3 THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF

ARCHAEOLOGY IN IRAQ

David Oates
First of all may I say what a pmiicular pleasure it is to Joan was used for building and particularly for the famous
and to me to see our Iraqi friends and colleagues with us reliefs. The town wall, some 7.5 km in length, ran up to
for this conference. We owe them so much. Whatever we and along the western edge of the river terrace. On the
have done in Iraq has always been with their extraordinar- west side of the citadel overlooking the river were, at the
ily friendly co-operation.We thank you, and we are glad to northern comer, the ziggurat together with the Nim111a
be able in some small way to return your hospitality. temple which was actually attached to it in the northern
manner, south of which was the largest of all the palaces,
I cannot possibly in half an hour give an account of the palace of Ashurnasirpal, the founder of the Late
thi1ieen seasons of excavation by the British School of Assyrian capital city, from which come the most famous of
Archaeology at Nimrud. Since most of the papers to the reliefs. Further south was the so-called Central Palace
follow will be concerned with the objects of art, with the and, finally, the South-West Palace, probably built in the
sculptures, with the ivories, indeed all the objects of seventh centmy (Plan 3 and 3-c). Since Mallowan's time
beauty and interest, I shall leave these to others who know the Iraqis have of course also identified a palace of Adad-
more about them anyway. What I would like to do is to nirari III, just south of the North-West Palace. On the
show you a few buildings and give you some idea of the eastern side of the citadel we worked in the Governor's
setting in which all these things were found, the setting in Palace and one of the largest temples, the temple ofNabu
which that extraordinary phenomenon, the Assyrian known as Ezida (see below), and the little palace across the
imperial monarchy, operated. road from it, the so-called Burnt Palace.

The site of Nimrnd consists of a large citadel mound I wish to tum first to the northern outer courtyard of the
together with an even larger, walled outer town (fig. 3-a). North-West Palace, because that was the centre of the
In Assyrian times, the river actually flowed at the western administration; this is the area that is most easily
foot of the tell itself, thereby providing water transport and accessible from the citadel itself and it was here that the
easy access for the stone coming from upstream which government offices were located (Plans 4a and 4b ). In

- ""*'•I

;>":~p
,,, .....
'----~
,,
I ..(!
-I

Fig. 3-a. The walls of Nimrud as surveyed by Captain Felix Jones in 1852.
32 The excavations of the BSA/

Fig. 3-b. View of the citadel at Nimmd

looking south.

these were found many administrative letters, the well- size of reception room 21, still in use in 612 BC, suggests
known 'Nimrud letters' which provide unparalleled the presence still of officials of high standing.
information about foreign affairs in the late seventh
century. For me these are the most interesting tablets To the south was the great throne room, the focal point of
found at Nimrnd. Tablets were in fact recovered from an Assyrian palace. This area has been magnificently
several rooms along the north side of the courtyard. Here restored by the Directorate General of Antiquities. The
we could identify in the north-east comer a reception fa9ade was restored as early as 1956, and to the west in an
suite with a miniature version of the royal throne room adjoining alcove was found the famous stele of
(plans 4a and 4b, rooms 21, 25- 27), and associated with Ashumasirpal II, which Layard must have missed by a foot
it a number of smaller rooms which were obviously or two and which was one of Max Mallowan's greatest
offices. Adjacent to this were the palace oil store and treasures (Mallowan 1966: I, fig. 27). The inscription
perhaps the wine cellar (30, 31 ). In the heavily eroded records the foundation and completion of the palace in
north-west comer of the courtyard there was part of a about 878 BC, and a vast celebration, a great feast, lasting
similar reception suite (1, 19) and set of offices (3-5) ten days, which was given to some 70,000 people,
which quite clearly also belonged to an important including 47,000 who had worked on the building of the
department of state, but these had gone out of use when new city, 5000 high officials from abroad or from the
Nimrud itself ceased to be the capital about 700 BC. This provinces, 1500 palace officials and another 16,000 or so
was obviously the office of another high official and the who had been the occupants of the original town on this
associated rooms those in which his juniors worked and site. This earlier town was founded by Shalmaneser I in the
wrote and kept their archives. Indeed Room 4 seems to thirteenth century, when Nimrud was obviously quite a
have been the archive room in which the tablets were small place. All that is visible today is of the ninth and eighth
stored (the actual filing boxes can be seen in Oates and centuries with restoration at later dates in the seventh.
Oates 2001: fig. 120). These tablets tell us that one of the
departments in this wing dealt almost entirely with To turn to Ezida, the temple ofNabu (fig. 3-c), the plan
external relations, reports to the king from his governors shows the main entrance from the north from
and commanders on the northern and western frontiers 'Shalmaneser Street' through the so-called 'Fish Gate'
(the letters I mentioned earlier). In a sense this was the (owing to the presence of limestone 'mermen' on either
ancient equivalent of the Foreign and Commonwealth side (Mallowan 1966: I, fig. 198)). In Ezida itself, the
Office. In the seventh century BC, when the capital had outer northern comtyard housed the offices d~ling with
moved to Khorsabad and then Nineveh, the preserved the ordinary business of the temple, and on the south side
records concerned largely local administration within the there is a rather impressive fa9ade leading to an inner
province of which Nimrud remained the capital, but the courtyard with the main shrines of Nabu and his wife
 David Oates 33

