Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh

The Ishtar Temple at NinevehAuthor(s): Julian ReadeSource: Iraq, Vol. 67, No. 1, Nineveh. Papers of the 49th Rencontre AssyriologiqueInternationale, Part Two (Spring, 2005), pp. 347-390Published by: British Institute for the Study of IraqStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4200586 .

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347

THE ISHTAR TEMPLE AT NINEVEH

By JULIAN READE

Nineveh, like modem Mosul of which it is now a suburb, lay at the heart of a prosperous agricultural region with many interregional connections, and the temple of Ishtar of Nineveh dominated the vast mound of Kuyunjik (Fig. 1). Trenches dug on behalf of the British Museum, mainly by Christian Rassam in 1851-2, Hormuzd Rassam in 1852-4 and 1878-80, George Smith in 1873-4, and Leonard King and Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1903-5, impinged on the site. The main temple was almost completely cleared, together with an area to the north-west, by Thompson and colleagues in four seasons between 1927 and 1932 (Figs. 2-3). Many original King and Thompson records are kept in the Department of the Ancient Near East at the British Museum; some photographic negatives are at the Royal Asiatic Society in London. The numerous objects from Thompson's excavations are now divided between the Iraq Museum, the British Museum (where they are registered in the 1929-10-12, 1930-5-8, 1932-12-10 and 1932-12-12 collections, mostly corresponding to the four successive seasons), the Birmingham City Museum, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; some were given to other institutions, and to individuals who had contributed to the excavation costs.

Summary descriptions of all this work, with references, can be found in the Reallexikon der Assyriologie (Reade 2000: 407-9). King's unpublished records include information covering much of Kuyunjik, which should with patient study be amenable to three-dimensional modelling, but there is little about the temple itself. Thompson in 1927-32 worked with modest funding but great determination. He was acting on his own initiative, long after leaving the British Museum, which agreed to sponsor the work but had a limited involvement. His prompt and generously illustrated reports are the most detailed we have of any of the British operations at Nineveh, but they are in journals which cannot have circulated widely abroad. They are anyhow hard to comprehend. Thompson was described by Mallowan (1977: 69) as "an epigraphist by training, who had no high regard for archaeology", and for Thompson the most important finds, on which he continued to work until his death in 1941, were the cuneiform records; the rest consisted largely of what one of his notebooks calls "Parthian junk". He entrusted many of the archaeological responsibilities to colleagues, and his own frustrations at the museum under Budge's keepership ensured that he gave them proper credit for their work, but they had their own lives to lead and seldom published more about the site. There had not been the dramatic discoveries which might have justified a long book, and we are left therefore with the original notebooks and reports. The current paper mainly deals with the architecture and stratigraphy of the temple through all periods, and with some of the more significant objects found; it amplifies and occasionally amends statements I have made elsewhere. There is further information, especially about later occupants of Nineveh, which would reward attention. I am indebted to Dominique Collon, Ann Searight and William Reade for assistance with some of the illustrations used below.

Ishtar of Nineveh (cf. Lambert 2004/5) The very name of Nineveh is reminiscent of the Sumerian divine appellation Nin, and the status

of the town as a leading cult-centre goes back to the mid-third millennium, perhaps much earlier. The names of the goddess of Nineveh (Beckman 1998) are written or transliterated in various ways, notably Shaush(k)a (Hurrian, attested around 2000 BC), Ishtar (best-known, used here), Mullissu (as spoken in the seventh century), Inanna and Ninlil. She was goddess of nature, passion, fertility, sex and war, and a healer too, one of many avatars of the Great Goddess whose personality, activities, influence and evolution are the theme of many studies (e.g. Wilcke and Seidl 1976; Groneberg 1997). While widely worshipped, and especially popular with Hurrians in the second millennium, as Assyrian power grew Ishtar of Nineveh herself became increasingly a state goddess closely associated with the god Ashur. Almost any Assyrian representation of a largely naked woman is liable to be seen as some manifestation of Ishtar. There are prehistoric

Iraq LXVII/ 1 ( 2005 ) = RAJI 49/2 ( 2005 )



348 JULIAN READE

KUYUNJIK,| c.640 BC: sketch

North Gate?

/ P ~ ~ ~ ~~alace

Temple? East Gate

0 50 100 200m.

Fig. 1. Kuyunjik about 640 BC. Author's drawing.

versions, and many more in various postures, with stylistic changes, between the third and first millennia (e.g. Gut et at 2001: 118-19, Abb. 14.154, 15.156; Reade 2002: 556-7, Figs. 4, 5, 7). Although Ishtar of Nineveh was not the only goddess resident in that city, she is surely represented on some of the terracottas found at Kuyunjik itself (Fig. 4). A pair of good candidates (BM 1905- 4-9, 456 = 98950; 1932-12-10, 47), unstratified but presumably second-millennium, show a woman who is naked but for a high flat hat and necklace, rests one hand on her right hip, and holds her



THE ISHTAR TEMPLE AT NINEVEH 349

Y t

Fig. 2. "Sanctum sanctorum": Thompson's excavation office at Nebi Yunus. Print from British Museum archive.

Fig. 3. "Excavations in progress on the site of the Ishtar Temple". Print from British Museum archive.



350 JULIAN READE

7.~~~~~ J..

' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~4

Fig. 4. Terracotta figurines from Kuyunjik, dated by style. Late third millennium: Upper right: BM 1905-4-9, 457 = 98951 (pale greenish yellow ware, height 6.3 cm). Second millennium: Upper left: BM 1932-12-10, 47 (yellow, ht 8); Upper middle: BM 1905-4-9, 456 = 98950 (yellowish brown, ht 11); Lower left: BM 1904-10-9, 407 = 99374 (pale brown, ht 6.9); Lower middke: BM 1932-12-12, 65 = 124299 (pale brown, painted dark brown, ht 5.6; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXVIII.13, from NN 6). Early first millennium: Lower right:

BM 1904-10-9, 408 = 99375 (pale greenish, ht 5.6). Photograph by D. Collon.




left breast with the other; the two pieces seem to be from the same mould, and on their backs one can see the marks left by a knife that was used to cut away surplus clay before baking. Officially, however, especially in later periods, the goddess of Nineveh tends to be clothed. On the eleventh-century White Obelisk (BM 118807, Fig. 5), she is enthroned in her shrine or bedroom, which was still known by a Hurrian name, the e.nathi (Sollberger 1974: 237-8); she again has a high hat, much like the polos or mural crown worn by Hittite and Hurrian goddesses, a version of which was adopted by Assyrian queens; a long plait or necklace counter-weight hangs behind her back, and she wears a dress, at least as seen in profile. A broken ninth-century glazed tile from the Ishtar Temple shows an armed female wearing a mural crown and a plait, and followed by an attendant; a fragment showing a beard is often illustrated as joining this piece, and one text does praise the beard of Ishtar, but the join looks unlikely, and the figure may even be the queen, wearing weapons like a goddess, rather than the goddess herself (Reade 1987: 139-40, Fig. 1; Livingstone 1989: 18). The evidence for the iconography and identification of avatars of Ishtar in the eighth and seventh centuries has been presented by Collon (2001: 127, 138).

Excavations The Ishtar Temple itself (Figs. 6-7) was excavated during the seasons of 1930-1 and 1931-2

(Thompson and Hamilton 1932; Gut 1995: 38-45). What had happened is clear from Thompson's reports. In 1904-5 he had located the outer courtyard of the Nabu Temple. He hoped in 1927-8 to find its library in unexcavated rooms, but they had been flattened to floor level, while to the south-west, where the inner courtyard of the Nabu Temple should have been, there were "some immensely solid and deep piers of cement and stone" of "a late period" (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: 73). To the south-east, however, below the platform on which the Nabu Temple stood, he found some walls with palace bricks, and an important tablet including a poetic account of wars between Assyrians and Kassites (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: 126-33). Hoping that this was a "Palace of Ashurnasirpal", Thompson continued work there in 1929-30. He eventually realised that the walls themselves were much later, but he found a considerable amount of Assyrian material, partly reused and partly in fill. The ancient ground-surface had risen towards the south-east, and it was at a higher level in this direction that he identified the mud-brick foundations of the Ishtar Temple. He cleared its north-eastern end in 1930-1, and the remainder in 1931-2. Some of his Assyrian finds from the "Palace of Ashurnasirpal" probably derived from the Nabu Temple, and some from an early version of the North Palace nearby. Many bricks and

Fig. 5. Goddess and king in Nineveh shrine. Detail from the White Obelisk (Soliberger 1974: 238, Fig. 1).



352 JULIAN READE

NINEVEH 1927-1932

North limits of excavation Palace approximate area of

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lwell lc (ePalace of Ashurnasirpal")

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F E~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Akkadian

sounding Ux5( Ashumasirpal

sshar nempl

Old Babylonian SS) tablets foundN .M _ \

inthutuese qae N RRK?

Fig. 6. Thompson's excavations in and near the Ishtar Temple. Author's drawing, after Gut (1995: II, 18, Abb. 5).

other terracotta fittings, however, the inscriptions on which begin with the word e.gal ("palace"), may really have been used in the Ishtar Temple rather than in a palace. The uncertainty is created by Ashurnasirpal's liberal but inconsistent use of e.gal, before his own name, at the start of the inscriptions on many objects which were certainly made for temples (Grayson 1991: 359-60, 371-2, 379-85); he never does this on the better-attested stone wall-panels in his Nimrud temples, with one exception for which there is a special reason (Reade 2002a: 189). Since the Assyrians were practical people, probably few of them cared exactly what a brick said. So the Ishtar Temple is the likely source for some of the Assyrian material from the south-eastern quadrant of the area




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354 JULIAN READE

+4 Phase 30 walls, pits and other remains +2

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-18 scales in feet

(1 0 feet = c. 305 cm)

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Fig. 8a. Schematic reconstruction of section from west to east through Squares TT-OO, incorporating nearby features. Author's drawing.

excavated in 1927-8, for much more of what was found during the "Palace of Ashurnasirpal" season of 1929-30, and for most of what was found in 1930-1 and 1931-2.

In 1927-8 Thompson had used a radial system of planning; in 1929-32 the site was divided into 50-foot (15.24 m) squares which were assigned letters (with double letters in 1931-2) and referred to by Thompson as Sections or Sects, hereafter as Squares. The depth of architectural features and of objects was often recorded, in feet above or below datum, and objects often had their square and depth marked on them in pencil, e.g. NN 5 representing 5 feet below datum in Square NN (5 feet above datum would be NN + 5); many of the original marks are legible on objects at the British Museum. Because imperial measurements in feet and inches pervade the most important plan, Fig. 7, they are retained below, usually with a metric equivalent which is often marginally too high (1' [1 foot] = 12" [12 inches] = c. 30.5 cm). The quality of field recording was variable, as suggested by Fig. 3 and described by Mallowan (1977: 71-5), and the remains must have been bewildering, because parts of the temple had been cleared down to or below original floor-levels during ancient reconstructions, post-imperial times and early excavations. Absolute depths of structures and objects were often unrelated to age. Thompson proposed relationships between the architectural remains of the temple and the written evidence. He tended to rely on types and sizes of brick as dating criteria, but does not cite sufficient detail; the dimensions of baked bricks were found to be of little value for dating at Ashur (Haller and Andrae 1955: 8-9). A wider range of evidence needs to be considered. The data recorded by Thompson and his colleagues do make this possible.

The history of the temple and its vicinity has been divided below into thirty phases, some hypothetical, and the recorded archaeological evidence for the most important developments is summarized in Fig. 8a-b.

The early temples (Phases 1-5) Phase 1: Pre- and proto-history. The historical temple was located on or near the top of a mound that was already over 20 m high by the early third millennium BC. Gut (1995) has provided an authoritative analysis of the prehistoric sequence, using the records of Mallowan's Deep Sounding in 1931-2. In Square MM outside the temple, occupation began before 6000 BC. In Squares QRWX, vertically under the later temple, levels of Late or Post-Uruk occupation were reached but not widely investigated (Gut 1995: 40). The final Phase 1 building was burnt, and Phase 2 was to be founded on a layer of ash 1 foot (31 cm) thick. Clay sealings from the Early and Late Uruk periods, and early tablets, together with seals and sealings from the early and mid-third




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-10 10 _ south-western

-1 2 wall of QRWX room CO3 (Ninevite 5 shrine?) C:3

-14 5 _ CPhase 3 l_

-18 (1 0 feet = c. 305 cm) O

-20 X . [ | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Phase 2 -20 0 5 10 Phase 1 (bevelled-rim bowls)

0, centre 0, S corner S, W corner W, centre

Fig. 8h. Schematic reconstruction of section from west to east through Squares O-W, incorporating nearby features. Author's drawing.

millennium (references: Reade 2000: 395; Collon 2003), although poorly provenanced, repeatedly indicate that this area of Nineveh housed some kind of administrative centre.

Phases 2-3. Early/mniddle and midcdle/late thirdl millennium. A rectangular room in Squares QRWX had walls 4.5 feet (1.4 m) thick, made of mud brick on stone foundations (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 61-3, P1. XLVII.1-2). Thompson estimated its original internal dimensions as about 78 by 25 feet (24 by 7.7 m), which allows for a door on one side. He recorded that the room had been arched: this implies a pitched-brick vault, which would give the building a respectable place in architectural history (Fig. 9). The foundation was 20 feet (6.2 m) below datum; the walls were preserved to a maximum height of 10 or 11 feet (3.1-3.4 m), so their tops were 2.8 or 3.1 m below datum. A revetment with stone foundations on part of the exterior, 15.5 feet (4.6 m) below datum, had three layers of ash underneath it, and is the reason for treating the QRWX room as standing through two phases rather than one.

In his final assessment of the site, Thompson (1934: 98) identified the QRWX room as the Ishtar Temple built by Shamshi-Adad I. He did so because of its substantial nature, and because he had dated the Phase 7 temple (attributed below to Shamshi-Adad I) to Ashur-resh-ishi I, a much later king. Gut (1995: 40) suggested that the QRWX room was probably post-Ninevite 5, but there was Late or Post-Uruk pottery at about foundation level inside and outside the room. We are not told which items were found above floor-level inside the room (of which only the north-western end was "in good condition"), but Ninevite 5 pottery was found in parts of Squares QWX at corresponding depths, albeit some of it was mixed with Greco-Parthian material (Gut 1995: 39-40, 150-1). From Square W, at respectively 8 and 18 feet below datum (2.5 and 5.5 m), there were an alabaster jar of the early or middle third millennium (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIV.6), and a cylinder-seal, which Dominique Collon thought might be earlier than Ninevite 5 (ibid.: P1. LXIII.10 = BM 1932-12-10, 64 = 123348; Wiseman 1962: P1. 2b). All this suggests that Phase 2 was Post-Uruk or Ninevite 5, and that Phase 3 was Ninevite 5 or somewhat later, with the possibility that the building lasted into the Agade period.

