Excavations in Iraq, 1973-74

The reports given below cover excavation work in Iraq from June 1973 to December 1974. The information on each site has been kindly provided by the director of the excavations, unless otherwise specified, and the final version checked by him wherever possible. The sites are arranged in alphabetical order, according to their best known name. For a variety of reasons the collection of reports is not quite complete on this occasion: recently renewed excavations at Warka and Larsa were too late to be included, and work by the Directorate General of Antiquities at Hatra, Samarra, and in one or two Parthian or Seleucid sites on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad could not be covered. Reports on the work at Hatra, where Building b in the north-west corner of the Temple Enclosure yielded very interesting results, and at Samarra where work began at Qubbat al-Suleibiyah near Qasr al-Ashiq and was continued on the Friday Mosque, will be found in the forthcoming issue of Sumer, and we hope to include reports on all these excavations in our next annual report.The material for this report was assembled by Mr. J. N. Postgate, and the Editors are glad to acknowledge his efforts. They join with him in expressing their gratitude to all those colleagues who have so willingly contributed information on their work, and especially to Dr. Isa Salman, the Director General of Antiquities in Iraq, for his generous co-operation which alone has made the compilation possible.