ea in his home, the Apsu. Thereupon Ea would act, apparently to benefit the people, in fact, to indicate that the catastrophe was about to break. The manner and significance of Ea's action as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, has long puzzled Assyriologists.

It has recently been suggested that the Early Dynastic buildings at Tello were so inadequately recorded that they should be excluded from any study of the architecture of the period (Tunca 1984: p. xxi). A re-examination of the published material suggests that this is an unnecessarily defeatist conclusion. A number of possibilities deserve serious consideration, at least insofar as they concern the buildings on Tell K known as the Construction Inférieure and the Maison des Fruits. The evidence presented here is drawn from the summary of the excavations published by Parrot in 1948, and from the earlier work by de Sarzec and Heuzey. The sections and plans are taken from Parrot's plans 13 and 15 and his identifying numbers and letters have been retained for ease of reference (Fig. 1).

The first construction which concerns us here (Fig. 1 (ii)–(iv)), is a pavement of Mosul marble lying 8·48 m above plain level and marked ‘a’ on Parrot's plan 13. This is the first in a series of building operations (de Sarzec 1884–1912: p. 412) of which the second seems to have been the erection of a single room on the platform, marked on the plan as room 1. The section in the centre of plan 13 marked “Deuxième état” (Fig. 1 (iii) ) indicates clearly that room 2, which Parrot thought was contemporary with room 1, was in fact a later addition as its exterior wall rests on the later brick packing ‘f’ and not on pavement ‘a’. It should be noted that the section marked “Premier état” on plan 13 does not appear in the earlier excavation reports and seems to be Parrot's secondary interpretation of the evidence, rather than that of the excavators. It should also be noted that the direction of the North arrow appears to have been reversed on Parrot's plan when compared with the earlier ones. The direction shown on de Sarzec's plans will be used here.

The reign of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) has long been associated with three major monuments: the Bronze Gates from Balawat/Imgur-Enlil; the Throne Base from Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud; and the Black Obelisk also from Nimrud. Each of these works is carved with scenes of historical narrative, arranged in narrow bands, with the subject matter identified in short epigraphs usually at the top of each band. Each monument also preserves a longer inscription, recording the military activities of the king. Although reproductions and descriptions of the relief carvings, and translations of the accompanying inscriptions have been available for some time, art and text have not, as yet, been studied together. Yet these three monuments comprise the primary visual sources available for the reign of Shalmaneser, as we lack any of the large-scale architectural reliefs of historical narrative that characterize the palace decoration of his father, Assurnasirpal II, and later Assyrian kings. For this reason, it seems particularly worthwhile to reexamine the monuments here. In fact, when all three works are studied as a unit—the images together with their accompanying texts and the many other royal inscriptions available—they become highly valuable sources of information for this period.

The following report covers two full seasons of work at Abu Salabikh, breaking with our previous practice of writing a report for this journal after each season. As well as reducing the space absorbed by each season, this has the advantage that work which was conceived on a two-season schedule as a single programme can be presented together. There was no work at the site in 1984, and none is planned on the Early Dynastic mounds in 1987; provisionally we propose to conduct another two seasons of work there in 1988–89, followed by a break in 1990. It is hoped that during the fallow years it will be possible to keep the programme of final publications going.

The Uruk Mound at Abu Salabikh is a low-lying mound of approximately 10 hectares, located to the south and west of the main Early Dynastic mound and almost directly south of the West Mound (Fig. 1). Nowhere does the mound rise more than three meters above the surrounding land, and it is disconcertingly easy to overlook amidst the canal banks.

Prior to 1985, investigations of the Uruk Mound had been limited to a few soundings and small-scale scraping, by the Oriental Institute team in 1963 (Crawford 1964, 13; Biggs 1974, 5) and T. Cuyler Young assisted by Carl Phillips in 1981 (Postgate & Moon 1982; 1984). This work proved enigmatic, failing to reveal coherent architectural plans. In 1985 it was decided to try some further work on the mound, with several aims in mind. First, we wished to find out whether larger-scale scraping would reveal coherent architectural plans. Second, through surface and sub-surface collections of artifacts we hoped to date the occupation of the mound more precisely. Finally, by locating squares in different areas of the mound, we sought evidence for variation in terms of date of occupation and use of different areas.

A total of 5½ weeks of work was carried out on the mound during the 1985 and 1986 seasons. Twenty-eight 10 × 10 m squares were surface collected, and 14 of these were also scraped and their sub-surface artifacts collected and examined (Fig. 2). All of these units were placed judgmentally, with an eye to sampling diverse areas of the mound as well as to expanding the scraping in areas that had well-preserved architecture.

Survey operations at Sāmarrā' were resumed for a second field season between November 8th 1986 and January 25th 1987. The work was sponsored by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, and funded by the School and the Wainwright Near Eastern Archaeological Fund. We are very grateful to Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa‘id, Director-General of Antiquities and Heritage, for permitting us to work. As always, the officials of the Directorate-General, particularly Dr. Baqir al-Hussaini, and Sd. Hafidh al-Hayani, head of the project in Sāmarrā', were of the utmost help to our work. A word of thanks is also due to Mile Axelle Rougeule and M. Patrick Anselm of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Irak, for loaning us surveying equipment, and to M. Pierre Ruland and M. Robert Blanc, of the Thompson C.S.F. project in al-Daur, for lending us a vehicle. We would also like to thank our team, Andrew Petersen, Louise Scott, David Drake and John MacGinnis.