Gut (1995: 150-1) commented on the unusual nature of some of the Late or Post-Uruk and Ninevite 5 pottery from Square W. Miniature jars were exceptionally abundant in Squares QX; there were further alabaster jars associated with Uruk-Ninevite 5 pottery in Square H (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 105-6, P1. XXI.l; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 85-6, P1. LXI V.2). These vessels would have been suitable as containers for scented oils, the use of which, for cultic and other purposes, is attested in many periods (e.g. Joannes 1993). Even if Thompson missed mud-



356 JULIAN READE

1_ -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T

Fig. 9. Room in Squares QRWX: Possibly the Ninevite 5 shrine of Ishtar (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. XLVII.1). Print from British Museum archive.

brick fittings or partitions in the interior of the QRWX room, it is difficult to imagine what such a large structure was, if not a shrine. Its door could have been in the south-western wall, so that someone entering from an open space to the south-west would have turned left towards the altar; this is the "bent-axis" design, standard for third-millennium shrines in northern Iraq. The ground- plans of later phases of the Ishtar Temple, while destroyed above the QRWX room itself by pitting and Greco-Parthian walls, still point towards this area as the appropriate position for the inner shrine throughout the history of the temple.

A much smaller room of mud brick on stone foundations in Squares TTWW was founded 16 feet (4.9 m) below datum (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 61-2), but "the floor was approximately - 11 feet (?)", i.e. 3.4 m (?) below datum, with a drain of baked bricks beneath it; this suggests that the floor seen by Thompson was secondary, and that this room too had two phases of occupation. Its walls were preserved up to a height of 7.5 or 8 feet (2.3 or 2.5 m), so their tops were around 2.5 m below datum. "In" this TTWW room there were at least three Ninevite 5 vessels "and ... early cuneiform clay tablets"; Gut (1995: 44) suggested that the TTWW room was later than Ninevite 5, but the tablets can be discounted because they were actually found above the room, not inside it (see below); the baked bricks in the drains, while noted by Thompson as being the same size as some of Ashur-resh-ishi I, could equally well have been earlier. The building to which the TTWW room must have belonged was partly underneath the foundations of the Phase 7 temple; the room was roughly aligned with the QRWX room, but about 80 m away, and there is no reason to link it directly with the cult in Phases 2-3. The tops of other walls, seen in Squares UV, may be Ninevite 5 too (Gut 1995: 40-1, Abb. 21).

Phalse 4. Late third mwillenniumw, before Manishtushu. This is a hypothetical structure, presumed to have been destroyed when Phase 5 was built. Alternatively, if the QRWX room itself remained in




use for many centuries, Phases 3 and 4 may be identical. Phase 4 may also be represented by some of the objects discussed together with Phase 5 material below.

Phase 5: Late third millennium, from Manishtushu onwards. According to fragmentary foundation documents of Shamshi-Adad I (Grayson 1987: 51-5), Manishtushu, son of Sargon, king of Agade, built or restored the temple named Emenue, within the precinct (qaqqar) of Emashmash, together with the ziggurrat of Ishtar. Clearly the king of Agade, a city which housed its own avatar of the goddess, already acknowledged or wished to promote the importance of the Nineveh shrine. Manishtushu's documents (nare and temmeni) were found and then replaced by Shamshi-Adad, but not one of them has yet been identified. They were not necessarily numerous, and perhaps some are still encased in brickwork. Their total absence, however, from such an extensively excavated site, would be remarkable were it not that no reference to Manishtushu, whom Shamshi- Adad and probably Ashur-uballit I mentioned with respect, has yet appeared in the Ishtar Temple inscriptions of Shalmaneser I or any later kings. Yet at least some of them surely knew of Manishtushu from the inscriptions of Shamshi-Adad. Perhaps they discarded this information, together with any original inscriptions they happened to find, in order not to commemorate the unwelcome fact that Nineveh was once ruled from Agade (cf. J. Westenholz 2004/5).

Fragments of at least two Agade foundation documents have indeed been found at Nineveh, but they were not associated with the fragments of Shamshi-Adad's foundation documents, and they cannot be attributed to Manishtushu, since they incorporate wording only used in inscriptions of the later kings Naram-Sin and Sharkalisharri (A. Westenholz 2000: 548-52). Five fragments, probably belonging to a single foundation document made of a distinctive stone, slightly rubbed down in antiquity, were found in the Nabu Temple area; the text was apparently a dedication to Enlil, as if the document originated at Nippur and only reached Kuyunjik in the seventh century. A fragment of another such document with similar phraseology was purchased at Nebi Yunus.

No remains of Agade architecture have been identified, though mud-brick foundations of both temple and ziggurrat could have been partly incorporated into the Phase 7 temple. Late Agade activities nearby are reflected in a seal-impression, from Square NN, which apparently bore the name of an Agade court official (Gut et al. 2001: 82, catalogue No. 120). Afterwards, in the Ur III period, Shausha of Nineveh is mentioned in a text of Shulgi, and was the personal goddess of a wife of Shu-Sin; another text refers to Tishatal of Nineveh, probably a king (references: Veenhof 2000). This, together with the shrine-name e.nathi, constitutes the primary evidence that Nineveh was by then ruled by Hurrians, with Shaush(k)a as principal goddess.

Phases 4-5: Objects. There was material of the late third millennium underneath at least part of the Phase 7 temple, to judge by a description of pottery from a tunnel dug below the temple in Square H, and by some late third-millennium beads from below foundation level in Square TT (Thompson, quoted by Gut 1995: 32, 44). Many typical potsherds, and about 10,000 beads and a few amulets of the late third millennium, including one of lapis lazuli showing a woman in Early Dynastic III dress, were mainly found scattered with other material down a slope north-west of Squares GH (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 82, 107-8, P1. XXXVIII.7; Gut 1995: 27; Gut et al. 2001: 76-8, 98-100). How and when the material reached this position is unknown. It could have done so, for instance, during a violent episode, or during reconstruction work. If it came from the shrine, it presumably emerged through a gateway situated in Square I or J at the top of the slope, not far from the entrance into the much later Phase 20 temple.

Objects of the late third millennium in the British Museum that can be associated with the temple have mostly been studied in detail (Gut et al. 2001). They include pottery marked as coming from NN 7, PP 3-6, and SS 3 (ibid.: catalogue Nos. 126-30, 133, 137). There were two beakers from under the "3rd pavement" in Square 00, one of them being inside a "large double pot", and this latter term might refer to an unprovenanced pair of large jars, both of which had lost their rims as if jammed together (ibid.: catalogue Nos. 136, 138, 148-9). Additional terracotta models have since been located (cf. ibid.: 86). Among them are a hollow quadruped marked as coming from NN 3 and a cart from NN 2 (BM 1932-12-10, 689, 694 = 137018, 137023 = Thompson and Hamilton 1932: Pls. LXVII.6, LXVIII.25), and a cart from 00 5 and quadrupeds from 00 3



358 JULIAN READE

and PP 4 (respectively BM 1932-12-12, 944 = 13841 1; 1932-12-10, 687-8= 137016-7 = ibid.: P1. LXVII.30-31); there was another quadruped from PP 5 (ibid.: P1. LXVII.28). The two carts and the PP 4 quadruped are made of pale greenish-yellow ware typical of the late third millennium, and the carts are of types which belong in this period (cf. Bollweg 1999: 127-8, Abb. 119-21). The carts and the 00 3 quadruped are all stated to have been under the 3rd pavement or Pavement III. This can be none other than Pavement III of the Phase 7 courtyard, and most of the other third-millennium ceramics just cited were (or in NN could have been) below the level of this pavement in the same vicinity, as suggested in Fig. 8a. Despite the lack of sure stratification (because Thompson does not seem to have actually removed pavement tiles, so that "under" merely means "at a deeper absolute level than", with consequent scope for intrusions), the presence here of all this third-millennium material must demonstrate that Pavement III, which is one of the pavements described as resting on "plain earth" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 67) or "rubbish filling" (Mallowan, apud Gut et al. 2001: 99), was laid directly either on levels of the late third millennium or on debris of this date brought from elsewhere. The "double pot" with a vessel inside it sounds as if it came from occupation debris rather than fill. Most of these courtyard objects probably belong in Phase 5 rather than Phase 4.

A vessel of mottled stone, probably made in southern Iraq (BM 1904-10-9,405 = 99372: Searight et al.: in preparation), may once have been dedicated in the temple; a fragment of it, bearing a Phase 4 or 5 inscription, was excavated by King in his Shaft 50, probably in this vicinity. There is also a worn male head of an Early Dynastic statue in the British Museum, registered as coming from Kuyunjik, but the provenance is doubtful since it belongs to a collection which included much material from southern Iraq (BM 1856-9-3, 353 = 115032: Reade 2000a: 85).

Phases 5-7: The so-called Head of Sargon, and an associated spear-head The archaeological context of these objects has been unclear (Gut 1995: 38-9; Gut et al.: 2001:

78-9). Mallowan (1936: 110) supposed that the famous head (Fig. 10; Iraq Museum 11331), might represent Sargon of Agade himself. Moortgat (1969: 51), without committing himself, pointed to parallels with Naram-Sin's iconography. Since Manishtushu built the temple, he is a serious candidate too. The head had been deliberately defaced: the ears and beard had been cut, the nose battered, and one eye gouged out while both eyes had lost their inlay; the body was missing.

The spear-head (Fig. 11) has attracted little attention since its original publication (BM 1932-12-10, 55 = 123343: Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 72; Thompson and Mallowan 1933: P1. LXXVIII.42). Its metal was identified as copper. The blade is decorated with a raised rectangular panel along the midrib on both sides, and a neat depression defines the line at which the folded sides of the socket meet to form a hollow cylinder. A band of sheet silver, which encircles the end of the socket, is now split and cracked, but seems once to have been soldered into the shape of a single tight ring. The band is secured by a copper/bronze nail, which passes through the silver into the socket and was bent inwards, evidently before or during the insertion of the shaft. Socketed spear-heads were used during the first half of the second millennium in Iran and Iraq (Moorey 1971: 88; Curtis 1983: 77), as they were in Syria-Palestine, but some examples from Syria-Palestine belong towards the end of Early Bronze Age IV (Tubb 1985: 194), which probably overlaps with the end of the Agade empire. So the shape of the Nineveh spear-head suggests that it was probably but not necessarily later than the head.

The silver band implies that the spear-head was for ceremonial use. So does an inscription which is incised on the exterior of the socket, beginning at the shaft end. In 1932 Thompson described it as "written in linear archaistic cuneiform (perhaps put on at a late date)" and he read it as "B;t-'Nin-fil", suggesting that the spear-head was dedicated to the temple by Ashurbanipal. This reading must have been made when the metal was still covered by corrosion. It does not fit the copy, visible on the drawing of the spear-head published in 1933, which was clearly made after cleaning. Whereas the silver was protected in the earth by the copper acting as a sacrificial anode and is in relatively good condition, the surface of the copper now has the rippled look of metal left too long in a conservator's tank; around the inscription itself corrosion products remain or have returned, the metal is distorted, and there are modern scratches on the signs. Thompson's published copy looks more like e.gal ilu-su-ma, "Palace of Ilushuma", although




_;r

* i __~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Fig. 10. Copper head of an Agade king (Iraq Museum 11331).

the Old Assyrian king of this name was not, so far as we know, connected with Nineveh. Irving Finkel, to whom I am indebted for much advice during the writing of this paper, considers that the text, rather than being archaistic, is written in authentic dedicatory script of the late third millennium or the first half of the second, and that, while only the first sign is entirely certain, what can be seen today is consonant with the reading e'.gal ilu-su-ma, in that the shape and most of the traces that survive unambiguously seem to fit with this interpretation, and the "traces" that do not quite fit could be due to the disturbance. Thus it seems to him, at the least, a plausible reading. It is probably not a Sumerian temple name, such as e. rgasan.kalam.mal, "House of the Lady of the Land", which is what the Ishtar Temple at Erbil was called (George 1993: 90), or

I~ ~ r

e. Fdu6kalam.mal, restored as the name of an unlocated Ishtar shrine (ibid.: 76). It may perhaps be relevant, however, that a poker-spear or spear-butt was dedicated in the Ishtar Temple at

Ashu durng te rign 1of Manishtushuof(Andrae 193:i,n bb 1;ra Grasonm 1987:1).

Noe first-hiand accont of thinae discvr nofthe head andsperha is knownonce wto mie:verhapsvin

nheitx,rther Thopsn benor Hamchiton i witesedthen emergtentc adremovaloysrp of the objetsero ther mlearth. Mlowa (1936 105imst havfoft e senqurd ,oee, and statesie nl thairt "the hseadiel w erasiond



360 JULIAN READE

. .4

I ,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fig. I 1. Top: Inscribed spear-head (length 26.7 cm) from the Ishtar Temple (BM 1932-12-10, 55 = 123343). Drawn by Ann Searight and Irving Finkel. Bottom: Detail of the inscription.

Photograph by D. Collon.

lying loose in the soil on an Assyrian mud platform within the limits of the temple of Ishtar", and that the spear-head was "adjacent to it". No other comparable items were recorded, and these two were surely in the same stratigraphic context. Because the inscription on the spear-head was once thought to be late, we have failed to acknowledge the significance of its provenance, which affects that of the head too. It is given as W 7 in the caption of the 1933 drawing, i.e. Square W at 7 feet (2.2 m) below datum. The words "copper head" are written on the plan, in Square W, over an irregular white area which should therefore be a "mud platform". The top of a similar white area just to the north-east is also given as 7 feet (2.2 m) below datum. Immediately to the north there was the top of the Phase 2-3 QRWX room, the highest point of which was 2.8 m below datum, and immediately to the south, in Square V, there was the top of another mud-brick wall, of Phase 2 or 3, at 14 feet (4.3 m) below datum. The rest of the surrounding area is marked with dots which seem to represent the bottom of the excavation, without identifiable features. The earliest Neo-Assyrian temple floor (Phase 20) was about 31 cm above datum in the adjoining Square R. So this is why the head and spear-head were protected, as their state of preservation indicates, from the fire which burned in parts of the temple in 612 BC: they were already more than 2 m deep. It is irrelevant that no traces of the Neo-Assyrian floors, and of the Phase 7 mud-brick foundations, survived in Square W itself, and that we do not know their exact thickness there: they are present further west in Squares RS, but here the walls and floor of the




temple had been removed by people who mined the area for clay or valuables. Their trenches must have stopped just short of the head and spear-head, as suggested in Fig. 8b.