''.·~ ..•7 1 •
. .... '":.......
..:::·,:r: .;::·.::·:.:· .

:~_: :'·/:.~:·:·..,
4
Fig. 3-c. Isometric reconstruction of Ezida. . . "." .::\,.:
· · ·.-.~:=.1 =::, : .-r·:·~·:-., . ....
... :;.;.:;··;:_.,..:~ ;·£~:~,

Tashmetum. In this south-east quadrant is a room with a end (a colour illustration can be seen in Oates and Oates
wide doo1way and a little well in the back wall (NTl2), 2001: pl. l 2c). The shrines had little foundation boxes let
which contained a number of tablets. We believe that it into the floor and sealed by small slabs of stone which
was used as the scriptorium or writing room. Nabu was of made their presence quite obvious to the excavator. One of
course the god of writing whose symbol was the stylus, the entertaining ways of passing half an hour after work
and he became the custodian of a great many important was to see whether there was anything in a box. Fig. 3-d
documents by virtue of that office. Many tablets were shows the 1956 dig staff ranged around the room,
both inscribed and kept here, including copies of earlier watching one of our Sherqati workmen opening a box in
texts that were the equivalent of books in a modern which of course nothing was found. But it gives me a
library. Some of these temple library tablets were found chance to illustrate Max Mallowan himself, the great man,
here by us and others more recently by our Iraqi together with his wife enjoying the scene from above.
c?lleagues who are restoring the whole building.
The purpose of this curious pair of small shrines and the
In the north-west quadrant there was a second pair of throne room which opened off the same courtyard is of
shrines, identical with those of Nabu and Tashmetum but some interest. We have tablets which describe a festival
on a very much smaller scale. Next to the smaller shrines called the akitu festival conducted at Nimrud and reported
and opening off a small internal courtyard is what is by the responsible priest to the king who was then in
obviously a throne room, identified by its stone dais and Nineveh. These describe in some detail the course of
the tramlines in the floor in front. Such tramlines are char- events. The statue of Nabu was taken out of his own
acteristic of important reception rooms and were used to shrine, presumably the larger of the two at the southern
carry a sort of trolley brazier which could be advanced or end of the temple, in order to go hunting. He was then
retired according to the taste of the gentleman sitting at the brought back to the bedchamber of the palace and his
34 The excavations o( the BSA!

