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Boehmer’s Die Entwicklung der Glyptik während der Akkad-Zeit (1965), although nearly 60 years old, is still the major work on the cylinder seals of the Akkadian Period (2334–2150 BCE). It examines different themes and motifs depicted on the cylinder seals during this period. One of the figures which Boehmer discusses is the ‘kriegerischer Gott’, or martial god. Boehmer records this ‘kriegerischer Gott’ as being depicted on only eight cylinder seals. Despite this limited number of examples, the figure exhibits a unique iconography, which suggests a unique, specific personage. Furthermore, he is depicted on the seal of the scribe Adda (BM 89115), one of the most well-known seals from Mesopotamia, in which he is depicted alongside Utu/Šamaš, Inana/Ištar, Enki/Ea and Isiumud/Usmu. Because the ‘kriegerischer Gott’ is depicted together with these great deities of the Akkadian pantheon, each with their own unique iconography, it suggests that he may likewise be a figure of some importance. Boehmer devotes only one page to his discussion on the ‘kriegerischer Gott’. A more detailed investigation into Boehmer’s ‘kriegerischer Gott’ is, therefore, required. This contribution will, therefore, re-examine this figure by analysing his iconography, the unique attributes which he has, the scenes in which he is depicted, and the figures with which he is associated. The possible identity of the ‘kriegerischer Gott’ will also be addressed.

The intensification of fieldwork in northern Mesopotamia, the upper region of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, has revealed two cycles of expansion and reduction in social complexity between 4400 and 2000 BC. These cycles include developments in social inequality, political centralization, craft production and economic specialization, agropastoral land use, and urbanization. Contrary to earlier assessments, many of these developments proceeded independently from the polities in southern Mesopotamia, although not in isolation. This review considers recent data from excavations and surveys in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey with particular attention to how they are used to construct models of early urban polities.

This article offers a new comparison of the ancient Mesopotamian story Enuma Elish and the biblical Garden of Eden story (Genesis 2:4–3:24) as a case study that demonstrates how attention to myth theory and comparative method might improve studies of ancient Southwest Asian literatures. This comparison illustrates the connection between myth, meaning making, and the lived experiences that produced and perpetuated these myths by focusing on the cultural value of work and memory as expressed in both narratives. In contrast to previous modes of comparison that conclude with claims to the Bible’s superiority, this comparison uses tools from myth studies and comparative religion toward a clearer understanding of the cultural messaging of both myths regarding the purpose of human life.

For many years, the southern Mesopotamia of Ur and Uruk, ancient Sumer, has been seen as the origin centre of civilisation and cities: ‘The urban implosion of late-fourth- and early-third-millennium Mesopotamia resulted in a massive population shift into large sites’ said Nissen in 1988. ‘These new city-states set the pattern for Mesopotamia as the heartland of cities’ (Adams 1981; Yoffee 1998). And for Stone & Zimansky (2005) ‘Remains of the world's first cities are the most noteworthy feature of the landscape in southern Iraq’. But at Tell Brak Joan Oates and her team are turning this model upside down. A long campaign of study, culminating in the new discoveries from 2006 reported here, show that northern Mesopotamia was far along the road to urbanism, as seen in monumentality, industrialisation and prestige goods, by the late fifth millennium BC. The ‘world's earliest cities’ are as likely to have been in north-eastern Syria as southern Iraq, and the model of a core from the south developing a periphery in the north is now ripe for revision.

A group of seven short late Old Babylonian texts, written in Akkadian, found in the early twentieth century in a grave in Susa, form the focus of this paper. The texts, which have attracted much scholarly attention since their publication in 1916 by Jean-Vincent Scheil, have until now not been collated. They are presented here with improved readings, a new translation, and extensive commentary. The mention in two of the texts of an alleged chthonic “weigher” is philologically disproved: psychostasia, the weighing of souls, did not exist in ancient Mesopotamian religion. The suggestion of some scholars that these Old Babylonian Akkadian texts are witnesses to Elamite, or even Iranian, belief in the weighing of souls is methodically refuted. The nature of the seven so-called Susa Funerary Texts (SFT) is discussed, demonstrating their close contacts to two other well-known Mesopotamian genres—personal prayers and reports of oracular or prophetic visions. Finally, the question of their unusual find spot, viz., in a grave, is discussed and the possibility raised that this peculiar location is a result of the texts' magical function.

Traditional archaeological approaches to interregional interaction or culture contact have relied on unidirectional, Eurocentric interpretive frameworks such as the world systems and acculturation models. More recently, researchers from diverse fields such as prehistoric archaeology, the archaeology of ancient literate societies, and historical archaeology have begun to develop a new perspective on interregional interaction. Problems with these more traditional approaches to the archaeology of interregional interaction are summarized, and the main elements are outlined for a new research perspective to study culture contact. A set of methods are suggested to translate this theoretical framework into effective field research. Finally, the expansion of Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. Uruk period is presented as a case study to illustrate some of the ways that models derived from this emerging perspective can be used to better understand interregional interaction in the world's earliest known colonial system. [Keywords: interregional interaction, culture contact, colonies, trade diasporas, Mesopotamia]

The corpus of late antique Babylonian incantation bowls comprises a class of double-bowl sets, consisting of two bowls facing each other, fastened together with bitumen. Occasionally, such bowl sets have been found to contain inscribed egg shells or human bones. The double-bowl configuration is highly reminiscent of the double-jar burial practice attested in Mesopotamia from the second millennium to the sixth century bce. The double-jar (or double-pot) burial involved placing the deceased between two wide-mouthed jars, occasionally joining them with bitumen at the rims. This article explores the double-bowl configuration and suggests a connection between double-jar burials and the later ritual artifacts of the Sasanian period. The double-bowl sets attached with bitumen may have originated on analogy to the ancient burial practice, intending symbolically to bury evil entities or human adversaries.

The site of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria offers a superb stratified sequence passing from the aceramic (pre-pottery) to pottery-using Neolithic around 7000 BC. Surprisingly the first pottery arrives fully developed with mineral tempering, burnishing and stripey decoration in painted slip. The expected, more experimental-looking, plant-tempered coarse wares shaped by baskets arrive about 300 years later. Did the first ceramic impetus come from elsewhere?

Water in its various forms – as salty ocean water, as sweet river water, or as rain – has played a major role in human myths, from the hypothetical, reconstructed stories of our ancestral \"African Eve\" to those recorded some five thousand years ago by the early civilizations to the myriad myths told by major and smaller religions today. With the advent of agriculture, the importance of access to water was incorporated into the preexisting myths of hunter-gatherers. This is evident in myths of the ancient riverine civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, as well as those of desert civilizations of the Pueblo or Arab populations.

Interest in the phenomenon of the \"incantation bowl\" of late antique Mesopotamia has expanded in recent decades as more collections have been published and historians have found new importance in their texts. In the most general terms, the apotropaic bowls consist of basic ceramic ware (Sassanian household plainware)--the kind used for food--whose inside surfaces had been inscribed by a local literate specialist in the exorcism or apotropaic repulsion of domestic demons with protective adjurations for the couple, wife, or other inhabitants of the house. Here, Frankfurter addresses the origin of practice.