The seventh and eighth seasons of excavation at Tell Brak took place from mid-March to early June of 1985 and 1986 respectively. The expedition was sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology, University of London, and the Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Université de Liège. It was financed by generous grants from the National Geographic Society, the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (H. Dunscombe Colt Archaeological Institute Gift and Armida Colt Gift), and the Crowther-Beynon and C. H. W. Johns Funds of Cambridge University. The staff in 1985 consisted of the writer as Director and architect, Dr. Joan Oates (Assistant Director in charge of pottery and small finds), Jean-Marc Meunier (Assistant Director for field operations), Jenny Oates who recorded and drew much of the pottery, Noël Siver, an expert conservator, and Susan Oates, archaeological assistant. Site supervisors were Dr. Irving Finkel (also epigraphist), Nicolas Cauwe, Jean-Philippe Marchal, Michael Shaw and Simon Hardy. In 1986 Jean-Marc Meunier was unable to join us, but we are assured of his valuable help in 1987. Site supervisors in 1986 were Nicolas Cauwe, Jean-Marc Léotard, Nicholas Illingworth (also epigraphist) and Andrew Sargent. Susan Gill gave valuable assistance with the excavation register and the recording of the pottery. Dr. Dietrich Sürenhagen spent a month with us in each of the two seasons, and both his experience as an excavator and his wide knowledge of Uruk materials were extremely helpful to us. Dr. Jonathan Hodgkin, who has worked with us both at Tell al Rimah and Tell Brak in past years, again devoted his annual holiday to assist us as a site supervisor on the Mitanni palace, and his contribution was invaluable. We were especially pleased in 1986 to receive a visit from our President, Lady Mallowan. Her wide knowledge of seals and cuneiform texts was a major contribution to the work of the expedition.

The purpose of this short note is two-fold. First, to present the very unexpected evidence for Hajji Muhammad pottery at Tell Brak, an occurrence of some considerable interest to Mesopotamian prehistorians. Second, to publish three vessels from the Mitanni palace and a unique example of transcaucasian type of sufficient interest in themselves to merit their preliminary publication, however brief. A final report on the Mitanni buildings and their contents is envisaged after the completion of the forthcoming season.

The Hajji Muhammad sherds are without context. Two deep soundings in Area CH have reached levels with predominantly ‘Ubaid pottery, but these levels are to be dated at the very end of the ‘Ubaid sequence. Unfortunately the earlier ‘Ubaid levels lie at inaccessible depths within the tell. Some pottery from the latest ‘Ubaid deposits is illustrated here, in particular a number of sherds with “eye” motifs, which provide a tempting argument for the existence of an ‘Ubaid Eye Temple at Brak. It must be emphasized, however, that at present we have no other evidence to support such a suggestion, although the outer wall of a possibly Early Uruk religious building in CH was identified in 1986 (Plate XXXI, a).

Of the greatest interest are the three sherds illustrated below, together with a single example of the most common Hajji Muhammad type: a bowl with flaring sides and dense cross-hatching on the interior (Plate XLV, 5; cf. Oates and Oates 1976, 56). The Brak example comes from fill in the Eye Temple deposits, and is the only specimen of this very distinctive type found so far in Northern Mesopotamia.

The elusive Ninevite 5 culture of northern Mesopotamia has repeatedly defied attempts by archaeologists to fathom its mysteries. In this article the relationship between the painted and incised styles of Ninevite 5 pottery is investigated with the help of Hercule Poirot who was present when Ninevite 5 was given its name. The evidence from earlier excavations and from recent rescue work in northern Iraq is examined and a new verdict on the development of the Ninevite 5 pottery styles is reached.

During 1985 and 1986, work in the Saddam Dam Salvage Project in the Tigris valley north of Mosul continued, although by now, with the filling of the reservoir to virtually its greatest extent, almost all the sites are under water, with the exception of a handful which are unlikely to be flooded after all. A considerable amount of exciting work was carried out at research excavations in other areas of the country also.

As always, we are grateful to Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa‘id Damerji, Director-General of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, for permission to publish in Iraq these short reports, especially those concerning sites in the rescue project sponsored by the Iraq Government. We should like to thank also Dr. Abdul-Sattar al-Azzawi, Dr. Muhammad Baqir al-Husaini, Sd. Abdul-Qadir Hassan and other members of the Department's staff for the assistance they have rendered. Our greatest debt is to the excavators, who have liberally communicated information about their discoveries in advance of their own publication. We apologise for any errors we may have made in summarising their results.

The reports from the Saddam Dam Salvage Project have been collected by Warwick Ball, and those from other areas of the country by Jeremy Black, from information supplied directly by the excavators, amplified in many cases by personal visits to the sites.