Before we leave the Nabu temple I should mention that it

was here on this site that we found almost the only good
sequence of later occupation overlying the Assyrian
buildings. First of all, in many of the Assyrian buildings
all over the tell and indeed in Fort Shalmaneser also there
was a layer of what we called squatter occupation, that is
people who crept back into the buildings after the sack of
Nimrud in 612, and appear to have eked out a miserable
existence there. After them there came, at least on the
evidence that we have found, a brief and probably not
very extensive Achaemenid occupation in the sixth
century, and after that, between 250 and 150 BC, a
succession of small village houses, which fortunately we
were able to date by those beautiful things-coins, which
actually tell you the dates of the levels you are dealing
with. A number of coins were found in the graves,
enabling us to define the occupation as lasting from about
250 down to 150 BC which is roughly the date when the
Parthians came into Mesopotamia. The graves and houses
also provided ve1y useful information in what I think
remains the only well-stratified sequence of Hellenistic
pottery known from northern Mesopotamia. Such well-
dated information of course enables us to date many other
sites which contain comparable material.

Just to the n01th of Ezida, the stone-paved roadway

known as 'Shalmaneser Street' owing to the presence of
stone lions bearing an inscription of Shalmaneser III, who
Fig. 3-d. The 1956 expedition stafrwatch the excavation o(a completed much of the building work of his father, leads
ritual deposit in one of the small shrines of Ezida. Agatha through the east gate into the outer town, an area of some
Christie reclines at the top of' the trench, Max Mallowan is on 330 ha (nearly 820 acres), in the south-east corner of
the lefi of' the picture, and Tariq Madh/00111 and David Oates which are the two mounds known as Tulul al 'Azar. The
are in the.foreground. (Photograph J. Oates). overall plan (fig. 3-a) reveals both inner walls and an
outer wall some 400 m to the west and 200 m to the north,
marriage was celebrated. In the Nabu temple itself, shown by Felix Jones as part of the city wall. This
moreover, we found a tablet referring to a number of constituted the outer defence of the elm! ma§arti or
rooms in the building including a bedchamber. It is our arsenal, which Mallowan called Fort Shalmaneser owing
belief that the ceremonies associated with the akitu festival to the Shalmaneser bricks found at the north gate. The
were specifically provided for by this separate suite of outer walls on the west enclosed a very large parade or
rooms with its own small courtyard, the bedchamber, exercise ground (fig. 3-e). A small area of the northern
perhaps the throne room and the two twin shrines which outer wall has been excavated only in comparatively
reproduce the plan of the major temples and which were recent years by our Italian colleagues. We were never able
obviously for some special ceremony (see further to work there because it was all cultivated land, and in any
discussion in Oates and Oates 2001: 119-23). case there was more than enough to do in excavating the
main part of the building, which covered an area of about
In the throne room were found a great many fragments of a 300 x 200 m.
group of unusually large tablets which proved to be the text
of agreements, in fact, 'treaties', between Esarhaddon and The northern part of the building is divided into four
various minor rulers on the Persian frontier to the south- quadrants, two large outer courtyards, which were the
east of Assyria, who agreed thereby to support the ones more easily accessible from outside, and which
accession ofEsarhaddon's son, Ashurbanipal. This in itself were used principally for storerooms and particularly for
is a very interesting historical piece of evidence, and I do workshops, and then to the south, a third quadrant which
not think that it is entirely coincidental that these tablets is subdivided with smaller courtyards. This was used for
were deliberately broken by the Medes (who sacked the the storage of much more precious materials and it was
place in 612 BC) on the throne base associated with the in this area that we and the Italian expedition h.'}ve found
akitu festival, because it was by tradition, at least in most of the vast quantity of ivories from this building.
Babylon, that it was at the New Year aldtu festival that royal The fourth quadrant consists of a very large open parade
authority was confirmed formally by the god of the city. ground with barrack rooms, each with an ablution room
 David Oates 35

Fig. 3-e. Reconstruction of Fort Shalmaneser (courtesy ILN picture librm:v) .