The simple explanation for the depth, condition and association of both objects is therefore that the head belonged to a statue that was mutilated during or not long after the collapse of the Agade empire, in a period when it was already common practice to vandalize the monuments of disgraced rulers, and that it and the spear-head had been displayed and perhaps eventually buried in front of the shrine of the Phase 5-6 temple. They were then left unnoticed in the debris when the Phase 7 temple came to be built, or were consciously deposited at foundation level in that period. Originally one or both of them could either have been made for dedication at Nineveh, or have arrived there as booty, possibly even as booty from Ashur. Similarly, the collection of war booty would account for the reputed emergence at Basetki, further north, of a Naram-Sin monument the inscription on which implies erection at Agade (Frayne 1993: 113-14).

Suggestions by Mallowan (1936: 105-6, 110; 1977: 78) that the head might already have been in the temple in the Agade period, but that it was still available to inspire one of Sargon II's sculptors in the eighth century, were not supported by evidence. Thompson was more logical. Suspecting that the inscription on the spear-head was added "at a late date", he proposed that the head had belonged to one of thirty-two royal statues which were brought from Elam in 647 BC, some of which Ashurbanipal defaced and displayed in the South-West Palace (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 72; Borger 1996: 54-5, 241). There would then be many possibilities for the date at which the head was defaced. It might have been done when the Agade empire collapsed in Elam; or when the Elamites deported monuments (including the Naram-Sin stela) from Babylonia; or when the thirty-two statues were deported, if the Assyrians responsible thought that it showed an ancient Elamite king. Ashurbanipal might then have buried the head and spear-head, respect- fully or triumphantly, deep below the floor of the temple, with the result that they were protected when Nineveh was captured in 612 BC. If the head was defaced in 612, as proposed by Mallowan and by Nylander (1980), it would be hard to account for its provenance, survival and apparent association with the spear-head. The earlier date for the inscription on the spear-head, however, eliminates the need for all these speculations.

Another factor mentioned by Thompson is that the head and spear-head were found "not far from the largest part of Shamshi-Adad's cylinder". This was at much the same depth, but the plan indicates that it was some 10 m or more distant. Like other monuments visible in the Assyrian capital cities when they were captured, it seems to have been smashed and then exposed to fire. Other fragments of Shamshi-Adad's foundation documents in the British Museum appear to have suffered in similar ways, as if they had all been found by a king repairing the temple and left on display rather than reburied, though they could also have been found and damaged by Greco- Parthians. The copper head and the spear-head had had a different history.

The earlier second-millennium temples (Phases 6-7) Phase 6: Before Shamshi-Adad I. No structural remains of this period have been identified, but the temple obviously continued to exist and was probably repaired from time to time. The political situation before Phase 7, as first indicated by David Oates (1968: 31), is that Nineveh was subordinate to another town, Nurrugum. The relationship between Nineveh and Nurrugum is comparable with that between Ashur, which like Nineveh was to survive and flourish, and Ekallatum, which like Nurrugum remains unlocated. A possible explanation is that Amorite rulers with a pastoralist background enclosed their settlements with walls inside which both people and stock could be accommodated in emergency; examples are Khamira, Shibba, Rimah and Usqa near Tel'afar. If the same applies here, a possible candidate for Nurrugum may even be Nebi Yunus, a mere 1.5 km from Kuyunjik; the Nebi Yunus mound covers some 15 hectares, there is space for a walled area around it, and Neo-Assyrian structures will have cloaked anything earlier that may exist. In any event the Ishtar Temple, while it may have been of little interest to newcomers, maintained its status as a cult-centre even when Nineveh itself was not a powerful city.

At Mani in this period the name of Nineveh, otherwise ni/ne-nu-(wa-)a, iS liable to appear as ni-ne-et (Durand 1987: 224; Wu Yuhong 1994; Ziegler 2004/5). The feminine form reminds one of Ishtar, but Finkel has pointed out that the reading might be ni-ne-a~, given the variable ways



362 JULIAN READE

in which place-names were sometimes rendered. It is not surprising that only one reference to Nineveh is meanwhile known from Kultepe, since there is no reason to suppose that Ashur and Nineveh then had close relations, and the main caravan routes from Ashur to Turkey were far away, on the other side of the Tigris; but the goddess is mentioned at Mari and Rimah (references: Dalley 2001: 156).

Phase 7: Shamshi-Adad I. This king captured Nurrugum in the eponymy of Ashur-malik, his twenty-ninth year of reign; further details about the war were provided by Nele Ziegler during the 2003 Rencontre in London, from fresh Mari letters (Ziegler 2004/5). Shamshi-Adad records rebuilding the temple and the ziggurrat of Ishtar (Grayson 1987: 51-5). Unless he appropriated work begun by a ruler of Nurrugum, he acted with great speed, since he died in his thirty-third year. He visited Nineveh in person, and one of his surviving letters orders that wood should be sent there, presumably for use in the temple (Dossin 1950: 34-5, 41).

Previous kings of Ashur and Eshnunna, in various ways, had alluded to their aspirations as heirs of Agade (e.g. Veenhof 2003: 44), and it has been suggested that Shamshi-Adad's family had ancestral connections with Agade (Charpin and Durand 1997: 372, n. 36). Shamshi-Adad called himself LUGAL KIS, and at Nineveh, in rebuilding Manishtushu's temple, he emulated the earlier emperor. The design of the building, described below, is based on southern rather than northern Iraqi architectural practice. Even Shamshi-Adad's foundation documents, in shape and quality, may have copied those of Manishtushu beside which they were deposited (Reade 2000b). Shamshi-Adad also adopted the imperial art of Agade, examples of which survived in central Iraq and elsewhere (e.g. Cole and Machinist 1998: xxiii). Rainer Boehmer (Gut et al. 2001: 90-2, 121-6, Taf. 2-11) has identified a magnificently carved stone pedestal from Kuyunjik as an Old Babylonian piece based on the style of Naram-Sin; while later reused as a door-socket, it was surely made for the Ishtar Temple. Boehmer has also recognised Assyrian cylinder-seals of this time which are imitations of the Agade style (Reade 1973: 171-2).

The significance which Shamshi-Adad attached to reconstructing the Ishtar Temple is also evident from his statement that "not one of the kings who preceded me had rebuilt that temple, from the Aulum (floruit or fall) of Agade until my rule, until the capture of Nurrugum, a length of seven daru". Figures of sixty or seventy years have been suggested for ddru as "generation", multipled by seven to provide a plausible length for the interval between the Agade period and Shamshi-Adad, but sixteen or twenty years is a better length for a generation. We know from a copy of the Sumerian king-list found at Leilan (Vincente 1995) that this document was present in northern Mesopotamia not long after Shamshi-Adad's reign, and his calculation may have used it, but correlating the list with Amorite genealogies cannot have been easy. One wonders whether it is mere coincidence that the interval between the accession of Sargon I of Ashur and Shamshi- Adad's conquest of Nurrugum seems to be one hundred and forty years, a neat multiple of seven and twenty, and whether Shamshi-Adad failed to distinguish between the two Sargons. It may be much easier for us to do so than it was then.

Although none of Shamshi-Adad's own foundation documents has been found in position, we have three fragments from King and seventeen from Thompson (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: PI. XX.50, identified by Borger 1961: 12; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 105-7, Pls. LXXXI- LXXXIV; see Addendum), besides one from Rassam's excavations and one in Yale. Thompson's come mostly from disturbed areas on the north-eastern side of the temple, and so probably did King's, since Thompson mentions in a notebook that his own 1930-1 excavations in this area had intersected those of 1904. Moreover there is a join, though the break itself was ancient, between the two groups of fragments (BM 1904-10-9, 365 = 99332 joining BM 1932-12-10, 7a, from Square R). A report by King implies a different and much deeper findspot for his material (D'Andrea 1981: 112; Reade 2000: 407), but what appears to be his corresponding field-note only refers to the third-millennium inscribed vessel fragment (Phase 4-5).

The archaeological remains of Phase 7 were originally ascribed by Thompson to Ashur-resh- ishi I (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 63-5). He even wondered whether Pavement III, in the courtyard of the building, might actually be later than Ashurnasirpal II, one of whose bricks was found "under" it (ibid.: 67), but his notebook mentions that the brick was "two or three feet




from edge" of the pavement, and that Mallowan, his colleague at the time, insisted that its depth had no chronological significance. The ascription of Phase 7 to Shamshi-Adad I rests on an accumulation of circumstantial evidence, including some Old Babylonian tablets.

The core of the Phase 7 temple is what Thompson termed the "main foundation" or "platform"; it may also incorporate other phases because of reuse and repairs. As described (ibid.: 58, 64-5, 76, rearranged), it extended "over an area of some 300 by 150 feet" (91.4 x 45.7 m), but the plan shows that neither length nor width was fully excavated, and that the length was at least 106 m. Its top, as preserved, was generally "at + 1 foot [31 cm] to a little below datum-level", while its base was "on approximately -5 to -6 feet [1.5 to 1.8 m]. It is usually about 6 feet [ 1.8 m] thick, of 18-20 courses of tawny or reddish unburnt brick". The bricks were 33-6 cm square, and 10-12 cm thick. In Square T the platform "varied curiously, between 4 to 18 courses, doubtless owing to the original irregularity of the ground". Its base may have been 3.1 m below datum in part of Squares RQ, if it is "the libn [mud-brick] of Anp" (Ashurnasirpal) which "descends 10 feet" according to one of Thompson's field-notes (Gut 1995: 40), and the plan gives depths of 7 to 10 feet (2.2 to 3.1 m) below datum in Squares UV and PPUU. "The central part of the main foundation of unburnt brick in DD" was a "deep mass of libn, covering an area approximately of 50 x 35 feet" (15.4 x 10.8 m), which "goes down for about 19 feet [5.8 m] from its top, the lowest course being on 13 feet [4 m] below datum (some 7 feet [2.2 m] below the level of the main foundation), and the top 6 feet [1.8 m] above". There was "no obvious line of demarcation" between the DD mass and the remainder of the foundation, and both were "the same kind of construction"; perhaps the former had been the base of the Phase 5 ziggurrat.

There was no mud brick under the courtyard occupying parts of Squares NNOOPP and RRSSTT, which was paved with tiles, c. 38.52 by 5.7 cm, laid on earth (Pavement III). This pavement was either laid after the base of the nearby temple walls had been built, or was an earlier feature that was retained and adapted, since a drain ran out from it to the north-west across the main foundation (ibid.: 58, 67, PI. XLVII.3-4). The relationship between Pavement III and the drain is not clear in illustrations, but Thompson regarded them as contemporary with one another, and the drain certainly looks earlier than the subsequent Pavement II. So the surface of Pavement III can be regarded as a Phase 7 floor-level. An annotated photograph confirms it as 2.5 feet (77 cm) below datum, while the upper end of the drain was 3.5 feet (108 cm) below datum.

Since parts of the top of the main foundation, as preserved, were around one metre higher than the surface of Pavement III, they were effectively stumps of the original walls. This also applies to the brickwork projecting still higher in DD: what little there was of it does not look more substantial than a wall-stub (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. XLVI.2), but the floor-level on the north-eastern side of the temple may always have been higher. The base of much of the main foundation was about 1 m lower than the surface of Pavement III. Ground-level outside the temple to the south-west may have been level with the base. On the south-east the ground seems to have been sloping away, since the base is deeper, and on the north-west, in all historical periods, the ground did slope from the temple downwards (sections in Gut 1995: 43, 45).

Inside the foundation there were "seven curious built 'cellars', obviously built at the same time as the foundation" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 66, P1. L.3). The floors of the cellars are white on the plan, as if the mud-brick foundation extended beneath them; this does not seem to have been so, however, because a photograph shows earth under Cellar 7, while the interior of the QRWX room is also white although there is no mention of its having had a mud-brick floor, and the excavations in Cellar 3 in Square TT went deeper than the base of the foundation (unless this was merely because there was a pit in TT: ibid.: P1. LXIX.36). The cellars were rectangles, like rooms without doors. It is plain today that most of them were spaces, filled with earth, below the floors of rooms: similarly the walls of the rooms in the Rimah temple continued below floor- level, while the plans of the early Ashur, Anu-Adad and Sin-Shamash temples at Ashur were largely deduced from spaces of this kind below missing floors (Heinrich 1982: II, Abb. 290-1, 317, 323-4). The brickwork of Cellars 1-3 and 5-7 was stepped out, upwards, so that they were slightly wider at the top, like those in the Ashur Temple (Haller and Andrae 1955: 24, Taf. 34a). If the tops of Cellars 1-3 and 5-6 represent room-plans, then the external walls of the Phase 7



364 JULIAN READE

temple were about 4.5 m thick, and the internal walls about 3 m thick, while the rooms themselves tended to be about 4.5 m wide, but there are variations and uncertainties. In Square NN the position and plan of Cellar 4 are anomalous, suggesting that its date (in this form) is different from that of Cellars 3 and 5 on either side. Cellar 7 in Square T is also exceptional: it is under 2 m wide, as if it underlay a corridor rather than an ordinary room, and Thompson thought that it might possibly have had an entrance in its southern corner. Perhaps it was a structural device, intended to accommodate distortion in the mud-brick mass surrounding it, like the spaces inside the ziggurrat at Rimah (Oates 1967: 85); this does not explain the stepped walls. Thompson did not comment on what appears to have been a comparable but smaller feature without stepped walls in Square I, marked on the plan "sunk - 10 [feet]", i.e. 3.1 m, but he wondered if there might be part of another cellar between Squares T and DD, where his plan shows brickwork apparently stepping upwards to the south. There was more stepped brickwork in Square EE, described as "the apparent 'stairs"' (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 70).

