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The Excavations at Tell al Rimah, 1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

David Oates
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Extract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1967 , pp. 70 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1967

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References

1 Hereafter referred to as First Report and Second Report respectively.

2 1a-na [?….. 2 be-el-ti-ia [….. 3mār Ia-…… 4iska-an-nam [?….. 5[…..]ur[….. 6[…] te-en[….. 7ú-še[…..

I am indebted to Miss Barbara Parker for information about this text, and to Professor I. J. Gelb for a most useful discussion; in particular Professor Gelb for pointing out the meaning of kānnum. kattnum in connection with a door is found in the Laws of Hammurabi §58; Gadd, C. J., Early Dynasties of Sumer and Akkad, p. 33Google Scholar; A new text of Lipit-Ishtar, 20. The word is also used of a pot-stand, J.C.S. 9, 16, 59, MSL VI, 76, 110Google Scholar.

3 See Oppenheim, A. L., Ancient Mesopotamia, pp. 199 ifGoogle Scholar. for a discussion of the function of the lamassu. In using the name Lama I do not wish to imply a firm belief that our figure or, for that matter, all the other interceding deities that are similarly represented were at all times and places known by this name. But if my interpretation is correct this figure served the function of Lama, and the name is immaterial.

4 ZA, XXXVII (1927), p. 218, n. 2Google Scholar.

5 Spycket, A., ‘La Déesse Lama’, RA LIV (1960), pp. 73 ffGoogle Scholar. Wiseman, D. J., ‘The Goddess Lama at Ur’, Iraq XXII (1960), pp. 166 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 A. Spycket, loc. cit., p. 78.

7 Porada, E., Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections, The Pierpont Morgan Library Collection, Vol. 1, p. 62 and pls. LXXVI, LXXVIIGoogle Scholar.

8 Tello: fragmentary stele of Gudea, A. Parrot, Tello, p. 181, fig. 37Google Scholar; Ur: Larsa period, D.J.Wiseman, op. cit.; Warka: Kassite period, Lenzen, H. and Falkenstein, A., Ausgrabtaigen in Uruk-Warka, 1953/54–1954/55, pp. 43 ff. and Pl. 23bGoogle Scholar; Nuzi: Starr, R. F. S., Nazi, II, pls. 100A, 101 G, HGoogle Scholar; Mari: A. Parrot, Sumer, pl. 346.

9 Iraq, XXII, p. 170 and Pl. XXIV bGoogle Scholar. I am greatly indebted to Sayyid Yasin Mahmud for a copy of his M.A. thesis on unpublished terra-cottas in the Iraq Museum and for a most useful discussion of this question.

10 Illustrated by A. Parrot, Sumer, pl. 405; see also Unvala, J. M., R.A. XXV (1928), pp. 179 ffGoogle Scholar. I owe this reference to the kindness of Professor C. J. Gadd.

11 Woolley, C. L., Ur Excavations, Vol. V, p. 42 and pls. 29b and 71Google Scholar; see below, pp. 89–90. There were also bronze palm trunks on either side of the doorway of the Late Assyrian temple of Nabu at Khorsabad.

12 Starr, R. F. S., Nuay, p. 377 and pl. 57, UGoogle Scholar.

13 Second Report, p. 128 and pl. XXVIII.

14 First Report, p. 74; the ostracon is being studied by Professor J. B. Segal.

15 Ur Excavations, Vol. V, pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

16 A. Parrot, Sumer, pls. 392 and 405.

17 The tablets were studied in the field by Miss Barbara Parker and Professor D. J. Wiseman to whom I am indebted for the information that follows. Some were taken to London for treatment in the laboratory of the British Museum, by kind permission of the Director General of Antiquities and the Keeper of the Dept. of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum. For the 1965 archive see Second Report, pp. 130–31.

18 R.C.A.E., Letter 461; Thureau-Dangin, F., Rituels Accadiens, p. 15Google Scholar; Schrank, W., Babylonischen Sühnriten, pp. 32–3Google Scholar.

19 Speiser, E. A., Excavations at Tepe Gawra, I, p. 36 and pls. XIII, XXIV aGoogle Scholar.

20 Most easily compared in E. Strommenger, Ancient Mesopotamia, figs. 24, 29–31.

21 ANET, pp. 82, 88.