08
November 2001
The
Iraq Museum has an exhibition of recent
(1999-2001) excavations by Iraqi archaeologists in
its the Assyrian Hall. Important artefacts from
over twenty sites from different parts of Iraq are
on exhibit.
At
Abu Sukhair near the city of Najaf a Sasanian
cemetery was discovered with over three hundred
graves. The graves were dug into the ground and
covered with four to five pottery vessels, some
were brick-built. What is remarkable is the
quantity of miniature glass bottles of various
types and designs. Nearly every grave had about
four to five bottles as burial gifts, in addition
to bead necklaces of semi precious stones, lapis
lazuli, carnelian and glass.
Other
sites to be mentioned include the Diyala region
Tell Kristal has largely Hellenistic and Sasanian
finds, and so do the mounds in the Anbar region on
the Euphrates where most of the finds are Partho-Sasanian
and Islamic. Interesting are
bone pins in the shape of nude females. Habil
Ibrahim south of Babylon also has Parthian,
Sasanian and early Islamic finds. The site of
Harba north of Baghdad has fine style pottery
vessels.
Unfortunately
despite all the attempts by the Department of
Antiquities to fight the illicit diggers, they
still cause a great deal of damage. Last spring at
Hatra an important stone slab from the entrance of
Temple 14, inscribed in Aramaic with the name of
the builder, the name of his tribe and the date of
the building of the temple (101 AD), was stolen.
Fortunately Dr Jabir Khalil Ibrahim has already
read the inscription which will be published in a
forthcoming volume of Sumer.
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