adjoining it, together with a residence which, from marks on the bitumen made by the passage of vehicles
tablets found within it, we know to have been that of the were not consistently in one direction. It followed that
rab ekalli, the chief officer of the whole establishment these bih1men-covered slabs had been relaid. In fact the
(rooms SEl-3, 6, 10, SW6). To the south is the throne whole roadway had been taken up and rebuilt.
room (Tl) and further formal reception rooms as in the
No11h-West Palace, to the west of which are domestic I should mention that two attacks on Assyria were
quarters (Area S). recorded in history: by the Medes in 614 and by the
Medes together with the Babylonians in 612, and it is
The west outer wall stood to a height of over 3 m, but we clear that in the interval the Assyrians felt a quite
were in fact able to count the individual courses in the unjustified confidence attested not only in their lack of
adjacent fallen wall, enabling us to demonstrate that the haste in repairing the gates of the arsenal but also because
01iginal height of the walls was at least 7 m. From the west they campaigned in the south in 613. It is to that interval
outer gate we managed to derive a small piece of history. that we ascribe the repairs that we have noticed in Fo11
Here the gateway and the antechamber had been paved Shalmaneser. Moreover, on the outside of the same
with stone slabs covered with bitumen. But we noticed that gateway, in the wall of a projecting tower, we observed a
although the slabs were apparently in good condition the ve1y deliberate hole. Here was an illustration in the flesh,

Fig. 3} Alabaster statue ofS/wlmaneser III in worhhop

NE 50, in situ where it had been hmughtjor repail; ht.
1.03 m.
36 The excavations of the BSA/

Fig. 3-g and 3-h. The Shalmaneser Ill throne base,

in situ and detail of the central decoration.

as it were, of exactly the technique that the Assyrians can Near the doorway between the north-east and south-east
be seen on their reliefs to be employing to bring down the courtyards was found further evidence of the unprepared
wall of a city that they are attacking. If you go to the state in which the fortress was found at the time of the
Assyrian gallery you can find reliefs of the Assyrians second attack in 612, because there was found a whole
attacking a city and with their picks in their hands digging pile of the capstones which had been used to protect the
away the base of the wall so the upper material would sockets of the great outer and inner doors of the building
collapse. In fact at Nimrud the Assyrians at this point were (Oates and Oates 2001: fig. 97), so it was quite clear that
hoist with their own petard. the Assyrians were not in the least expecting a sudden
 David Oates 37

