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Dr Lee was known as a collector of cylinder seals only because six of them were published by Cullimore in 1843. Now twenty seals have been rediscovered in the Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury, and have been registered and recorded. Some of the preliminary drawings made for Cullimore's publication have also survived and have thrown light on the way the seals were recorded for publication in the early 1840s. Here a full catalogue and assessment of Lee's collection is presented, together with evidence for the way seals were recorded for Cullimore's catalogue.

In 1989 Muzahem Mahmud Hussein found the second of four rich tombs in the harem section of the NorthWest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The tomb contained the burials of Yaba, queen of Tiglathpileser III, and of Atalia, queen of Sargon II, and the tomb can therefore be dated to the last decades of the eighth century BC. This paper concerns three pairs of bracelets from Tomb II, and focuses in particular on the strange iconography of one of the pairs.

The object once known as the Burney Relief, and now renamed The Queen of the Night(hereinafter referred to as the Queen) is a mould-made plaque of straw-tempered clay (Fig. 1). Integral with the rectangular background (49.5 × 37 cm) is a nude figure who wears the horned headdress of a Mesopotamian goddess, has lowered wings, dewclaws and bird's talons, holds the divine rod-and-ring symbol in each hand, stands on the backs of two addorsed lions, and is flanked by large owls. Traces of black, red and white paint survive. Since it was first published in the Illustrated London Newson 13 June 1936, the plaque has been hailed as a masterpiece of ancient Mesopotamian art generally dated to the Old Babylonian period and, more specifically, to the age of Hammurabi (reigned 1792–1750 BC according to the Middle Chronology). After more than seven decades in private ownership, the plaque finally came into the public domain when, in 2003, the British Museum celebrated its 250th anniversary with the acquisition of this iconic work.One would expect such a unique piece to have its detractors, and in 1936–7 Dietrich Opitz published an article in which he raised doubts about its authenticity, although Van Buren, in her article appended to his (1936–7), came out in favour of the plaque. Then “a seminal article by Henri Frankfort (1937–9)… caused Opitz (1937–9) to change his mind” (Curtis and Collon 1996: 91–2), and other major scholars have agreed with Frankfort, including Thorkild Jacobsen (1987).In 1970, Pauline Albenda published a short article that focused on two features of the plaque's iconography, namely the “ring and rod” (normally referred to as rod-and-ring) symbols held by the goddess, and the overlapping lions on which she stood. These led her to “conclude that the Burney relief is not genuine”. In 2005, she revived the debate in an article in the Journal of the American Oriental Society.I shall consider in turn the various points she raises (giving the relevant page numbers in brackets) and seek to demonstrate why I think her arguments to be flawed and why I am convinced that the Queen of the Nightis a genuine work of the age of Hammurabi of Babylon.

Traditional views on the development of rotary motion were outlined by Childe (1954). He envisaged a progressive development of a concept that had originated in prehistoric times. Thus, perforated artefacts composed of shell and soft stone from Upper Palaeolithic levels yielded the earliest evidence for hand-held drills (Semenov 1964: 74–8). At least seven thousand years later, during the second half of the fourth millennium, potters in several parts of the Near East, including southern Mesopotamia, made first use of rotary motion (Rice 1987: 12, 132–5). Pictographic signs inscribed on Mesopotamian tablets suggest that the first use of wheeled vehicles was also made at about this time (Piggott 1983: 38) and, for the past twenty five years, it has been thought that the introduction of the lapidary engraving wheel coincided approximately with these two other innovations (for example, see Nissen 1977: 16; Gwinnett and Gorelick 1979: 25–7; Collon 1986: 13–14). However, our recent observations on engraved cylinder seals suggest that the date of the first use of the lapidary wheel should be revised.The fine intaglios of stone cylinder seals preserve detailed evidence for the lapidary technology of Mesopotamia and the surrounding areas of the Near East. A comparative study by the authors of the engraved features on these seals (Sax and Meeks 1995, see also 1994) and those produced experimentally (Sax et al.1998) has shown that it is possible to identify the methods used to engrave the seals. The various techniques, tools and abrasive materials can usually be recognized from the characteristic morphology or “tool-marks” of engraved features.

As a student of Seton Lloyd's, I learnt at first hand about the Diyala excavations in which he had taken part, and this was a memorable experience. Among the many remarkable finds he made at Tell Asmar was a metal hoard of Early Dynastic III date. In the south-east corner of Room E 16:35 of the earlier Northern Palace, plastered into a hole in the wall and hidden behind a later cross-wall, was a pot and within it there were between 60 and 80 copper or bronze objects. “There were drinking cups, lamps, daggers, flat strainers with thin handles, a long drinking-tube with a perforated end. A number of finely wrought bowls both circular and boat-shaped, were nested together in groups, and the collection was completed by various small cooking-pots with bucket handles and vessels whose purpose was not apparent from their shape.” Among these objects were “a hollow knife or dagger handle which … proved to be of bronze and to contain the remnants of an iron blade”, a fluted bowl which recalls those of silver found in the later Tod Treasure and another bowl of bronze which bore a dedication to the god Abu which enabled the nearby temple to be identified since the hoard had presumably originated from it. It is, however, the aim of this paper to examine the two buckets from the hoard and to relate them to other buckets which show similar peculiarities of manufacture.

