McGuire Gibson – författare

This volume is the second of three final reports on the joint expedition of the Oriental Institute and the Carsten Niebuhr Institute in the Hamrin Salvage project of Iraq. The technical reports consist of neutron activation and chemical studies on pottery, mudbrick, and other materials, as well as a discussion of the function of the Round Building at Razuk, relying on stratigraphy, architecture, and distribution of faunal material.

Muzahim Hussein's 1989 discovery of tombs of Neo-Assyrian queens in the palace of Ashurnasirpal in Nimrud (Kalhu/Calah) was electrifying news for archaeology. Although much is known of the Assyrian kings (8th/9th century B.C.), very little was known about the queens, with the exception of semi-mythical Semiramis. Now, for the first time, not only were actual remains and burial objects of Assyrian queens discovered, but also names and attempts through curses to protect the burials. Elaborate gold jewelry and other items in the tombs rivaled in quality and quantity that found in Egyptian royal tombs. A short scholarly publication of a few items, as well as limited coverage in the world's press, gave only hints of the importance of the objects in the tombs. Planned international exhibitions of the treasures from the tombs had to be cancelled due to war and sanctions. Hussein and Amer Suleiman published Nimrud: A City of Golden Treasures, in 1999, under extraordinarily difficult conditions, that could not do justice to the objects. The present volume, a joint publication of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and the Oriental Institute, is a new version of the finding of the tombs and their contents, giving much additional information derived from Hussein's continued analyses of classes of artifacts, accompanied by numerous full color plates.

The excavation of area WF in the eighteenth and nineteenth seasons at Nippur (1988/89, 1990) was aimed specifically at delineating the transition between the Early Dynastic and Akkadian periods, and this goal has been realised. Augusta McMahon took on this task through two seasons, working tirelessly. Stratigraphic exposure of floor after floor of artefacts was slowed drastically by a complex stack of burials that took up almost half of the space in the pit. The pit was taken down until it reached Early Dynastic IIIa, and thus had the material to assess the passage from Early Dynastic to Akkadian in artifactual terms.

In this volume the Nippur Expedition publishes the first results of its new program of research at Nippur, the holy city of Mesopotamia. This program, bringing together an interdisciplinary team to work on a historical site in Mesopotamia, focuses on the entire city, not just the sacred aspects. Concentrating on the West Mound, the first season yielded a sequence of temples in Area WA and a Kassite administrative palace above an Old Babylonian house in Area WB.

The second of the preliminary reports on work at Nippur, this volume also gives details of the remains of a series of temples in Area WA and the administrative and residential buildings in Area WB. Included are important treatments of the pottery of the Old Babylonian and Kassite periods, as well as hoards of cuneiform tablets and Islamic silver coins.