attack. They were proceeding in quite a leisurely fashion access both to the domestic area comiyard in the south-
to rebuild and repair the damage done by the first attack. west of the building and to the parade ground outside, the
exercise ground (but note that the latter domway, which
I mentioned that the northern two courtyards were was found in 1963, is not shown on the reconstruction,
devoted very largely to workshops. Several had benches fig. 3-e).
along one of the walls which is exactly the same sort of
bench that we used in the dig house to work at, with the The whole of the south-west comer was cut off from the
same holes in the walls to hang things on and support rest of the building by barred doors. This constituted the
racks. In Fort Shalmaneser the floor in front of the bench domestic or harem area, within which was a small throne
is paved, presumably because they were using liquids of room (S5) decorated with a procession of eunuch officers
some sort and didn't want to make the floor a morass of of the court, almost the only fresco of which we could
mud. One of the workshops yielded a statue of recover any substantial design (Oates and Oates 2001: fig.
Shalmaneser III himself which had quite obviously been 113). It is of interest that the figm-es entered the room
broken and brought in for repair (fig. 3-t). In the same from the south door, making a complete circuit around the
room we found a very long (about 1.20 m) iron saw of the room before approaching the throne at the other end,
type that masons used for cutting blocks of stone. In fact clearly a formal ritual that explains the positions of the
when we found the statue the two parts of its broken doors in the larger throne rooms.
comer had already been drilled with dowel holes running
diagonally through, ready for repair. But the repair was External decoration was carried out in the more durable
obviously interrupted by the final sack. material of glazed brick,,and outside the doorway that led
from the southern terrace into the southern part of the
Among the other objects from the storerooms of the outer throne room suite we found a vast pile of broken glazed
two courtyards was a large piece of furniture originally bricks which was put together largely by Julian Reade,
encased partly in bronze with ivory defining the long seat first of all by working out the pattern on the dig and then
and the armrest at one end encased in copper or bronze. by a long period of hard work in the Iraq Museum. The
The seat itself was decorated with shell inlay which we result was an enormous panel, now displayed in the Iraq
were able to recover because much of it was still lying in Museum, with an inscription of Shalmaneser III, two rep-
its original position although the wood had rotted away resentations of the king himself facing a sacred tree in the
(Oates and Oates 2001: fig. 145). middle, two homed animals rampant on either side of
another tree, and a frieze of targets and kneeling animals
Moving to the southern part of the ekal mafarti, to the all the way around the outside (Oates and Oates 2001:
house of the rab ekal/i (Oates and Oates 2001: 164), we fig. 112). Going through the domway bearing this great
found not only his wine cellar (SW6) but other historical decoration, one came into first an antechamber (T3) and
evidence of considerable interest. Obviously this was a then to the great throne room itself (Tl). At the east
store under the direct supervision of the superintendent of end-all that we ever excavated-was an enormous
the building, and in among the wine jars we found tablets throne base set in a niche in the east wall, and beside it
which recorded the rations of wine that were issued not the ablution slab which is a routine part of the furnishings
just to individuals but to whole establishments, whole of a room of that sort. The two large holes in the floor are
departments of government. A very large quantity for secondary and were probably postholes needed to
instance went to the Egyptian scribe. It didn't reflect his support the roof beams, probably after damage in the 614
personal capacity, it reflected the number of people he had attack.
in his department and thereby its importance. So even
from these ration issues, apparently so ordinary, one The throne base makes a suitable piece with which to
begins to get a picture of the underlying administration. conclude (figs 3-g and 3-h). It consisted of two large
One set of wine jars actually had on the top of them, limestone slabs, and was decorated all the way around
perhaps fallen from the upper rooms, great lumps of a with friezes of relief sculpture 25- 30 cm high, depicting
substance known as Egyptian blue which was actually subject peoples from the provinces bringing in the various
used for the inlay in some of the more elaborate ivories. forms of tribute which went to suppmi all this grandeur.
This must have been a precious material, kept under the On the front of the throne base is the most important scene
rab ekalli's supervision, but it also implies that at least which shows the meeting of the king of Assyria,
some work on the ivolies was being executed here at Shalmaneser himself, and the king of Babylon, Marduk-
Nimrud. zakir-shumi, through whom Shalmaneser had achieved
considerable prestige by restoring him to the throne of
At the very southern edge of the Fortress the later, seventh Babylon. This scene is the demonstration of perhaps the
century king Esarhaddon had built an extension to the highest peak of Shalmaneser's political career. Also
outer wall (represented by the whole of the shaded area on depicted are the royal escort and long lines of bearers of
the plan). This included a massive stone far;:ade at its base, tribute to the Assyrian king. One scene depicts a foreign
and in particular a new stone pastern gate which gave ruler, with an attendant bearing his staff of office and
38 The excavations of the BSA!

Fig. 3-i. The great raising of the throne base for transport to
the Iraq Museum, with the ve1y welcome assistance of the
Iraq Petroleum Company, I 962.

another bearing a model of his city, and accompanied by about it but I think you can see the implications. We had
a little boy who is obviously the ruler's son, whose fate terrible trouble with our epigraphist who was convinced
would have been to be educated as a hostage at the there was an inscription on the underside of the slabs and
Assyrian court. Among the tribute are elephants' tusks, insisted on standing underneath while this great (eight
great logs of cedar, jewellery, ingots and metal cauldrons. ton) weight was being hoisted up the 6 m height of the
throne room walls. He was prevented from doing so in the
I'm afraid I've overrun my time but I'll just show you one end, and the throne base was safely dispatched to
more scene, which represents one of the most alarming Baghdad. And for now that must be my last tribute to the
moments of my life (fig. 3-i). I won't tell you any more Iraq Museum.