Archæology in Iraq

Abstract

THE first annual general meeting of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial), which was held in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries on October 10, not only served to mark the success which has attended the launching, in times by no means favourable, of an undertaking commemorating one whose name will always be associated with the study of the past in Mesopotamia; it was also an occasion which will be memorable in the annals of the School for the significance of the topics, each in its respective category, which were discussed. First of these was the welcome announcement, made by Sir Bonham Carter as chairman of the Executive Committee, that the School is shortly to issue a journal of its proceedings under the editorship of Mr. Sidney Smith, keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities in the British Museum. This step will consolidate the position of the School and extend its sphere of utility considerably. In conjunction with the further proposal for the institution of a school and hostel in Iraq, which was discussed, but unfortunately remains in abeyance for the moment, it should set British students in Iraq well on the way to the advantages enjoyed by members of the sister institutions in Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. Of the results which it will be open to these students to achieve, a foretaste was offered by Mr. M. E. L. Mallowan's account of his excavations at Arpachiyah, the School's first expedition, which, by demonstrating the essential unity of a culture extending from Crete to India, has made what may well prove a crucial contribution to the study of prehistory in the Near and Middle East.