The material of which the mud brick for the foundations was made sounds like the fossil clay, abundant near Nineveh, which would have been suitable for a new temple built in the southern manner, without the typically northern stone footings seen in Phases 2-3. Thompson wondered if the central part of the foundation in DD might have been earlier than the remainder. An explanation for some of the irregularities in the structure, whether or not some Phase 5 brickwork survives, could be that the Phase 7 temple was built as one operation but in two stages. If so, in the first stage the north-eastern area of the temple was built, with the mud brick extending not only underneath the rooms but also underneath courtyard spaces; part of its frontage then is reflected by the course of the drain in the northern corner of the south-western courtyard. In the second stage the temple was enlarged by the addition of the south-western area; but here the courtyard pavement was laid, more quickly, not on mud brick but on earth. Some irregularities may have resulted from repairs after Phase 7, however, since there were later kings who claimed to have renewed the foundations of the temple; they mention finding the records of earlier builders, although these may also have been encountered in higher walls.

What survives of the Phase 7 plan suggests a basically rectangular building. A courtyard at its south-western end was flanked by a single range of rooms, surviving as the cellars on north-west and south-west, with traces of a third range on the south-east. These define the minimum width of the building as roughly 55 m; its length was at least 106 m but possibly very little more. A projection on the outer face of the south-western range, in Squares UUVV, could be the foundation of a pair of towers flanking an outer gateway through (above) Cellar 1. This contained "in its upper earth squared stone blocks and bricks of Shalmaneser I and Sennacherib" (ibid.: 66); a notebook specifies "full of squared blocks, and had several Senn. and Shalm. I. bks". The brick inscriptions are unidentified, but these finds suit its identification as a gate-chamber in later periods too, with solid flooring. The northern end of the north-western exterior wall of the temple in Squares NO is stepped out slightly, twice, as if this entire end of the building was slightly wider, or as if there were towers flanking a gateway; on the other hand this is the very kind of area, above a slope, where later reinforcements probably affected the ground-plan. The existence of a North-West Gate into the temple near this point was suggested by the numerous beads of Phases 4-5, and is strongly favoured by the Middle Assyrian and Neo-Assyrian evidence. In this case there should have been another courtyard occupying part of Squares RSTUVW, as there probably was in the Neo-Assyrian temple, with an entrance to the shrine, which would have been in Squares QRWX. The apparent trace of a cellar in Square TT could represent the bottom of a tower at a gate separating the inner (north-eastern) and outer (south-western) courtyards.

If these elements are combined symmetrically (Fig. 12) they create a ground-plan markedly similar to that of Shamshi-Adad's Ashur Temple at Ashur, as excavated and restored by Walter Andrae (Haller and Andrae 1955: Taf. V) and redrawn by Heinrich (1982: Abb. 289) (Fig. 13). It looks as if the same architect or school of architects was responsible on both occasions. At Ashur, on the central axis of the temple approached from the south-west, there was an external gate, a small outer courtyard, a gate through to a large inner courtyard, and a central entrance to the anteroom of an inner bent-axis shrine; the inner courtyard had additional external gates, one on each side, to north-west and south-east. All these features suit the remains of the Ishtar




50 meters I

Fig. 12. Ishtar Temple at Nineveh. Left: Excavated remains of Phase 7 platform, including fragmentary walls of room of Phases 2-3 (top right) and of Phase 20 gate-chamber and courtyard. Right: Suggested ground-plan of Phase 7 temple, with shrine located roughly over QRWX room of Phases 2-3, and with north-western gate-chamber over that of Phase 20

(cf. Fig. 18). Author's drawing.

0 50m

Fig. 13. Shamshi-Adad's Ashur Temple (after Heinrich 1982: Abb. 289).



366 JULIAN READE

Temple too, except that there is no evidence either for or against a south-eastern gate. Given the damaged state of both buildings, their overall dimensions, c. 55 by 106 + m at Nineveh and c. 54 by 108 m at Ashur, are so close that they could have been identical. Their orientations are extremely close too. There are structural differences, because at Ashur there are stone footings to the walls, and no internal mud-brick platform. A problem with the parallel is the location of Cellar 7; it would have to be regarded as a structural feature, as outlined above, which was completely buried below the inner courtyard when the building was complete.

The Rimah temple is also relevant because its foundation is dated very close to the reign of Shamshi-Adad and he may have been responsible for it, although the only known and perhaps secondary building inscription there was written for someone else (Howard-Carter 1983: 65). During the course of excavation, its fine preservation invited many geometric calculations con- cerning its proportions, ground-plan and elevation; similar ideas have been applied to the Ashur and Anu-Adad Temples at Ashur by Stepniowski (1988). There are comparable possibilities with the Ishtar Temple at Nineveh, but it is too badly damaged for certainty. Presumably the Nineveh temple, like those at Ashur, Leilan and Rimah, also had external and courtyard facades decorated with elaborate engaged columns (Haller and Andrae 1955: Taf. 39b; Weiss 1985: 8; Oates 1967: Pls. XXXII-XXXIII, XXXVI). While the traditional northern bent-axis approach to the inner shrine was maintained at Ashur, and very probably at Nineveh too, it is plain that all these buildings were designed by intellectuals familiar with southern architectural traditions. There are questions needing further exploration such as what this meant for the local priesthoods and elites, and for cult practices; whether southern ideas on temple administration and finance were also introduced; and to what extent such developments may reflect the evolution of Shamshi-Adad's political strategy. Certainly his cult innovations at Ashur, according to the Puzur-Sin inscription (Grayson 1987: 77-8), prompted local resentment. In the end Shamshi-Adad failed to establish his empire, dying too soon to implement effectively any long-term plans, and the imperial structure was not resilient enough to survive him.

Few objects, besides stone inscriptions, clay tablets and pottery, survive from Phase 7. A podium carved in the Agade style was mentioned above. A cylinder-seal of white stone, carved in popular style with an erotic scene and animals, Fig. 21C (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: PI. LXIII.A) was found in Square I at datum level, possibly in the destruction debris of 612 BC, but can be assigned to the Old Babylonian period on the basis of parallels from Susa and Ktlltepe Level IB (courtesy D. Collon); given the continuity of the cult, it could well have been in the temple for over a thousand years. An unprovenanced cylinder-seal is described as chalcedony, and the drawing published by Thompson suggests that it was of high quality (ibid.: P1. LXIII.3); it seems to show a worshipper introduced to a naked goddess.

Phase 7: The Old Babylonian tablets. Fragments found at Nineveh during the 1931-2 season have mostly been published by Stephanie Dalley (2001); Finkel has told me more about them. Provenances which were marked on the tablets, presumably in pencil as on other objects, have now been destroyed by baking to conserve the clay, but many had been safely recorded in the British Museum Catalogue entries (Lambert and Millard 1968); although some have been replaced, in ink, the new versions tend to be shortened or garbled. BM 137310 (Lambert 1992: 78), an administrative inventory from WW 6, was omitted by Dalley; it is reproduced here, Fig. 14.

In his published report Thompson, after discussing Pavement III (Phase 7), proceeds: "In digging about this level near the head of the drain in Sect. 00 we came on fragments of cuneiform tablets of a fairly early period, but, until they are properly worked out, it is inadvisable to suggest a date closer than to say that they are probably not earlier than the Kassite period. A few feet to the NE of the drain-head, at a higher level, were the greater part of a large syllabary tablet of 7th-century date [possibly BM 134526, a lexical fragment in pre-Ashurbanipal Assyrian script, apparently marked 'IT.X.OO ?'], and pieces of alabaster vases [Middle Assyrian, see Phase 10], of which one was carved with two lions" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 68-9). A Thompson notebook, however, states more usefully that "4 or 5 tablets of 2000 B.C. came on the line 00 (the two b[ric]ks on end) s-SS-T". One of them must be BM 134535, an Old Babylonian letter, which was marked "IT.OO.0", i.e. at datum level (followed by "18/14" which I do not understand).




d~~~~~~~~~~~~~1

4'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~4

Fig. 14. Old Babylonian inventory (BM 137310). Photographs by D. Collon.

Two more are the Old Babylonian scholarly tablets, BM 134533 and 134539, which were marked "IT.TT.1I", i.e. 31 cm below datum. The remainder presumably included the unprovenanced scholarly tablets BM 134820 and 134825 (found during the same season), and 280'62 in the Birmingham City Museum (George 1979: 132-3, no. 40). Thompson's notebook further refers to a "2000 B.C. letter" in Square VV, which must have been BM 134534 or 134536; the latter was marked "IT.X.TM", but did not come from Square X which had been dug in 1930-1, because TM stands for Thompson Mallowan, i.e. 1931-2 (Thompson 1940: 86, n. 1); moreover there was also an X on BM 134526, the syllabary from 00.

The broad date of 2000 BC was the one assigned in the 1930s to Hammurapi, or the Old Babylonian period, and Thompson's original assessment of these tablets was clearly correct. His published date for what must be the same group, "probably not earlier than the Kassite period", was presumably written without a clear memory of the tablets themselves; no copies or translitera- tions of them have been noticed in those of his notebooks which are at the British Museum. He may have been influenced by two factors. One is his eventual conclusion that the Phase 7 temple itself was to be ascribed to Ashur-resh-ishi I, which would not have suited the presence there of Old Babylonian tablets. The other is that BM 134553, which has the same provenance "00.0" as the Old Babylonian letter BM 134535, begins with two signs in pseudo-archaic script; it is actually a short votive inscription of Sargon II, as Thompson would certainly have recognised, but it may not have been clean enough to read thoroughly, and he was much more interested in the abundant Neo-Assyrian historical and library texts.

Thompson also states, of the Phase 2-3 room outside the temple in Squares WWTT, that "in this chamber we found pieces of a painted pot and two of the little standless pots ... of the latest [Vth] prehistoric period, and at least two fragments of early cuneiform tablets ... of whatever date they may be" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 62-3). One of these must have been the inventory, BM 137310, which was marked "WW 6", i.e. 1.85 m below datum; it is dated by an eponym, Adad-bani, possibly the man who held this post just before Shamshi-Adad's death. Another fragment must be the Old Babylonian piece transliterated in one of Thompson's notebooks with the heading "WW -3 [92 cm]. Archaic Tablet"; this is the largest member of a group, BM 134537-8, probably parts of one tablet, whose provenance is given in the museum catalogue as "IT.TT-WW.2", i.e. 61 cm below datum. Thompson recorded his tablets as being "in" the Phase 2-3 room, but the top of its wall was deeper, 2.5 m below datum; so the tablets were in a later level.

Individually none of these tablet provenances is satisfactory. For instance, several much later wall-pegs were also recovered from "IT.OO.0" (Lambert and Millard 1968: 91), while Square TT was pitted and produced a wall-peg at 4 feet (1.2 m) below datum (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIX.36) and a marble inscription "probably" of Ashurnasirpal near the bottom of Cellar 3 (ibid.: 66: text unidentified). The one suggestion of real stratigraphy is Thompson's observation that some early tablets were "near the head of the drain in Sect. 00" (which probably means they were not far above the surface of Pavement III), and that fragments of (Middle Assyrian) alabaster vessels were at a higher level. The overall picture, however, is tolerably clear, as suggested in Fig. 8C1 There was a meagre trail of Old Babylonian tablets across Squares 00,



368 JULIAN READE

SS and TT inside the temple, extending outside into Squares W and WW. Those in the temple courtyard were probably about the level of Pavements II and III. They must have been in one or more abandonment levels, then in fill between pavements, and finally in debris churned underfoot when most of the pavement tiles were recycled, but whatever the exact stratigraphy they are most unlikely, unless brought from elsewhere, to have been earlier than Pavement III. Furthermore, Thompson's plan gives the height of the top of the temple's mud-brick foundation in Square TT, as preserved just south-east of Cellar 3, as 3 feet (92 cm) below datum, which is 15 cm lower than the level of Pavement III. So even tablets that were originally in the courtyard, above the pavement, could easily have moved down the slope westward across the walls and even out of the temple, long after 612 BC, when the superstructure and the pavements were largely removed and the site was stripped down to Old Babylonian levels and below. This accounts for the tablets in Squares vww. .

By content, the tablets themselves fall into about four groups, as follows:

1. Administrative list. BM 137310, dated by Adad-bani (Fig. 14). This document could be a list of booty, or evidence for the management of the temple.

2. Scholarly text. BM 134537-8. This was interpreted by Dalley as some kind of Gilgamesh story, possibly a local version. She noted that the script was "quite similar" to that of the Rimah letters. The tablet is made of a distinctive, high-quality probably local clay, resembling that of many Neo-Assyrian Kuyunjik tablets, and this is reflected in the crisp preservation of the signs.

3. Four or five scholarly texts. BM 134533, described by Dalley as a "tiny fragment", is about two-thirds of a badly damaged tablet; Lambert and Millard (1968: 75) gave its dimensions, 7.1 by 7.7 cm, and suggested that it might be a letter, probably because of its shape, but Finkel has recognised it as written phonetically in Sumerian; it may be a cultic hymn to Ishtar as it includes the words g]a-?a-an-m[u and d15. BM 134539 has been identified by Finkel as a cultic text also written in Sumerian. BM 134820 and 134825 also have cultic text written in Sumerian. The Birmingham fragment, 280'62, has part of the Sumerian version of Lugal-e. BM 134820, 134533 and 134539 have horizontal rulings between each line of writing. The poor-quality clay, especially that of BM 134533 and 134539, reminds me of tablets from southern, not northern Iraq. If they did come from the south, then either Shamshi-Adad, who rebuilt the temple, or Hammurapi who claimed to have promoted the cult (Driver and Miles 1955: 12-13), could have arranged for the dispatch of approved cult experts and documents.

