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The Excavations at Tell Al Rimah, 1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

David Oates
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Extract

The second season of excavations at Tell al Rimah, from March 1st to May 15th, 1965, was again sponsored jointly by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and the University Museum, Philadelphia. The British School was assisted by contributions from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels. The staff consisted of Mrs. T. H. Carter (Assistant Director), representing the University Museum; Mr. Aubrey Trik (architect) and Mrs. Helen Trik (draughtsman) of the University Museum; Mr. Nicholas Kindersley (photographer and surveyor), Miss Elizabeth Dowman (registrar), Messrs. Julian Reade, Geoffrey Turner, John Bellingham, Andrew Tait (archaeologists), of the British School. The epigraphist was Dr. H. W. F. Saggs of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. We were fortunate to have the assistance for shorter periods of Mr. David Crownover and Miss Siiri Woodward from the University Museum, Miss Dominique Collon and Mr. David French. Sayyid Ghanim Wahida was the representative of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and co-operated energetically in the work of the expedition. I must once again acknowledge my debt to all my colleagues, to government officials in Mosul and Tell Afar for their courteous assistance on many occasions, and to Dr. Faisal al Wailly (Director-General of Antiquities) and Professor Fuad Safar (Inspector-General of Excavations) for the close and friendly co-operation which they and their staff invariably extend to us.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 122 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1966

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References

1 Iraq XXVII (1965), Pt. 2, pp. 62 ff.Google Scholar; hereinafter referred to as ‘First Report’.

2 First Report, pp. 76–77.

3 First Report, p. 74.

4 First Report, p. 75, and below, p. 130.

5 The full publication of the objects discovered at Tell al Rimah in 1965 is being prepared by Mrs. T. H. Carter; for her account of the finds of the first season, see BASOR 178, pp. 41–69Google Scholar.

6 First Report, p. 74 and Plate XVIII, a.

7 Ishtar as the goddess of fertility seems to have been one of the longest-established and most popular deities in the cities, and no doubt the villages, of Assyria. It seems probable that many of these cults were of separate and local origin, later to be merged under the identity of the great goddess; it is notable that Ishtar of Nineveh and Ishtar of Arbela, to name only two, remained quite distinct in men's minds throughout their existence. In suggesting that the principal temple of Tell al Rimah was dedicated to Ishtar we do not therefore imply a precise identification with any of the other cults that went by the same name.

8 First Report, p. 71 and Plate XV, b.

9 First Report, p. 77 and Plate XX, b. The Level Ib debris in this room produced the largest fragment yet discovered (TR. 2618; ht. 12·2 cm.) of a glass vessel built up of sections of white, red and light and dark blue glass forming a mosaic chevron pattern (Plate XXXVc). Similar fragments were found in Ib debris in 1964 (TR. 255; First Report, p. 74), but nothing approaching a complete vessel has yet been found and these pieces may be somewhat earlier than the destruction of Level Ib.

10 First Report, p. 72 and Plate XVI, d. See plan, Plate XXVIII.

11 Almost identical mats are in use on the earth floors of the dig house at Tell al Rimah; they also serve in a mud-brick house as the first layer of a mud roof.

12 In the corresponding levels in the adjoining gate-chamber in 1964 we found a cylinder seal impression (TR. 2) in the style current towards the end of the First Dynasty of Babylon.

13 The earliest bricks found in situ in the courtyard and on the terrace outside the east gate are of the same size. Somewhat later in Phase III a larger size, 49 cm. sq., was employed.

14 By kind permission of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and of the Trustees of the British Museum the tablets are being treated in the British Museum laboratory and will be studied by Dr. Saggs, to whom I am indebted for preliminary information about their contents.

15 On this point see most recently Landsberger, B., JNES XXIV (1965), No. 5, pp. 285 ff.Google Scholar, which effectively dismisses the identification of anakum as lead.

16 Professor D. J. Wiseman, serving as epigraphist in 1966, informs me that limmu dates on tablets found during this season, which form part of the same archive, are certainly of the reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I.

17 Investigation of the southern half of the façade in 1966 has shown that each of the two outer panels beyond the gate-towers contained, in its original form, three engaged half-columns.

18 The heights of buildings indicated in the accompanying reconstructions must now be substantially increased and the relative height of the inner and outer ranges must be re-considered, since we found in 1966 evidence for a second storey above the north and south outer ranges.

19 Museum Journal XXIII (1933), No. 3, p. 221Google Scholar and pls. XXXIII–XXXIV.

20 Borger, R., Handbuch der Orientalistik, I, 1Google Scholar, Eineitung in die Assyrischen Königsinschriften—Das Zweite Jahrtausend vor Chr., pp. 9–10; ARA I, p. 16Google Scholar.

21 ARMT II, 39Google Scholar.