The scale-model which forms the subject of the following notes was constructed in the Laboratory of the Iraq Museum during the early part of 1946, under the supervision of Sayyid Akram Shukri. It is composed for the most part of plaster of Paris in solid castings and sawn strips, subsequently carved and painted. The scale is one to four hundred, or one centimetre to four metres.

The Jausaq al-Khāqānī or Dār al-‘Amma, Palace of the Caliphs at Samaria, was first excavated in 1907 by Viollet, who published the results of his investigations in 1909 and 1911. The work was soon afterwards resumed for some months by Sarre and Herzfeld. The area of the Palace within its main enclosure-wall is 432 acres; so there could be no question of its complete excavation in the short period of time occupied by the two consecutive attempts. Viollet, however, by a careful study of the exposed remains and a minimum of actual digging, was able to record his impression of the plan, and to reconstruct in perspective the general appearance of the whole vast lay-out.

Die altbabylonische Tafel U.7756, von Sidney Smith in Ur Excavations, Texts, I: Gadd and Legrain, Koyal Inscriptions (hier R.I.U. abgekürzt) als Nr. 275 auf Plate LVI in Autographie veröffentlicht und auf S. 74 ff. umschrieben, übersetzt und bearbeitet, enthält ausser der Kopie einer Inschrift des Königs Naräm-Sin von Akkad, I, 1–IV, 19, die einer zweiten Inschrift, IV, 20–VI, 21, welche der Herausgeber als Beschreibung der Befestigungsanlagen einer Stadt si-ku-ma (?)-l(n)um(KI) gedeutet und im einzelnen interpretiert hat.

In the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, Vol. I, Plate 16 (repeated in II, 24), there stands among the symbols carved upon a finely-executed and preserved ‘boundary-stone’ one that is at present unique, namely, that in the lower left corner, numbered 22 in subsequent publications. It is true that one other has been compared with it—L. W. King, Babylonian Boundary-Stones, Plate III (at bottom)—but there is really no resemblance here. Dismissing, therefore, the suggestion (most inapparent to the eye, and founded only upon this supposed identity) that a sheaf of corn is the object depicted on top of the divine seat or shrine, the only remaining explanation offered of this thing is that it is a shell, in particular that of the pecten, the comb-shell. While it is not possible to disprove this, several arguments may be brought against it. First, the representation is not much like the thing compared. Three typical pecten-shells, from species which occur particularly in the Persian Gulf, do not show anything like the transverse line following the curved border which is so carefully marked upon the emblem; contrariwise, the sculpture has nothing like the prominent ‘wings’ at the apex of the shells. Next, even the largest of the three shells proffered as specimens, Pecten townsendi Sowerby, is quite small, being about 4 inches in extreme measurement, so that if the object resting upon the ‘seat’ is a pecten-shell it must be many times magnified in the representation.

The seas which wash the shores of Mesopotamia, the great rivers and the lakes of that land abound in fish of many different kinds, so that fish form an important article of diet of the modern inhabitants as well as of that of their forerunners in very remote times. Therefore it is not strange that fish appear among the decorative motives on painted ceramic pottery, were engraved in stereotyped rows on cylinder seals of the Jamdat Nasr epoch, or were carved as small figurines in bone, shell, and black, white or coloured stones, often with such precise observation of nature that the species delineated can easily be distinguished. Scenes in which water was the important element included fish swimming below a boat, gliding quite illogically up and down the streams welling up from the vase the god Enki holds, or, even more strangely, from that held by figures carved in the round or in relief of Gudea or of water divinities. Apart from fish in the proximity of Enki-Ea, introduced solely to indicate the living quality of the water spurting from the vase he holds, examples of fish in front of or close to a divinity are too numerous in the art of ancient Mesopotamia in almost every epoch necessarily to imply that the fish were attributes of the divinities with whom they appear to be associated (Nos. 1, 2). It is, nevertheless, interesting to note how often a fish is placed close to Ištar in warlike aspect, and holding her tripartite sceptre; there is even a curious scene in which the goddess does not appear in person, but is symbolised by her great tripartite sceptre, beside which a fish is placed, while a short-clad attendant and a divinity leading a female worshipper draw near to pay homage.

The stele No. 2459 (Plates XIX–XXII) was acquired by the Musee National Syrien d'Alep in 1939, after its existence had been reported by peasants. It lay face downwards in an open field at Jekke, 22 kms. to the east of Azaz, which itself lies 25 kms. to the north of Aleppo (Fig. 8). Excavations were conducted by M. Dunand around the spot where it lay, but revealed nothing except some very simple foundations.

It is a tall stele, 1.66 m. high, of grey volcanic basalt. Its shape is that of a half-column, rounded at the top, a form favoured by the Hittites of North Syria for depicting a god or goddess, usually accompanied by a dedicatory inscription. The origin of the shape is not obvious, but the type goes back at least to Babylonian monuments, such as the stele of Hammurabi. The text is unusually perfect, except for a flaw running vertically through the stone. It was perhaps buried in antiquity to preserve it.