4. Three letters, all in different hands. BM 134536 concerns garlic, onions, and a distribution of oil and lard at Nurrugum. Dalley notes that this letter resembles, in form and content, those from Rimah and Mari from the time of Hammurapi. There is no evident connection with the Mari letters that concern Shamshi-Adad's previous capture of Nurrugum, and the implication is that Nurrugum continued to function as an administrative centre. BM 134535 is from Iluni to "the son of my lord". So the likely recipient was a king's son who was visiting or residing in the temple, which was perhaps the finest building available at Nineveh; candidates include Ishme-Dagan as Shamshi-Adad's son, and Mut-Asqur as Ishme-Dagan's son, but there could be others. Iluni's letter invokes Shamash and Marduk, which associates the writer with Babylon; a man of this name was to lead Eshnunna in a rebellion against Samsu-iluna of Babylon (Charpin 1998). BM 134534 mentions a request for grain from the writer's "father" Rim-Sin(?); there were two kings of Larsa of this name, one defeated by Hammurapi and the other by Samsu-iluna. An odd feature of BM 134534 is a reference, apparently obsequious, to "my lord LUGAL iu?"(?); no alternative to Dalley's reading suggests itself. Whatever the connotations of the title (Hallo 1957: 21-6), which was sometimes used at Eshnunna as well as by Shamshi-Adad and Samsu-iluna, it could perhaps have been applied to other kings too.

These tablets represent a tiny proportion of the archives to which they belonged; we cannot hope for more, since there can only be a little soil untouched beneath the remnants of Pavements I and II of the temple. The archives were not necessarily all abandoned or discarded at the same time. There were plenty of opportunities to trash the temple in the wars following Shamshi-Adad's death (e.g. Charpin and Durand 1997: 369, 372-3). Among the forces operating in the area the




Turukku sound the least likely to have respected a grand Mesopotamian temple. Samsu-iluna's problems with Iluni and Rim-Sin emerged some 25 years after the temple was completed.

It may be helpful to mention that two inscribed fragments, not fully described in the British Museum Catalogue, are not Old Babylonian although they come from the same vicinity: BM 123444 from PP is in pre-Ashurbanipal Assyrian script, and BM 134827 from NN is an unpublished Ashurbanipal prism fragment mentioning Elam. There are several more Old Babylonian tablets in the older "Kouyunjik Collection", and I am grateful to Jeanette Fincke for their numbers (K 8755, 8765, 8860, 10468+, 10506, 13942, 18634, and 21119): it is obvious from various factors that most of them were excavated not at Kuyunjik but in southern Iraq, and probably they all were.

Phases 6-7: Painted pottery. Although undecorated sherds will seldom have been saved, fragments of painted pottery of the early to mid-second millennium are recorded from Kuyunjik. At the British Museum there are a few from nineteenth-century excavations, and more from Thompson; others found by him are elsewhere, and gathering them all together might be a useful exercise. Some of the painted sherds (e.g. Gut 1995: II, Taf. 96.1357-9) should probably be dated before Shamshi-Adad, like examples from Taya (Reade 1968: P1. LXXXVII.26-7) and Rimah (Postgate et al. 1997: 53). In contrast there are, from the 1931-2 season, parts of twelve very fine pottery vessels, made of a pale yellowish or pinkish brown ware with darker reddish brown painted stripes (BM 1932-12-12, 1426-7, 1428 A-J = 139828-9, 139830 A-J). The sherds are in good condition (Fig. 15) except that two of them (139829, 139830 J) have the light green staining often seen on material from drains. Clear provenances are written on only three: "NN 7" on 139830 A-B, and "MM found[ation]s" on 139828. While, therefore, they cannot be treated as a reliable group, they look like the remnants of stratified objects from a poorly excavated destruction level rather than random finds. One possibility is that they were mostly found in or near the drain that ran out of the temple through Square NN. A group of similar vessels was found, at Rimah, abandoned in a palace which seems to have been built almost immediately after the demolition of one occupied and sacked under Hammurapi (Postgate et al. 1997: 36, 55, Pls. 74-5; Oates 1972: 85-6). The historical context suggests that the replacement palace at Rimah was occupied and then temporarily abandoned in Samsu-iluna's reign. My recollection of handling the Rimah vessels on site is that they were almost identical with those from Nineveh, as if a single factory supplied fine pottery to both sites. So a date in Samsu-iluna's reign could suit both these vessels from the Ishtar Temple and the letters from the same place. It would not be surprising if both Nineveh and Rimah were ransacked about this time.

The later second-millennium temples (Phases 8-17) Phase 8: Mid-second millennium. There are no records of repairs to the Ishtar Temple for centuries after Shamshi-Adad and Hammurapi. Ishtar of Nineveh was nonetheless highly respected in the long-lasting Mitannian empire that later emerged in the same region (Beckman 1998: 2-7), and the building evidently survived. Glass vessels from the slope north-west of the temple (Barag 1985: 41), Nuzi Ware vases (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 108-9), a seal impression (ibid.: P1. XXII.7), and miscellaneous unpublished glass and faience beads and other fragments from the site are Mitannian or slightly later, dispersed during disturbances or renovations (cf. Tenu 2004/5).

Phase 9. Fragments of archaizing stone inscriptions from the temple area (Grayson 1987: 115-16; possibly Reade 2000b: 87) include a reference back to the restoration of a dilapidated building by Shamshi-Adad I, at least one of whose own inscriptions must therefore have been exposed during a new restoration. This may be ascribed to Ashur-uballit I (c. 1353-1318 BC), whose work and the replacement of whose foundation documents (temmeni) are mentioned in Phase 10 inscriptions; Ashurnasirpal II (Phase 20) also mentions Ashur-uballit's work. Nineveh had been conquered from Ashur either shortly before or during the reign of Ashur-uballit. His restoration of the cult-centre was therefore in the political tradition of previous conquerors, Manishtushu and Shamshi-Adad I. Physical remains of his work may consist of the "very small traces" of the tiles of Pavement II, which was 1 foot (31 cm) below datum, above Pavement III, in Square 00



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| '1

0

\~~~~~~ L

Fig. 15. Late Khabur Ware pottery from the Jshtar Temple area (Phase 7). Top: BM 1932-12-12, 1426. Remainder: BM 1932-12-12, 1428 A-J. Drawn by Ann Searight.




(Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 58, 68). A stone mace-head of a Kassite king Kadashman-Enlil, if the first of this name, could have been booty dedicated to Ishtar by Ashur-uballit (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 63), but it could also have belonged to Kadashman-Enlil II (Brinkman 1976: 134).

Phase 10. Areas of the temple damaged by an earthquake were restored from top to bottom by Shalmaneser I (c. 1263-1234 BC), according to wall-peg inscriptions in which he mentions Shamshi- Adad's and Ashur-uballit's work (Grayson 1987: 205-7). He does not mention Shamshi-Adad's temmeni, but replaced Ashur-uballit's, and left his own; a black stone fragment may be one of them (ibid.: 226). Some Shalmaneser I wall-peg inscriptions refer more generally to his restoration of the ziggurrat, wall and gate, and the depositing of his nare and temmeni, while others describe him as restorer of Emashmash (ibid.: 207-9, 216-17); many of his bricks or tiles have dedications to the goddess (ibid.: 212-13). There are also "palace" bricks of Shalmaneser I from the area (Smith 1875: 140, 247), and possibly a "palace" wall-peg (Grayson 1987: 217).

Further detail about Shalmaneser's work is provided by Phase 12 inscriptions of Ashur-resh- ishi I (Grayson 1987: 309-13). They refer to his restoration of the facade (nameru) of the gate of the great court (ki.kisal.mah); there were lions there by Phase 12. There is no record of who first erected lions, but they could have been Old Babylonian or even older, like one from the foundations of the Ashur Temple before Shamshi-Adad (Haller and Andrae 1955: Taf. 25b). As the favourite beasts of Ishtar they were surely in place, made of stone or glazed terracotta, by the end of Shalmaneser I's restorations. We do not know if they were ever replaced subsequently, because texts tell us little that is specific about the temple decoration; we have to rely on parallels such as the magnificent stone lions which later flanked the entrance to Ashurnasirpal II's shrine of Sharrat Niphi at Nimrud (e.g. Reade 2002a: 183, Fig. 41).

While wall-pegs had long been known at Ashur, Shalmaneser I may have been the first king to use them in the Ishtar Temple at Nineveh. Grayson suggests three versions of their texts, but there could have been more. Wall-pegs of both Shalmaneser and later kings were found by Thompson. The provenances of many are known (Lambert and Millard 1968: 89-91); their depths suggest that, mixed together in the same debris, there were some 34 wall-pegs of Shalmaneser I, 32 of Ashur-resh-ishi 1, 4 of Shamshi-Adad IV, and 92 of Ashurnasirpal II: others are unprovenanced (ibid.: passim; Lambert 1992: 94, index, sikkatu's). Either walls remained upright for many centuries, or later kings replaced old pegs, perhaps not always in the right places. None of the pegs was found in standing architecture, but generally they must have fallen from the exterior walls of the north-western temple frontage, the outer courtyard, and possibly the inner courtyard; presumably there are more, unexcavated, all round the outside of the temple. Nearly all the Ashur- resh-ishi wall-pegs referring to the Lion Gate of the great court were from the north-western frontage. So the North-West Gate of the temple, the existence of which was postulated in the discussion of Phase 7, was probably the Lion Gate, in which case this was one area where Shalmaneser I worked. A brick inscription was reported from the fill of Cellar 1 (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 66: text unidentified), which suggests that he repaired that gate-chamber too.

A few archaeological remains can probably be ascribed to Shalmaneser I. One is Pavement I in Squares NNOO in the outer courtyard, which was a scrap of tiling laid on a base of mud bricks; its surface seems to have been at datum level (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 58, 68). Somewhere near it, "between Sections OO-DD", was a lion vase (ibid.: 68-9, P1. LI.4), with other alabaster vases which must either be identical with or closely related to a group of such things which was excavated in NN, at datum level (Thompson and Mallowan 1933: 148, P1. LXX. 1-6). There were many more such vase fragments (Searight et al., in preparation), including "two baskets of broken alabastra. MM LL and NN" according to the 1932 field catalogue. It sounds as if the vessels were scattered from 00 north-westward, in layers of debris formed after the mud-brick temple walls and most of Pavements I and II had been removed, but that they, like the Old Babylonian tablets, had originally derived from fill packed under a pavement. The vessels conform to a well- known type of Egyptian origin, with attached pedestal bases (lost from the lion vase itself); they held scented oils, and bring the temple alive, as they were surely offered by worshippers. There are examples of these vessels from the Ishtar Temple area at Ashur and elsewhere, and they can



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be dated within a few decades of 1300 BC (e.g. Moorey 1994: 52-3). So they are the kind of material which might well have been buried during Shalnaneser's renovations after the earthquake.

Among other objects from the temple area, not usefully stratified, were a lead plaque representing schematically what seems to be a woman with parted legs, and a lead figurine of someone in a pointed hat and cloak (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XXV.7; Thompson and Mallowan 1933: PI. LXXVIII.43); there is also a small decorated lead disc (BM 1932-12-12, 1031 = 138498, from NN 0). These recall the lead cut-outs found at Ashur, some of which show naked women, paired with men wearing pointed hats and cloaks (Andrae 1935a: 1036, Taf. 45-6); their archaeological context there was unclear, but foundation documents, written by Shalmaneser I and Tukulti- Ninurta I for a temple of the goddess of Nineveh at Ashur, were not far away (Grayson 1987: 196, 264-5). This suggests that miniature representations of sexual activities had a specific function in the cult of this goddess: perhaps they were shaped from lead because this material could easily be reused.

Phases 9-15: The "vaulted tombs" structure. A substantial mud-brick structure, 5.4 m high and about 22.5 m wide from north-east to south-west, was built on the slope north-west of the temple in Squares M, N and BB, with its centre roughly opposite the western corner of the temple's inner court (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 78-80, Pls. XLVIII.2-3, LXXVIII.257). The outer walls of the structure incorporated at least five high arches with mud-brick blocking. It was first regarded as a bridge linking the Ishtar Temple with the eighth-century Nabu Temple to the north-west, and later as "vaulted tombs". Its top was 8 feet (2.5 m) below datum, and therefore lower than the foundations of the temple, with which no connection was established. Its south-eastern face, however, is only about 8 m away from the temple frontage. This structure was obviously inserted into the slope, like a terrace. It is later than the early third millennium, and a few sherds suggest later than the mid-second (Gut et al. 2001: 77), but how late remains unclear. In view of the evidence for earthquakes, it may represent an attempt by Shalmaneser I, or another king, to stabilize the slope below the temple.

Phase 11. A few bricks of Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1233-1197 Bc) refer to him as builder of the house of Ishtar (Grayson 1987: 284). They mention the month tag-ri_rit(?)l, implying that he was working on a special festival house; this could have been an innovation, following southern traditions. Frahm (2000) has identified, in a broken text of Adad-nirari III which probably concerns a bit akitu, a possible reference back to Tukulti-Ninurta's work. Frahm has also offered a reconstruction of the whole history of the bit akitu of Ishtar (not necessarily the only bit akitu at Nineveh), but details are speculative. It was probably not in the main temple, and not excavated by Thompson, which would help explain the shortage of physical evidence. We may postulate a location for the bit akitu somewhere north or west of the main temple, because that is the general area where the few records relating to it have tended to emerge, but the evidence is inconclusive.

Phase 12. Ashur-resh-ishi I (c. 1132-1115 BC), after mentioning Shalmaneser's repairs, records on wall-pegs that another earthquake damaged the Lion Gate in the reign of Ashur-dan I (c. 1168-1133 BC), but that he himself was the king who restored it (Grayson 1987: 311-13). Many of his wall-pegs retain traces of yellow glaze, and the text defines them as rosettes (ia-e-ri). Ashur-resh-ishi claims to have raised the top of the facade, from the temple roof up to the battlements. It had been 15 courses high, which would have been under 2 m; he removed this, and replaced it with 50 courses, c. 6 m high. Thompson associated these statistics with the differing depths of the main foundations of the temple, which he ascribed to Ashur-resh-ishi (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 63-5), but all the text really tells us is that this king raised the height of this famade. He worked on the palace too, and there are fragmentary wall-pegs some of which might refer to either building (Grayson 1987: 314-15, 322-6).

Phase 13. A fragmentary text of Tiglath-pileser 1 ( 1114-1076 BC), written on a tablet which was presumably a foundation document, mentions Shamshi-Adad, Ashur.uballit and Shalmaneser as




kings who had worked before him on a terrace (tamla) connected with Ishtar (Grayson 1991: 57-9). He could have got the earlier royal names from an Ishtar Temple inscription of Shalmaneser I. This work sounds like a reinforcement of the north-western frontage of the temple, perhaps connected with the "vaulted tombs". Other inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I mention the Ishtar Temple but were mainly written for a palace nearby (Grayson 1991: 35, 55).

