The sixth (1955) season of excavation by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq at Nimrud (ancient Kalḫu, Biblical Calah) was mainly devoted to clearing buildings in the south-eastern corner of the akropolis. One building to the north of Ezida, the temple of Nabu, contained a long Throne-room (SEB2) where lay a varied collection of ivories and bronzes from Assyrian furniture broken when the building was destroyed by fire. Amid this debris more than three hundred and fifty fragments of baked clay tablets were found scattered in the north-west corner of the room between the dais which once supported the royal throne and the door leading to a small ante-chamber (NTS3). Some fragments were also found in the southern doorway of the Throne-room and in the adjacent courtyard (Fig. 1). It will probably never be known with certainty, whether the documents had once been housed in this room or thrown there when the building was sacked by the Medes about 612 B.C. A special room (NT12) in the neighbouring Nabu Sanctuary seems to have been set aside for the use of scribes and for the storage of tablets and this may have been their original location.

These fragments proved to be parts of a few large tablets of which one was reconstituted in the field. Miss Barbara Parker, who was present at the time of discovery, soon identified the text as a treaty made in 672 B.C. by Esarhaddon, king of Assyria (681–669 B.C.), with a chieftain of the Medes named Ramataia of Urukazaba(r)na. The remaining texts were duplicates except that they named different city-govenors, or chieftains, as the other party to the agreement. The dated fragments bear the same Eponym year-date of 672 B.C. With commendable speed Miss Parker published a brief report based on her preliminary reading of about three hundred lines of the Ramataia text and some of the fragments.

An expedition under the auspices of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq completed its eighth season at Nimrud, ancient Calah, during the first week of May 1957 after a two months' campaign which began early in March. For most of the season about two hundred workmen were employed including a number of skilled Sherqatis who have been with us from 1949 onwards. This year was memorable in the annals of the dig for two reasons: first we concluded our programme of work on the akropolis itself; secondly we began the excavation in the outer town of the great building known as Fort Shalmaneser which is likely to prove to be a military establishment more important than any other hitherto discovered in ancient Assyria and most prolific in its yield of antiquities.

During the excavation of the area south of the Nabu Temple in 1957 the Assyrian level was reached in three places, in Trenches O and P and in an earlier excavation, the work of Layard, which was reopened specifically for this purpose. In Layard's trench we cleared three rooms shown on his original plan (Plate XV, AB 1, 2, 6), and the greater part of a fourth, larger chamber (AB 3); four further rooms planned by Layard and Loftus were not investigated beyond the doorway connecting AB 6 with AB 4. Trenches O and P were dug with the primary object of elucidating the sequence of later occupation overlying the Assyrian levels, and our resources did not permit us to carry the work down to the Assyrian floor. A glance at the plan, PL. XV, will show that all the walls thus exposed follow the same alignment, differing from that of the Nabu Temple and almost certainly reflecting a change of direction in the citadel wall which bounded the site on the east; there is every reason to suppose that they are parts of the same building.

Previous reports on the current series of campaigns at Nimrud have from time to time referred to discoveries of post-Assyrian material, indicating an impoverished, and probably intermittent, occupation of the site during the last six centuries B.C. Analysis and identification of the finds has hitherto been impeded by two obstacles, the lack of dated comparative material from Northern Mesopotamia, and the difficulty of obtaining an undisturbed stratigraphic sequence on a mound so thoroughly ransacked by earlier excavators, who were interested only in the Assyrian levels. During the seasons 1949–53, when work was concentrated on the northern and central parts of the mound, occasional objects were found without an informative context, but it was not until we came to deal with the sites of the Burnt Palace and Nabu Temple in the southeast quarter, in 1955 and 1956, that we found the evidence better preserved, with isolated groups of material in situ. A reliable sequence was still lacking, and to fill this gap in 1957 we made a sounding on the high south-east corner, on a small plateau which showed little superficial sign of previous disturbance. Our aim was two-fold: to obtain a conspectus of the post-Assyrian levels, and to re-examine the Assyrian building beneath, the existence of which was briefly reported by Layard and Loftus. The quantity of debris, more than seven metres in depth, above the Assyrian level made it impossible to attempt any large-scale clearance, and we confined ourselves to three new trenches (O, P and R on the plan, Pl. XV) cut from north to south across the patch of virgin ground, and at the same time reopened Layard's large pit a short distance to the west. In trenches O and P we made a methodical, stratigraphic examination of six post-Assyrian levels before reaching a zone of barren debris, largely fallen mud brick, which overlay the Assyrian walls; our resources did not permit us to carry the excavation down to the Assyrian floors. In Trench R, begun late in the season, we confirmed the sequence of trenches O and P down to the fifth level. In Layard's excavation to the west, exposing the throne-room complex of the AB Palace, the post-Assyrian deposits had been extensively disturbed, but we were able to reconstruct them in part from the sides of his original cut and recovered some interesting groups of pottery and grave goods which can be related with fair certainly to the main sequence.

In presenting the following account of the coins found at Nimrud in the excavations of 1957, I should like to thank Prof. M. E. L. Mallowan for his kindness in inviting me to study and record the material. Some of the coins, notably those from the small hoard of tetradrachms (nos. 6190–2 and 6195–7 below) found in the Hellenistic levels of Trench O, south of the Nabu temple, have been illustrated in I.L.N. Nov. 23rd, 1957. Here I illustrate all the coins that seem to deserve it; few of the bronze pieces come into that category, as is apt to be the case with excavation coins.

During the course of last year's excavations at Nimrud many metal objects were found in both the Assyrian and Hellenistic levels, and the present article attempts a brief description of this material. The Assyrian buildings were especially rich in military equipment of various kinds while the Hellenistic villages included a good range of standard domestic implements. But it should be stressed that the finds of a single season cannot be regarded as a true reflection on the full range of metals, or of metal types, that were used in either period.

The bulk of the Assyrian metal-work was found in the building known as Fort Shalmaneser, which was a royal depôt in the S.E. corner of the outer town. For, despite the fact that the building seems to have been looted before it was destroyed in the sack of 612 B.C., many of its less precious metal objects were left in situ. One room in particular, F.S. N.W. 15, proved especially rewarding as it contained the remains of a rich collection of spearheads, armour and decorative metal plaques that would appear to have been abandoned when the upper walls threatened to cave in.

Amongst the letters of the archive discovered at Nimrud in 1952 are a number referring to events on the northern and north-eastern frontiers of Assyria, principally during the reign of Sargon. Ten of these letters are here published: a few others exist which, though having references to the same area, are in too damaged a condition to be placed in a reasonably assured historico-geographical setting, and these it is proposed to incorporate in subsequent groups.