Everyone who worked at Nimrud will remember the regular ritual of bread-making performed by the guard's daughter or wife, often accompanied by a dog bearing a distinct resemblance to the one in the seal impression. This makes only the most tenuous connection with the great discoveries at Nimrud of Sir Max Mallowan, in whose honour this volume is dedicated. The seal impression on Plate XXX, drawn on Fig. 1, is on a Middle Assyrian tablet from Tell al Rimah, published by Saggs, dated by the eponym of Adad-bel-gabbe in the later years of Shalmaneser I.or early reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I. The owner of the seal is probably Sin-šuma-lišir, a tax collector responsible for taxing a three year old donkey in Qaṭara, a place in the vicinity of Tell al Rimah, which was fairly certainly called Karana in the Old Babylonian period.

The impression depicts a woman kneeling before a fire holding between her hands, what I suggest is a circular lump of dough, watched hopefully by a large dog. This is a typical breed of Assyrian guard dog, with pointed nose, pointed ears, thick neck and curly tail, and it has relatives in the area today. It was reproduced in bronze and buried under floors to contend against supernatural enemies. These two are in a shelter of some kind, hut or tent, but the absence of tent poles suggests the former. The poles of the Arab tents on the Aššurbanipal reliefs are most carefully depicted, and although this is over 600 years later, the Middle Assyrian seal engravers were equally meticulous over detail.