Two limestone fragments carved with hunt scenes were found in Squares A and P near the Ishtar Temple (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XXIII.12: BM 1932-12-10, 42= 135424; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXII.14: BM 1932-12-12, 5 = 124275). They may come from a monument such as an obelisk of the Assyrian type, with a flat or stepped top and with carvings on the sides. The two fragments were ascribed to Ashurbanipal by Barnett (1976: 49, P1. XLIV) but recognised by Porada as Middle Assyrian (Reade 2000c). It seems not unlikely that they should be ascribed to Tiglath-pileser I, who is the first Assyrian king known to have listed his achievements in the hunt and to have mentioned the display of narrative art in one of his palaces; he could well have introduced the obelisk, a type of monument common subsequently but otherwise first attested in the reign of his son. Assyrian obelisks have seldom been found in position, but two at Nimrud were at either end of a palace or temple faqade, where they had been placed at different times, and one at Ashur was beside a gate. So obelisks at Nineveh were probably no less prominent, and they seldom look as if they were damaged by the fire which burned inside the temple in 612 BC. The most public position might have been outside the North-West Gate (Lion Gate), though the temple had other fa9ades too. Only two or three early obelisks, from the eleventh century, emphasize the violence of the Assyrian king; later ones, which are mainly ninth-century, show him graciously accepting submission and tribute, while violence was transferred to other media.

Phase 14. Ashur-bel-kala erected a limestone statue of a naked goddess (BM 1856-9-9, 60 124963), with a brief inscription on its back which begins e'.gal and possibly implies that it was for public display, ina muhhi siahi (Grayson 1991: 108). The provenance is unsure. Rassam ( 1897: 8-9; Reade 2002: 563, with more references) first describes at length a large "ditch", where he found many wall-panels and the White Obelisk (Phase 16); this was between the southern side of the temple precinct and the South-West Palace. "Afterwards I found in another locality, about halfway between Sennacherib's Palace and that of Assur-bani-pal", the Broken Obelisk (BM 1856- 9-9, 59= 118898); this must have been in or close to the main temple. Finally "we also found in the same ditch" the statue. The order of Rassam's text implies that the statue was found with the Broken Obelisk, but his manner of using the word "ditch" suggests that the statue may really have been found with the White Obelisk, with the paragraph about "another locality" being inserted at this point in order to link the discussion of the two obelisks. If so the statue was erected not by the temple but somewhere near a southern entrance into the Emashmash precinct.

The limestone Broken Obelisk, so-called because its lower half is missing, is usually ascribed to Ashur-bel-kala (1073-1056BC). Found between the two great palaces, it must have been in or near the temple, probably in one of the wide pits that appear on contour plans, although the specific location indicated on a plan adjusted by Rassam (Gadd 1936: 123) really refers to a monument of Shamshi-Adad V (see Phase 22). The Broken Obelisk has a long text listing military and civic achievements (Grayson 1991: 99-105), sometimes similar to those of Tiglath-pileser I whom Ashur-bel-kala had probably accompanied on campaign. Grayson, following Rawlinson, supposed that this obelisk had originally been erected at Ashur, because the section of text dealing with the king's building operations describes his work at Ashur; but the start of this section is lost, and it could well have begun with work at Nineveh. There is a single carved panel showing the king in triumph; his head had apparently been defaced, so the obelisk was probably still visible and vulnerable in 612 BC. Parts of both text and carving have deteriorated further since excavation, a process that may have begun with washing in acid water in the nineteenth century. Subsequent changes in its appearance, sometimes attributed to cleaning (Russell (2003: 4), are not reliable, and the older illustrations are the best (e.g. Reade 1977: P1. IV).

Phase 15. A fragmentary wall-peg of Shamshi-Adad IV ( 1053-1050 BC) records the repair of the terrace (tamlu) of a building connected with Ishtar of Nineveh; another, found in Square U, refers



374 JULIAN READE

to dilapidation and to two lions (Grayson 1991: 118-20). Fragmentary texts on several wall-pegs, some from the area north-west of the temple, have been conflated to produce a text referring to the repair of the faqade (nameri) of a building belonging to Ishtar of Ashur, but Grayson noted that this is unsure (ibid.: 117-18). At least two of these Shamshi-Adad IV documents are dated in his own eponymy, c. 1053, suggesting a political motive in this disturbed period for what may have been insignificant repairs.

Phase 16. A hymn of Ashurnasirpal I (1049-1031 BC) claims that he redecorated the shrine (reference in Lambert 2004/5; see also Seux 1976: 497-503), as many other kings may have done; this text was ascribed to Ashumasirpal II by Menzel (1981: 117). Ashurnasirpal I was also the king probably responsible for erecting the limestone White Obelisk (BM 1856-9-9, 58 = 118807), though other Middle Assyrian kings cannot be excluded (Reade 1975). An old ascription to Ashurnasirpal II is still occasionally defended (e.g. Grayson 1991: 254-6; Russell 2003: 4), but the iconography is accepted as early, and the campaigns described in the text are not compatible with those recorded in Ashurnasirpal II's many detailed inscriptions; much has been made of a reference to horses from Gilzanu/Habzanu (the Hasanlu area of Iran), otherwise known only in the ninth century, but this need merely document an early stage of this important trade. Although a caption is attached to a carving of the king worshipping in the e.nathi, the White Obelisk hardly commemorates one particular building. Instead, like the Broken Obelisk, it advertises the king's achievements generally; it does so with many narrative carvings which were perhaps based on mural decoration in a palace (Pittman 1996), and with an annalistic inscription on top. This is badly worn, as is much of the carved surface, as if the obelisk stood in the open for many years. It was found complete, lying on its side, between the southern side of the temple precinct and the South-West Palace, and was therefore probably displayed at an entrance to the Emashmash precinct, hardly a place where looters would have lingered. Although the White Obelisk too has deteriorated since excavation, it may not have been defaced in antiquity.

Phase 17. Ashur-rabi II (1012-972 Bc) may also have restored the e.nathi, according to two wall- peg fragments ascribed to Ashurnasirpal II (Grayson 1991: 332-3, 337).

Thefirst-millennium temples (Phases 18-27) Phase 18. "Palace" inscriptions of Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC) were written on four or five basalt slabs found between the Ishtar and Nabu Temples (Grayson 1991: 159-60); they probably do come from a palace. A basalt stand having the same inscription was found in Square ZZ, presumably beside Squares XX or YY, above the Ishtar Temple site (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXXXIII.266); another of slightly different shape was found by Smith (Reade 2002a: 154, Fig. 17). So it is unclear whether Adad-nirari II worked on the temple itself.

He is, however, the king to whom many fragments of a black stone obelisk or comparable free- standing monument from the Ishtar Temple area, inscribed and showing scenes of people in western dress bringing tribute, have been tentatively ascribed (references: Grayson 1991: 161). This is dubious. I myself (Reade 1981: 151-4) have even ascribed somewhat similar fragments to Adad-nirari III (810-783 Bc), but the situation is very complicated and needs more detailed work. The number of fragments of this general nature, in various kinds of stone, now split between Baghdad, Birmingham and London (where they are mixed with some from Ashur), probably exceeds a hundred, and they derive from five or ten or more different monuments; most have been illustrated by B6rker-Klahn (1982: 184-6, 194-5, Abb. 139-45, 156-60). What the majority have in common is that they represent processions of tributaries, with relatively little text, and that they have been enthusiastically smashed. It is not unlikely that Ashur-dan 11 (934-912 BC) or his son Adad-nirarI II revived the practice of placing stone monuments like this in the Ishtar Temple precinct, and that their successors continued to do so down to thtF early eighth century. Perhaps there were later examples too, made of metal, which have disappeared completely. So the many fa9ades of the Ishtar Temple will have acquired obelisks gradually, whenever a king wished to add one.




Phase 19. A few bricks and wall-pegs of Tukulti-Ninurta 11 (890-884 BC) were found north-west of the temple (Grayson 1991: 183-4, 186-7). They may have commemorated work on temple or palace; some of them, but not necessarily all, had e.gal at the start.

Phase 20. Ashurnasirpal 11 (883-859 BC) was responsible for a major renovation, traces of which survived in position (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 55, 58, 67, 69-71, 107-8, Pls. XLVI.4, XLVIII.1, XLIX.1, L.4); some are included on the schematic section, Fig. 8b. Two areas of tiling with Ashurnasirpal inscriptions in Squares RS, laid in two layers with bitumen between them, could represent the remains of the inner courtyard. Tiles further north in Square R were laid in one layer with bitumen below. Tiles had been laid "on the surface of the actual libn foundation". The pavement surface was 1 foot (31 cm) above datum.

A stretch of mud-brick wall, some 2.5 m thick and 20 m long, which ran parallel with the outside wall of the temple, survived in Squares RST; its ends terminate sharply on the plan, as if both were door-jambs in good condition. The stub of a cross-wall projected from this wall north- westwards in Square I, so that the eastern corner of a room was identifiable in Squares 10. There was the lower part of an alabaster wall-panel, Fig. 16 (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 93-4; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 70, PI. XLIX.3), some 4.6 m wide according to the plan, facing north-west, in position against the wall between the corner and the supposed door-jamb; its base had been set into the old mud-brick platform. It had been carved with figures whose feet were at datum level, so the floor of the room should have been slightly lower although, according to Thompson's plan, the platform itself survived to a height 2 feet (62 cm) above datum at one point in Square 0. It seems probable that the lower part of the panel was uninscribed and was left in position at Nineveh, while what could have been its upper part was found in fragments, reused in a Phase 29 wall nearby, Fig. 17 (Birmingham City Museum 118'32). This upper part had an

Fig. 16. Base of Ashurnasirpal wall-panel carved with tributaries (Phase 20). Print from British Museum archive.



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Fig. 17. Phase 29 wall built from carved and inscribed fragments of Phase 20 panels, the base of one of which is visible in the background to the left. Print from British Museum

archive.

Ashurnasirpal II inscription in triplicate on its reverse, which is now on display, and is a little over 4.55 m wide (courtesy Phil Watson); Thompson recognised its other face, now built (if preserved at all) into the museum wall, as sculpture destroyed by fire. A cut in the platform at the base of the cross-wall suggested that there had once been at least one more wall-panel in this room, facing south-west beyond the corner.

The inscription (Grayson 1991: 306-10) states that the king had conquered the land of Mehru, and cut timber there for the roofs of Emashmash; the same conquest, somewhere near Mount Amanus, appears in the account of the king's Lebanon campaign between 875 and 867 BC (ibid.: 219). The inscription adds that the temple built in Emashmash by Shamshi-Adad was dilapidated, so Ashurnasirpal planned and rebuilt it from top to bottom, made it bigger than before, and provided Ishtar with a new throne in her sanctuary (e.ku). There were several variant inscriptions on stone describing Ashurnasirpal's reconstruction of the temple (ibid.: 310-15), but the fragmentary and scattered texts have not been classified satisfactorily. Surviving inscriptions may normally have been from the reverses of wall-panels, against walls and therefore unaffected by fire when the temple was destroyed, but some panels had inscriptions on both faces (e.g. Birmingham 227'78). Some inscriptions may be from the foundation documents (na.ru.a) mentioned in one of the many wall-peg texts (Grayson 1991: 328-37, 361-5). The latter too are hard to classify: some of the longer ones refer to Shamshi-Adad, and others mention the e~.nathi in connection with Ashur-uballit and possibly Ashur-rabi II; Shalmaneser I is not mentioned. It looks as if




50 meters

Fig. 18. Ishtar Temple at Nineveh. LeJi: Suggested reconstruction of Phase 20 North-West Gate and inner courtyard, superimposed on remains of Phase 7 platform (cf. Fig. 12). with ,lost shrine still located roughly above QRWX room of Phases 2-3. Rig/ht: Suggested ground-

plan of Phase 7 temple, with similar arrangement. Author's drawing.

Ashurnasirpal's work was done in several stages, and his inscriptions specify those kings whose own inscriptions had been recovered in the course of each operation. There are also some Ashurnasirpal terracotta corbels in the shape of clenched fists which tend to appear in English excavation field-notes as "hands of Ishtar" (ibid.: 375-6). There are bricks with various inscriptions, one of which mentions the c.nathi (ibid.: 381-5).

The positioning of Ashurnasirpal's pavements and wall-panels directly on the mud-brick foundation of the temple confirms his claim to have completely renewed at least part of the building: he must have removed earlier pavements and rebuilt some walls, and he will also then have been free to adjust the ground-plan. The surviving wall-panel in the 10 room helps define the plan, since it showed four large-scale figures, "the king (Ashurnasirpal) receiving three tributary kings, the first wearing sandals, the second barefooted, and the third with upturned shoes", who were moving right from the eastern corner of the room. There were very similar figures in Ashurnasirpal's slightly later palace at Nimrud, shown approaching the doors of the throneroom (Budge 1914: P1. XXVIII). The theme and arrangement suggest that the North-West Gate of the temple led into the 10 room, and that Thompson's plan is correct in implying the existence of a door-jamb behind the king; here there would have been a door into the inner courtyard. Perhaps the composition was extended with more tributaries to occupy the entire north-eastern side of the gate-chamber, with a similar balancing composition on the south-western side. The gate itself would have been Ashurnasirpal's version of the earlier Lion Gate. If this reconstruction is correct, the ancient Cellar 7 was certainly buried below the inner courtyard.

Evidence for Ashurnasirpal's work in the outer (south-western) courtyard is restricted to wall- pegs found in the debris there, so he repaired the faces of walls, but part of the Phase 7 wall in Square DD, or a replacement of similar appearance, was still standing to a height of 1.8 m above datum. If Ashurnasirpal kept the existing Phase 10 floor in this area, which was at datum level, both it and the floor of the north-western gate-chamber would have been, appropriately, slightly below the level of the inner courtyard.



