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Excavations at Abu Salabikh, 1978–79

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

J. N. Postgate
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Extract

This preliminary report is devoted to the excavation season of Autumn, 1978, although it does also include mention of a grave discovered accidentally on the North-East Mound in November, 1979, while we were not supposed to be digging, only studying at the site. The work in 1978, which in fact lasted from the beginning of October until 10th January 1979, was supported by generous grants from the British Academy, the British Museum, and the National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.; we are as grateful as ever to these institutions for their continuing support. Our team was composed of Mrs. Ellen McAdam and Messrs. R. Bewley, A. R. Green and A. Sheen (site supervisors), Mr. and Mrs. R. K. Vincent, Jr., (photographer and graves recorder), Miss Catherine Sease (conservator), Miss Frances Wollen (cataloguer) and Miss Siriol Mynors (pottery recorder). We were joined for a month by Dr. Rosemary Ellison, who initiated a sieving and flotation programme, and after Christmas by Mr. R. G. Killick, who completed the planning of the West Mound. As representatives of the State Antiquities Organization we were lucky to have Sd. Nadhir Al-Rawi and, for the second time, Sd. Ali Hashim: to both of them we were all much indebted for their untiring help and cheerful collaboration. During the season we were especially pleased to have visits from the members of the Isin and Larsa expeditions, as well as from Dr. T. C. Young, Jr., our better half in the Hamrin.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1980 , pp. 87 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1980

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References

1 In the Bollettino d'Arte del Ministen delta Pubblica Istruzione N. 1–2 (Gennaio-Giugno 1975), 1–25Google Scholar; beginning from the finds at Phaestos, she has collected very similar sealings from sites as distant as Shahr-i Sokhta and Lerna in the Peloponnese.

2 This practice very likely has connections with the square stone plaques (“Weihplatten”!) of Early Dynastic times and with various symbolic uses of pegs; for a recent discussion of “pegs” in legal documents see Müller, M., Altorientalische Forschungen VI (1979), 263–7Google Scholar.

3 Although we undoubtedly recovered more objects of all kinds as a result of sieving, any such concentration would certainly have been noticed had it existed elsewhere. This is evident from the fact that we had already observed an unusual number of sealings and of miniature vessels in the eastward extension of the same tip in 6G66, during the 1975 season.

4 Ben-Dor, I., QDAP 14 (1950), 19Google Scholar; I am grateful to Dr. Pirhiya Beck for this reference.

5 Hansen, D. P., Artibus Asiae 35 (1973), 69, with Fig. 18Google Scholar; Sumer 34 (1978), 75Google Scholar.

6 I am grateful to Dr. P. R. S. Moorey for drawing my attention to this work of Dominique Cinquabre, mentioned in Akkadica 15 (1979), 45Google Scholar, as well as to the Al-Hiba miniature vessels.

7 See Mackay, E., AM 1/2, 136 (Nr. 2274: shell with pottery rim; Nrs. 2256 and 2273 (Plate XXXVIII. 1)Google Scholar: “similarly ornamented pottery cups”, of which one (2273) is identified as a stand in P. R. S. Moorey, Kish Excavations 1923–33, Microfiche 1, Frame F. 01 (Grave 90)).

8 Note that the figures of 73 and 7,300 sq m given in Iraq 40 (1978), 81Google ScholarPubMed should be corrected to 63 and 6,300 sq m respectively.

9 In Diakonoff, I. M. (ed.), Ancient Mesopotamia, 179Google Scholar; also in Structure of society and state in Early Dynastic Sumer (Los Angeles, 1974), 8Google Scholar.

10 In Edzard, D. O. (ed.), Gesellschaftsklassen im alten Zweistromland (XVIII. Rencontre assyriologique internationale, München, 1972), 90Google Scholar.

11 In Le Temple et le Culte (Compte rendu de la vingtième Rencontre assyriologique internationale, Istanbul, 1975), 181Google Scholar.

12 The term Uruk is used here to include the Jamdat Nasr period or late Protoliterate period, largely for the sake of brevity but also because at present we do not have criteria at Abu Salabikh by which one can safely distinguish “Late Uruk” from “Jamdat Nasr”. Added to this is the conviction that the term Jamdat Nasr could profitably be dropped altogether, coming as it does from an inadequately published site without satisfactory assemblages from either before or after the “Period” in question.

13 The Uruk Countryside, 97–103, specifically p. 100.

14 All the photographs were taken by R. K. Vincent, Jr., except that on plate XIa by J.N. Tubb.