Middle Assyrian Seal Impressions from Tell al Rimah

Abstract

The cylinder seals and some impressions from the excavations at Tell al Rimah were published in Iraq 37 (1965). There remained for publication the seal impressions on the business documents dating to the thirteenth century B.C., all of which appear to belong to one archive. They were published by H. W. F. Saggs, D. J. Wiseman and Nicholas Postgate in Iraq 30 (1968), 154 ff. During a month's visit to Baghdad in 1973 I photographed as many impressions as I could find and Carolyn Postgate drew them. After I left Baghdad, she completed the drawings, finding impressions of the same seal on other tablets, and I have not seen the tablets since. She has however collated her drawings in response to my queries and additional photographs have been taken by Peter Dorrell, Jonathan Tubb and Christopher Watkins, working in very difficult conditions; I am grateful for their help. The impressions are extremely difficult to photograph and even in many cases to see, the tablet being sealed before the text is written, while the clearest impressions on the edges give insufficient space for a complete impression. It is ironic that the Middle Assyrians whose intaglio craftsmen produced such superb works of art should have left the worst record because, unlike the Late Assyrians, they left no space on their documents for the seal impression. In these circumstances Carolyn Postgate's work has been arduous, and I am most grateful to her, for her labours have enabled this addition to the corpus of Middle Assyrian seal design to be published.