378 JULIAN READE

A little more information about Ashurnasirpal's Ishtar Temple can be obtained from architectural fragments which were found out of position. Among fragments of alabaster wall-panels, found north-west of the temple itself, are some on which the 14-line temple inscription is in between two registers of carving, Fig. 19 (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: 80, Pls. VI-VII; 1929a: 118, P1.XLI.4-10; possibly 1931: P1.XXI.10=BM1930-5-5, 232=136997; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIII.22 = BM 1932-12-10, 45; Weidner 1939: 107, Abb. 86; Russell 1998: 18, Fig. 9, 204-5, 240, Nos. 214-20). There is a lion-hunt in an upper register, and, in a lower register, a libation over an animal originally identified as a lion, but perhaps more like a bull; another fragment (Fig. 19, top right) may show the head of a bull in a hunt. Thompson saw all these as parts of one panel, but they could belong to a pair of panels, over 3 m high, with hunts of lions and bulls above and libations below. A smaller version of the pair, but with the direction of movement reversed, was later carved in the throneroom at Nimrud (Budge 1914: Pls. XII, XIX). The theme of the carvings would obviously have suited a room or building which emphasised the role of Ishtar in the hunt; the bit akitu seems improbable, since there is no reference to Ashurnasirpal having worked on it.

An inscription on the reverse of the hunt panels had been written in unusually large script upside down (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: 80; 1929a: 118, 121, P1. XLIII.49-53). Thompson positively stated that it was "a dedication to Nabu by an unknown king", and he suggested Adad- nirari III or Sargon, both of whom worked on the Nabu Temple. It is difficult to see how he could have learnt this from the seven scraps of text of which he published copies, Fig. 20, and which even Borger (1967: 536) declined to identify. Another possibility is that these were Ashurnasirpal panels from the Ishtar Temple recycled during seventh-century renovations; this would explain why the carvings, although fragmentary, do not seem to have been burnt, as in their secondary positions they would have faced a wall. An unlikely alternative is that the text on the reverse constitutes unique evidence for the use of monumental script on panels reused during repairs after 612 BC.

The other main group of material which may be ascribed to Ashumasirpal, apart from free- standing monuments, consists of fragments of ninth-century glazed tiles and bricks reused in later buildings north-west of the temple. Assyrian glazed decorations were usually though not always displayed out of doors, and in other temples they were sometimes on the platforms which flanked the main entrances. Some of those which Sargon was to place in the Ashur Temple had scenes of warfare (Andrae 1925: P1. 6), and a likely position for some of the Nineveh tiles (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: Pls. XXVIII, XXIX.1-5, 10(?), XXX-XXXI, XXXII.1-5; Nunn 1988: Abb. 125-30) would have been in the inner courtyard, in front of the shrine of Ishtar. They include one scene of warfare with a guilloche frame below. Otherwise there are scenes of warfare, tribute, and triumph, with typically ninth-century chevron frames above and below, and one tile representing the goddess or the queen. There are ninth-century glazed bricks also (ibid.: P1. XXIX.7-9, 11-12), which could have been placed at a higher level on doors or below crenellations, but there are far too few to permit a reconstruction.

Phase 21. A single brick of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC) indicates that he did some work in the temple (Grayson 1996: 170), and Thompson's notebook mentions that two of his bricks were found near Square VV, so perhaps he worked on the South-West Gate. Two joining fragments of fine white stone inscribed with a dedication to Ishtar by Shalmaneser III, possibly part of a statue, were found (Grayson 1996: 114-15; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXXXIX.302: BM 1932-12-10, 9-10); one of them was I foot (31 cm) above datum in Square I, so this monument may have been placed in the north-west gate-chamber, a suitable position for royal statues.

Phase 22. A fragment of a black stone monument, probably a stela, which was inscribed with part of the annals of Shamshi-Adad V (823-811 BC), was found on the northern side of the temple area by Loftus (Grayson 1996: 180-8: BM 1856-9-3, 1510 - 1 15020). As explained elsewhere (Reade and Walker 1982: 1 15), its position is marked on the unpublished original excavation plan in the British Library, at a point where another version states "portion of obelisk discovered by Mr Rassam". It is unclear whether this monument was in the temple or the palace.




Fig. 19. Ashurnasirpal lion-hunt, possible bull-hunt, and libation scene fragments (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: Pls. VI-VII).



380 JULIAN READE

Inscriptiam. o. Wok of Ashr spttScLdtuytw (Pt. ) L6r9e dtaractzvs, L.n s 44" ap t.

4-9 51 O 50 A Onk 5Z .3V4.

f50AO1c:tt k (/s hea

d /:

Fig. 20. Inscription on reverse of Ashurnasirpal hunt and libation scenes (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: P1. XLJII.49-53).

Phase 23. Bricks of Adad-nirari III (810-783 BC) state that he worked on a palace at Nineveh, completing his father's work, and that he built the Nabu Temple (Grayson 1996: 218-20); work on the latter occupied the years 788-787 BC (Millard 1994: 58), an indication of the speed with which such things could be done. A fragmentary text suggests that he repaired the bit akitu (see Phase 11). Although Adad-nirari may have been responsible for one of the obelisks discussed above (Phase 18), the best-preserved monument of his reign surviving from the Jshtar Temple is a stela of yellow limestone, now partly reddened by heat, which describes a major royal grant to the official Nergal-eresh in 797 BC (Grayson 1996: 2 13-16). Like Babylonian kudurru monuments, it was presumably placed in the temple as a permanent record under divine protection; this was effective because, although the name of Nergal-eresh was deleted on monuments found elsewhere, there is no indication that this stela was damaged before 612 BC.

Phase 24. Sargon II1(721-705 BC) rebuilt the Nabu Temple, possibly in 713 BC. There is an inscription, written towards the end of his reign, which mentions Jshtar of Nineveh in a list of pious works (Thompson 1940: 86-8). According to Ashurbanipal (Borger 1996: 254-5), Sargon built (or restored) the bit akitu for Ishtar. A substantial block of limestone, tentatively ascribed to Sargon or Sennacherib by Borger (1967: 536), and to Sargon by Frahm (2000: 77), was found between the Ishtar and Nabu Temples (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: 120, P1. XLII.43); it refers to a bit akitu.

Phase 25. Sennacherib (704-681 BC), on a damaged stone tablet dated c. 702 BC from the slope below the temple, records that he restored the temples of gods including Sin, Ningal, Shamash, Aya (four in one building, as confirmed by Ashurbanipal, apud Fuchs 1996: 291), and the lady of Nineveh, and he refers back to Ashurnasirpal as a previous builder; he probably claims to have used stone and to have rebuilt the place from top to bottom (Frahm 1998: 109-10). Fragments of Sennacherib foundation cylinders found on the temple site belong, according to Frahm (1997: 45-6, 137), to editions dated to 702 and 700 BC, the building sections on which described the South-West Palace and general improvements to Nineveh. Sennacherib's use of such unfocused texts as foundation documents of temples would suit his disdainful attitude to religion as a mere political tool.

Physical evidence for Sennacherib's work on the temple is modest. A brick inscription was reported from the fill of Cellar 1 (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 66: text unidentified), which suggests that he repaired the south-western gate-chamber. There was a stone slab fragment, with a text beginning e.gal, from Square I, 1 foot (31 cm) below datum, which was about level with the floor in the north-western gate-chamber (ibid.: 114, No. 262 =271). The inscriptions on two bricks from the temple site simply give Sennacherib's name and titles (ibid.: 116). These do not reveal what if anything he rebuilt from top to bottom, but the reference to limestone may mean that he reinforced the foundations on the exterior. The survival of the Ashurnasirpal wall-panel in the north-western gate-chamber suggests that at least part of the ninth-century building was still structurally sound.

A broken Sennacherib text on a "small white limestone tablet", dated 690 BC, mentions a bit akitu, Eshahullezenzagmukam, in connection with the Nergal Gate in the outer wall of Nineveh (Ali and Grayson 1999); the excavator mentioned, during the 2003 Rencontre, that the stone was part of the paving of the courtyard of the gate. So it was reused, e.g. during repairs about 613 BC.




Frahm (2000: 75-7) suggested that this bit akitu might have temporarily superseded the version on Kuyunjik.

Phase 26. A list of the pious works of Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) includes a reference to Emashmash (Borger 1956: 94). No building inscription is preserved on an Esarhaddon prism fragment from the temple area (ibid.: 38, Nin. D).

Phase 27. Texts of Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC) provide further evidence on the bit akitu. The building inscription on fragments of Prism T, including one dated 646, which were found north- west of the Ishtar Temple, describes how he restored and decorated with glazed bricks the bit akitu of the goddess which had been built by Sargon (Borger 1996: 132, 254-5, 257: BM 121006 + 127889); a later account mentions that the glazed bricks represented his military triumphs (Fuchs 1996: 268-70, 291). Other Ashurbanipal prism fragments from the area have been assigned by Borger to the Prism A edition (c. 644 BC), the building section on which refers to the nearby North Palace, but no prism fragment can really be assigned to a single "edition" unless it includes both annalistic and building sections. We also know that the goddess travelled to the bit akitu by chariot (Livingstone 1989: 19), and that ceremonies of this kind involved triumphal public processions (e.g. Weissert 1997: 346-50), but the location of the building remains unclear.

There are indeed glazed bricks of the eighth or seventh century that were found between the Ishtar and Nabu Temples (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929: 81; 1929a: P1. LVII.358; 1931: P1. XXVI.2, 4; Nunn 1988: 171-2, Abb. 131-8), but none of them is recorded as showing narrative scenes. Instead they are bricks in high relief, a new technique in Assyria. The subject-matter includes "a winged bull, a figure holding the usual pannikin, and ... vines with grapes"; illustrations also show a probable sphinx, a bush or tree, and an enigmatic man whose head is bare (unless he wore a diadem, now lost), whose hair is arranged in a late eighth- or seventh-century bun, and whose right hand is raised in the finger-snapping gesture used by Sennacherib and earlier kings. While magic figures are unexceptional, the scale and subject-matter of these fragments recall the glazed-brick panels from Khorsabad on which Sargon's name was represented by symbols (e.g. Finkel and Reade 1996). The Nineveh bricks look like another royal name, from another temple fa9ade. Other such high-relief bricks showing "mystic figures" were used in one of the drains of Ashurbanipal's North Palace, built c. 646 (Rassam 1897: 222); these were presumably surplus stock from a temple; one brick which may come from this group shows a sphinx and is unglazed (BM 138719).

A later inscription of Ashurbanipal (Fuchs 1996: 291) also describes how he decorated Emashmash, the Ishtar Temple, with gold and silver, and how he worked on the ziggurrat and outer doors. This work is listed with that in many other cities, and must have preceded the operation described in the main building inscription, at the end of the text (ibid.: 258-9, 295). This latter is again concerned with Emashmash, a former king [Ashurnasir]pal, dilapidation, and restoration with stone (ibid.: 258-9, 295). The text was written on four large stone slabs, possibly door-sills, found in fragments "chiefly towards the S.E. side of the great foundation". It has many similarities to the text on a fragmentary prism found north-west of the temple (Borger 1996: 199-200); the building inscription actually written on what appears to be a detached fragment of the selfsame prism, dated by the eponym of c. 634 BC (BM 122613: Millard 1968: 111, P1. XXVII; Reade 1998: 257; cf. Borger 1996: 356), awaits an editor. At least nine paving-stones, possibly of the same date, have a much shorter text which refers to enlarging the court (kisallu) of the Ishtar Temple and paving it with stone (Streck 1916: 274-7; examples listed by Borger 1996: 354).

It so happens that, in the outer courtyard, Thompson identified "the remains of the latest Assyrian restoration of the Temple ..., two adjacent libn pavements between 00 and DD on the top of the older courtyard of burnt brick ... the level of their top being 1 foot (31 cm) above datum" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 58, 71, P1. XLVI.3); their position is suggested on Fig. 8a. An outdoor mud-brick "pavement" is impossible. Maybe there were two layers of mud brick on top of which a more resistant surface was once laid (as happened with Pavement I), and this was Ashurbanipal's stone pavement. He could well have described his work in the area as a renewal



382 JULIAN READE

of Ashurnasirpal's, since the latter had at least refurbished the walls, to judge by the number of his wall-pegs found in the courtyard. This is the time when Ashurbanipal could also have recycled Ashurnasirpal's hunt-scene wall-panels, possibly for use in the Nabu Temple in the outer courtyard of which he was laying very similar paving-stones (Streck 1916: 272-5; Borger 1996: 353-4).

An incense-burner, finely carved with magical figures, probably seventh-century, must have stood at a temple doorway (BM 1930-5-8, 218: Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XXVII; Reade 2002a: 151, Fig. 14). There are two stone heads of women of similar date: one belonged to Layard (BM 1848-11-4, 317 = 118897), the other was found by Smith in the temple area (S 2496 = BM 135106); they probably belonged to statues dedicated in the shrine, like a comparable statue from near the Ishtar Temple at Ashur (Strommenger 1970: Taf. 19, 20a-c). Two fragmentary apotropaic figurines were published from the 1930-1 season (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXVII.I and 25 = BM 1932-12-10, 48); one is part of a dog from "surface of mound", so might have derived from somewhere like the North Palace, but the other is from Square N, 2 feet (62 cm) below datum, and probably came from the Ishtar Temple.

The Late Assyrian temple archives While the evidence for the various ancient libraries of Kuyunjik is very confused and needs

careful treatment, they were never "inextricably mixed" (e.g. Lambert and Millard 1968: ix; Parpola 1986: 223; cf. Reade 2000: 421-6). It would be easy to collect together the remains of tablets which were kept in the Ishtar Temple in the seventh century (Reade 1986: 217-8). The bulk of the material may be earlier than Ashurbanipal, and might help in our grasp of Assyrian intellectual history if the project were of interest to a philologist. Whether any prisms and tablets with building inscriptions were also preserved in the temple library is unclear.

Specifically, to judge by the provenances recorded by Thompson and preserved by Lambert and Millard (1968: 89-93), the library should have contained most of the cuneiform texts, apart from prisms, wall-pegs, wall-panels and other building inscriptions, found on Kuyunjik during 1928-32. Some of the tablet fragments numbered BM 121033-121131 and 128017-128152, found in 1927-8, are likely to be from the Ishtar Temple; others will be from the Nabu Temple and North Palace, with a few possibly from the outer town ("Sennacherib's House"). Many more of the tablets from the 1929-30 season are likely to be from the Ishtar Temple: they are most of the fragments with numbers in the ranges BM 122624-122657 and 139344-9. The 1930-31 excavation was largely inside the Ishtar Temple site; tablets which should be from this season have numbers in the ranges BM 123356-123409, 123442-5, 123482-8, and 134774-134810. The 1931-2 excavations were largely inside or near the Ishtar Temple, but there were also soundings in the South- West Palace and outer town: tablet fragments have numbers in the ranges 134496-134604, 134811-134833, 137310-11 and 138659. Once the nature of the library is better understood, it should be possible to identify more tablets from it among those excavated by Rassam, Smith and King.