Studies of the materials of cylinder seals (Sax, 1986, 1991b, and in preparation a, b, c) from Western Asia throughout the 3000 years or so of their production (c. 3500 B.C. to c. 400 B.c.) have shown that there was a chronological evolution in material usage. The seals are chiefly composed of simple mineral assemblages and the selection of particular raw materials appears to have been influenced by such properties as hardness and colour. A general trend, that higher proportions of harder stones were used with advancing time, has been observed (Gorelick and Gwinnet, 1979, 1990; Sax and Middleton, 1992). The trend in increasing hardness is likely to be related to the practical advantages of sealing with harder stones and to the correspondingly greater status that they commanded; it also would have required the development of suitable lapidary techniques. This paper is concerned with trends in material usage for cylinder seals in the latter half of the third millennium B.C. during the Akkadian, Post Akkadian and Ur III periods in Mesopotamia. The evolution in material usage during these periods is markedly different from those of both earlier and later periods, perhaps indicating the operation of special factors of availability, as will be discussed.Details of the materials of the seals in the collections of the British Museum stylistically dating to the Akkadian, Post Akkadian and Ur III periods are included in the catalogue published by D. Collon (Bimson and Sax, 1982). Some minor amendments have been made to the results presented there but these do not affect the overall pattern of material usage.

In autumn 1989 a team from the British Museum worked at Nimrud and Balawat, resuming an association of the Museum with these two sites reaching back nearly a century and a half. At Nimrud work was confined to the excavation of a single room in Fort Shalmaneser (T20), while at Balawat a small trench was opened in that part of the mound where Hormuzd Rassam is believed to have found the two sets of Assyrian bronze gates in 1878. Originally it was intended that a report on the work at Nimrud would be held over until it could be presented in final form after the excavation of Room T20 was completed. In view of the present political situation, however, it is uncertain when operations will be able to resume. Therefore, we have decided to publish a report now.This work would not have been possible without the co-operation and assistance of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Heritage of Iraq, to whom we owe a considerable debt of gratitude. In particular, we should like to mention Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa'id Damerji, the Director-General, and Sd Manhl Jabr, the Superintendent of the Northern Region. Both did everything in their power to facilitate our work. Our representative from the Directorate was Sd Fadhil Abbas Hamdani, who tolerated with great forbearance our ageing Land Rover and the logistical problems caused by working simultaneously at two sites. At Nimrud we also received help from Sd Muzahim Mahmud, in charge of the excavation and restoration work in the North-West Palace, and the discoverer of the immensely rich tombs of the Assyrian queens, and Sd Abd al-Salaam, the representative attached to the Italian mission also working at Nimrud. Throughout the season we stayed at the Nineveh dig-house in Mosul, commuting daily to Nimrud and Balawat. There, we had the good fortune to share quarters with the Italian team from the University of Turin. As well as good comradeship, we are much indebted to them for help with transport arrangements and for liberally sharing with us the fruits of their excellent cuisine. In particular, we should mention the Director of the Italian mission, Paolo Fiorina, and the field director, Angelo Ghiroldi.

The site of Tell Mohammed Arab was excavated by the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq, under the direction of Dr. Michael Roaf, as part of the Eski Mosul Saddam Dam rescue project (Roaf, 1983a, 1983b, 1984). Seven cylinder seals and two impressions on pottery were found in the Middle Assyrian levels and one Neo Assyrian seal came from a Hellenistic pit.Two main areas of Middle Assyrian occupation were excavated. In the Central Area three separate building levels (b, d and f) were interspersed by periods when this part of the site was used for graves (a, the earliest, c and e). Artefacts from level d are comparable to material from Sheikh Hamad, on the Khabur in Syria, which can be securely dated to the 13th century B.C. thanks to a find of tablets. On the other hand there are few parallels with the 15th—14th century Mitannian site of Nuzi and this would indicate that the Mohammed Arab levels are generally later. However, they cannot be too far removed in time because seals 1 to 4, which are Mitannian in style, were found in buildings of phases i and ii in the Western Area (Fig. 1) which probably correspond to level b and part of c in the Central Area.

This Festschrift in honour of David Hawkins has provided the opportunity of publishing a set of caricatures by David, recording some of the participants in the excavations at Kayalidere in eastern Turkey in 1965.