Irving Finkel is the senior curator responsible for the cuneiform tablet collection in the museum. He is a specialist in medical and magical works in Akkadian and particularly interested in esoteric inscriptions that concern ancient thought and speculation. He has been responsible for exhibitions inside and outside the museum, including Asian Games: The Art of Conquest (Asia Society New York, 2004) and Babylon: Myth and Reality (British Museum, 2008). He is the author of books for adults and children, including the bestselling The Ark before Noah, and is a world expert on ancient games and Founder of the Great Diary Project.James Fraser is Curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia (supported by HENI) at the British Museum. In 2018, the Palestine Exploration Fund published his monograph Dolmens in the Levant in its Annual series, and this book was awarded the G. Ernest Wright Award for Best Archaeological Publication. James directs a British Museum excavation project in Jordan investigating a 4,500 year-old olive oil factory at Khirbet Um al-Ghozlan in the Wadi ar-Rayyan.St John Simpson is responsible for the collections from Iran, Central Asia and Arabia, specialises in the archaeology of the Sasanian and early medieval periods, and has excavated extensively in the Middle East and Central Asia. He has curated three exhibitions at the museum, Queen of Sheba: Treasures from Ancient Yemen (2004), Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (2011) and Scythians: Warriors of Ancient Siberia (2017/18), as well as the Rahim Irvani Gallery for Ancient Iran (2007). He was Jonathan’s deputy for the Iraq Emergency Heritage Management Training Scheme (2015–2021), and has museum-wide responsibility for repatriation of trafficked antiquities to their countries of origin.

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• Preface ; J.N. Tubb: a bibliography of works ; PART ONE: Along the Jordan Valley ; Notes on the figurines from Tell es-Sa’idiyeh – Josef Mario BRIFFA SJ ; Early Bronze Age capers at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh in Jordan – Caroline R. CARTWRIGHT ; On the naming of Tell es-Sa’idiyeh – Rupert L. CHAPMAN III ; The Shaft Grave with loculus at Tell es-Sa’idiyeh – Jack GREEN ; Tell Um Hammad in the Early Bronze IV period – Svend HELMS†, Melissa KENNEDY and Alison BETTS ; A stamp seal impression from Kataret es-Samra – Albert LEONARD, Jr. ; A view from a tell redux – Suzanne RICHARD ; Tell es-Sa’idiyeh and the Egyptian trade – Eveline J. VAN DER STEEN ; PART TWO: Beyond the Jordan ; A playing scene on an ivory panel from Megiddo – Anne DUNN-VATURI ; Rural cult in urban Canaan: an MB/LB ‘temple’ at el-Khawarij in the Jordan Valley escarpment – James A. FRASER, Jaimie L. LOVELL, Paul DONNELLY ; An elephant in the Sīq? – Sam MOORHEAD ; ‘Canaanites’ at Bethlehem – Lorenzo NIGRO ; A possible sundial from Zoara in the Ghor as-Safi – Konstantinos D. POLITIS ; An Ammonite god in the British Museum – Katharina SCHMIDT ; An Egyptian figurine mould from Tell Halif – Joe D. SEGER ; A human-headed chariot linchpin from Tell Fara – Rachael Thyrza SPARKS ; An enigmatic scarab from Rishon le-Zion – James M. WEINSTEIN ; PART THREE: From Syria to southern Iraq ; The tip of the spear: fortification at Tell Nebi Mend – Stephen BOURKE ; Facing the sunrise: the orientation of certain Levantine Bronze Age temples – Christopher J. DAVEY ; Out of the stores: further obsidian objects from Tell Chagar Bazar – Elizabeth HEALEY ; Peering behind the pictographs – Irving FINKEL ; Found in Assyria, made in Phoenicia, copied in Syria, exported to Iberia: a well-travelled motif of the early 1st millennium BC – Eric GUBEL ; Making a mark: evidence for cattle branding on the Nimrud ivories – Hannah GWYTHER ; The Loftus ladies – Georgina HERRMANN ; ‘Keeper of the inhabited world’– John MacGINNIS ; Idols for the household: two bronze figurines from Late Bronze I Taşlı Geçit Höyük – Nicolò MARCHETTI ; Sun, hero and hair – Astrid NUNN ; The bitumen trade of Hīt from antiquity to Ottoman times – Andrew D. PETERSEN ; Sumerian harmonics – Sébastien REY ; Griffins in paradise: Canaanite to Phoenician in a Nimrud ivory – Michael SEYMOUR ; Smoking and drinking: from Tell es-Sa’idiyeh to Ur – St John SIMPSON ; PART FOUR: Cultural heritage ; Protecting cultural heritage in museums during crises and wars165 – Maamoun ABDULKARIM ; The Cyrus Cylinder: anatomy of the Tehran 2010 loan – Dean BAYLIS ; ‘Standing Caliph’ coins from Syria: probably looted and on the market – Neil BRODIE ; The Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem, 1926–1938 – Mahmoud HAWARI ; PART FIVE: Personal stories ; John Garstang in retrospect – Piotr BIENKOWSKI ; The Palestine Exploration Fund, Charles Clermont-Ganneau and the Mesha stela – Felicity COBBING ; Reasoning in archaeological discourse – Anthony J. FRENDO ; The Megiddo water system: a letter from R.S. Lamon to J.L. Starkey – Yosef GARFINKEL ; Memories of Tell es-Sa’idiyeh – Loretta HOGAN and Sandra SMITH ; A Confluence of Stories: a personal journey – Imran JAVED ; An unexpected find: a letter from Flinders Petrie to Leonard Woolley – Carlo LIPPOLIS ; ‘I am the Bull of Nineveh’: a monument on the move – Henrietta McCALL† ; Family Bibles: an early 18th-century case and beyond – Gerrit van der KOOIJ ; AFTERWORD ; From Palestine Room to Levant Gallery at the British Museum – Jonathan N. TUBB ; Indices