There are very few administrative records from the Neo-Assyrian temple, although two documents relate to its possible function as a bank (Mattila 2002: 102-3). There is also a group of very large and obviously official stamp-seal impressions, representing lions, which were used on storage jars (Herbordt 1992: 142, Taf. 19; Curtis and Reade 1995: 189); they are unprovenanced, from various excavations at Nineveh. What looks like another of them, described as a "lion modelled in relief", was found in Square C north-west of the temple, Fig. 21A (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 83, PI. XXII.3: Iraq Museum); it would have been easy, for the excavators handling a single one of these seal impressions, to suppose that it had been modelled rather than stamped. Since the lion was Ishtar's animal, it seems quite likely that the lion stamp-seals were used by her temple administrators. There is also a sherd painted with a striding lion, Fig. 21B (ibid. PI. XXII.2: 1930-5-8, 194), and one royal sealing (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIII.5).

Other structures in the Emashmash precinct The precinct extended beyond the main temple. At Nineveh, as at Ashur, the temple must have

been on or close to the north-western edge of the precinct; this is because it overlooked a




CJ~ ~~~~~~ All.

A Ci/8 iwtn moJdId in \4I Aeie/ (\)

J \/

D 00 + 6. Cho&lco...

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E SowsZ(cbo7i3C>); Ckam6er/L C.25,6/o&r

Floor . (?$). Fig. 21. Typical drawings by Thompson and his staff, probably all completed in the evenings at Nineveh. A. Lion seal-impression? (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XX11.3); B. Painted sherd (ibid.: P1. XXII.2); C-D. Seals (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIII.1-2); E. Carved box (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XXII.9). Drawings like these, not ideal but far better than nothing, made prompt publication possible: each usually has a provenance

and scale, and items kept in Iraq were annotated with (B) for Baghdad.

depression, beyond which the Nabu Temple was eventually built, and tribute presumably entered the temple through the Lion Gate on this side.

The other prominent building in the precinct must have been the ziggurrat of Ishtar. Shamshi- Adad I's text, though incomplete, seems to say that Manishtushu had built a ziggurrat in Emashmash (Grayson 1987: 51-5), which would make it the earliest "ziggurrat" actually known as such. Shamshi-Adad's version was bigger and better, and he called it Ekitushkuga. In the later periods the ziggurrat was separate from the main temple, like the main ziggurrat at Ashur. While some texts of Shalmaneser I do refer in one breath to the repair of both temple and ziggurrat at



384 JULIAN READE

Nineveh after an earthquake (Grayson 1987: 208), no ziggurrat is mentioned in the very numerous texts of Ashurnasirpal II describing his own repairs to the temple. Sennacherib seems to refer to it once simply as the ziggurrat and once as the ziggurrat of the house of Ishtar (Luckenbill 1924: 99, 102). It is the pride of Nineveh in a Neo-Assyrian prayer to the goddess (Livingstone 1989: 18). Ashurbanipal too refers to the ziggurrat of Nineveh, which he probably redecorated; he calls it Ekibikuga rather than Ekitushkuga (Fuchs 1996: 269, 291). The Sennacherib reference gives the position of the ziggurrat in relation to the South-West Palace, suggesting that as at Ashur the ziggurrat was roughly opposite the South-West Gate of the main temple; modern contours suggest the presence of a high structure in this part of Kuyunjik. In attempting to locate the Ishtar ziggurrat itself more precisely, I have sometimes mistakenly quoted (Reade 2000: 407) King's 1904 statement that he found, about 10-13 m down "in the centre of the mound", a wall "solidly built of rough hewn stones", and that "in a layer of debris near the foot of the wall were found fragments of stone and black basalt bearing inscriptions in very archaic characters" (D'Andrea 1981: 112). There are such pieces from King's excavation, the fragments of the Shamshi-Adad inscription, which mention the ziggurrat, but as noted above (Phase 7), these probably really came from the temple site.

This Ishtar ziggurrat must be distinguished from the ziggurrat belonging to the Adad Temple, which was not far away: many Ashurnasirpal wall-pegs referring to his restoration of the Adad Temple were found just west of the Ishtar Temple (Grayson 1991: 337-9), and a Sargon II prism recording his restoration of the Adad ziggurrat was found in the region of the South-West Palace (Fuchs 1998: 4-5).

Sennacherib (Luckenbill 1924: 99), by relating the position of the Kidmuri Temple to the South- West Palace, showed that it was east of the Ishtar Temple. Menzel (1981: 1, 121-2; Reade 2000: 409-10) suggested that the Kidmuri Temple and various other shrines were also included in Emashmash. One may have been the shrine of Gula: part of ajar, impressed with a seal representing this goddess, emerged in the 1927-8 season, Fig. 22 (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: P1. LVII.340; Collon 2001: 122).

The White Obelisk, and possibly Ashur-bel-kala's naked goddess, were found about 100 m south-south-west of the temple; they would presumably have been suitable decoration for a gate into the precinct. This would have looked down towards the old South-West Palace on the right and the main East Gate of Kuyunjik on the left. The difference in floor-level between the exterior of the Ishtar Temple itself and the South-West Palace in the seventh century was about 6 m; this is estimated from the elevation of the palace floor in domestic quarters south-west of the ziggurrat, which was c. 23.5-25 feet (7.2-7.7 m) below datum (Thompson and Mallowan 1933: 72-4, P1. CVI). Some Neo-Assyrian wall-panels, which showed a royal procession with acolytes and musicians moving up and down a slope (Barnett et al. 1998: Pls. 473-96), were found near the

BRO,NZE LAMP.

Fig. 22. Seal-impression on sherd, showing Gula (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: P1. LVII.340).

Fig. 23. Lamp from one of the Phase 30 buildings (Smith 1875: 140).




White Obelisk and may have lined the sides of a bridge connecting Emashmash with the platform of Sennacherib's South-West Palace.

The destruction of the temple (Phases 28-30) Phase 28: The fall of Nineveh. "The destruction of the Temple by fire, presumably at the Destruction of 612 BC, was obvious on the face of the trench in Sects. O-N-M as one looked S.W. Here the ash, 1 foot thick (31 cm), was inclined at an angle of 450 from the libn to a further depth of 4 feet (123 cm), and ran along for about 20 feet (6.2 m) away from the libn" (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 73; section in Gut 1995: 43, Abb. 24b). This quantity of ash suggests an origin inside the temple. There was more ash elsewhere, but none necessarily from the destruction. The face of Ashurnasirpal's wall-panel in Squares 10 had been affected by fire (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 70), and must have remained visible till 612 BC. The floor surfaces on either side of Ashurnasirpal's wall in Squares RST seem the only ones above or beside which, though not mentioned by Thompson, destruction debris might have been found in position, as suggested in Fig. 8b. Besides the possible statue of Shalmaneser III, there are three smaller objects which may have been close to the positions they had in 612 BC. One is the Old Babylonian cylinder-seal with an erotic scene, Fig. 21C. A stone handle in the shape of a ram's head, with traces of yellow paint, has the same provenance (ibid.: P1. LXII. 12 = BM 1932-12-10, 46). There is also the greater part of a fine limestone oil-jar, from Square S at 1 foot (31 cm) below datum (ibid.: P1. LXIV. I = BM 1932-12-10, 93), but its date is unsure. Naturally many of the other items which were distributed pellmell across the site, including scraps which the reports do not illustrate, are likely to have been left behind in 612 BC, and some may have been in the temple for centuries. Items from abroad include a carved stone box of the ninth or eighth century, perhaps from Carchemish, Fig. 21E (ibid.: P1. XXII.9, cf. Woolley 1969: P1. 28.3-4), and a seventh-century stone cosmetic palette from the Levant coast (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: PI. XXII.4 = BM 1930-5-8, 207, cf. H. Thompson: 1972). A broken chalcedony cylinder-seal has an inscription suggesting it belonged to an Elamite or other Iranian, Fig. 21D (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: P1. LXIII.2- BM 1932-10-12, 670 = 136999).

Phase 29: Seventh-sixth century. The temple, and possibly the ziggurrat, stood on the high spine of Kuyunjik. There is no evidence of deliberate demolition of the walls in 612 BC, but they were exposed to erosion. Their deterioration is recorded in the scattered and broken wall-pegs of Assyrian kings. Thompson's notes describe a wall, visible on his plan in Square 0, which abutted against the only standing wall-panel; it was made of "4 courses of chunks of marble, often inscription and sculpture, all broken up", as shown in Figs 8b and 17. This recalls repairs to the nearby Nabu Temple soon after 612 BC (Thompson and Hutchinson 1929a: 106-7), and similar reoccupation elsewhere on Kuyunjik (references: Reade 2000: 428). So perhaps the wall in Square O was built not long after 612 BC, while some temple walls were still upright, but it was thought to be Parthian (Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 108).

Phase 30: Sixth century and later. Wishful thinking tended to assume that walls incorporating Assyrian building materials were Assyrian in date (e.g. Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: 86; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: 69), but many were really Greco-Parthian or later. Even in his final report Thompson deprecated the possibility of "wholesale depredations" of tiles from the temple site (which might have seemed to detract from the value of his excavations), while also concluding that "later occupants of the mound ... found in (the temple) a plentiful supply of well-puddled clay, and their depredations and the action of the weather had removed the greater part of the libn walling which had once formed chambers of the Temple-building on its surface" (ibid.: 57, 68); most of the facing materials such as bricks, tiles and stone panels had indeed been removed. Some narrow walls above the ancient mud brick around Square 00 were ascribed to the seventh century BC (ibid.: 72); these, however, like some others, and like the small buildings always recognised as Greco-Parthian in a street crossing the QRWX area (ibid.: Pls. XCI-XCII), can only have been built after the main superstructure of the temple had been flattened. Xenophon did not comment on any settlement at Nineveh in 401 BC (Anabasis 3: 4, 10), and Thompson



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found no evidence for architectural continuity between the temple of Phase 27 and these later structures.

It does not necessarily follow that the temple precinct entirely lost its sanctity. In the Greco- Parthian period there was clearly a major shrine a little to the south (Reade 1998a: 69-76). There were also tombs in the vicinity (Curtis 1976); they must have belonged to people who did not bury their dead outside city-walls, but this does not tell us the context. Smith (1875: 139-42), working somewhere east of the centre of Kuyunjik, found "a small chamber like a shrine, solidly built of stones and cement, the walls plastered over and covered with a pattern of lines disposed in lozenges. The shape of the chamber was square, two corners being ornamented with square pilasters, and at one end was a large circular recess. In the chamber I found a bronze lamp with two spouts for wicks", Fig. 23 (S 2495 = SOC 79 = BM 131164). "I was not satisfied that this was really an Assyrian building. ... Very near the chamber, I found the capital of a large column but traced no building to which it could have belonged". St John Simpson kindly tells me that the lamp is early Islamic; the room does sound like a shrine or chapel. Later Thompson was to photograph a large Greco-Parthian capital somewhere on the mound (Reade 1998a: 75, Fig. 12). Smith also found "a square chamber ... built up of stones from the Assyrian buildings near it. All along the walls were placed small square slabs with inscriptions of Ashurbanipal dedicated to the goddesss of Nineveh, none of them in their original position". Smith's two rooms must have been dismantled after he left the site. In the temple area Thompson found many Greco-Parthian terracottas, which include erotic scenes suitable for the goddess, and stone statuettes of varying quality (Thompson and Hutchinson 1931: P1. XXIII. 10; Thompson and Hamilton 1932: Pls. LXII.8, LVII.23, LXVIII.1), but many sites of the period produce comparable material. No doubt there was a Greco-Parthian shrine to Mullissu or Aphrodite on Kuyunjik, but we do not know its location.

Conclusion Anyone travelling today from southern to northern Iraq is immediately aware of entering a

very different type of environment: most obviously, the land is no longer flat, and palm-trees are scarce. Five thousand years ago, when the wildlife and vegetation of both regions were less degraded, the contrast may have been greater still. The domain of the nature goddess of Nineveh will have been distinctive, but she had enough in common with Sumerian Inanna to be identified with her. Ishtar of Nineveh must have begun life as a local goddess, with a reputation which grew because Nineveh was a regional centre. During the third millennium, perhaps earlier, she became famous outside this region. She was respected by rulers of Agade and Babylon as well as by Hurrians and Hittites. Shamshi-Adad built her a magnificent temple.

When Nineveh fell under Assyrian rule and became the second city of an expanding kingdom, Ashur-uballit restored the temple, and later kings took great care to maintain it properly. Just as Ashur, once the god of an obscure mountain, became a supreme imperial divinity, Ishtar of Nineveh also evolved. In Late Assyrian official sources she seems less the mother and more the amazon. While her temple was still the place where women made dedications, the exercise of Assyrian power was displayed on stone panels, obelisks and glazed tiles of which numerous fragments survive. What these narrative monuments meant to the enemies who captured Nineveh in 612 BC is reflected in their current condition: out of doors and accessible, they were broken up much more thoroughly than the wall-panels showing similar themes in royal palaces. It is doubtful whether the temple remained a place of worship. Still the goddess and her cult, stripped of imperial baggage, must have survived: today the nearby town of Karamleis commemorates the name of Mullissu.

Most of the information in this paper has been derived from the records of Campbell Thompson. They have turned out, like the records of Mallowan's Deep Sounding studied by Gut (1995), to be sufficiently detailed to allow for extensive reassessment. They apparently include evidence for a Ninevite 5 shrine; for the ground-plan and architectural sequence of the later Ishtar Temple, and its relationship to the Ashur Temple; for the archaeological contexts of the so-called Head of Sargon and of the Old Babylonian texts from the temple; for some of the contents and decoration of the Late Assyrian temple; and for what happened to the building after 612 BC. This was a




considerable achievement for the philologist described by Mallowan as having "no high regard for archaeology". Uncertainties remain but, of all the buildings on Kuyunjik, the Ishtar Temple is the one most completely excavated and most fully published.

Addendum BM 1932-12-10, 424 = 123481, a whitish limestone flake (convex, not from a cylinder), found in 0(?) 3, has the Shamshi-Adad text (iii.26-iv.3) in slightly larger script, identified in consultation with Dr Farouk Al-Rawi.

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Temple of Ishtar at Nineveh