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UNIVERSITÀ DI TORINO L 2015 LE LETTERE FIRENZE Rivista fondata da Giorgio Gullini. Direttore: CARLO LIPPOLIS Comitato scientifico: GIOR G IO BU cc ELLATI STEFANO DE MARTINO ANTONIO INVERNIZZI CHRISTINE KEPINS K Y STEFANIA MAZZONI ANDREAS SC HA C HNER ST JOHN SI M PSON RO B ERTA VEN C O RI cc IARDI Redazione scientifica: CARLO LIPPOLIS RO B ERTA MENE G AZZI «Mesopotamia» is an International Peer Reviewed Journal. Proprietà letteraria riservata Iscritta al Tribunale di Torino n. 1886 del 20/6/67. Si prega di indirizzare la corrispondenza diretta alla Redazione e i manoscritti a: Carlo Lippolis, Redazione di Mesopotamia, Dipartimento di Studi Storici - Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Sant’Ottavio 20, 10124 Torino. ISSN: 0076-6615 L’archeologia del Vicino Oriente Antico ha conosciuto, negli ultimi anni, distruzioni e devastazioni repentine e inaudite, causa di danni irreversibili a siti e monumenti che erano rimasti quasi immutati per secoli se non millenni. Molte sono le iniziative e gli interventi che la comunità scientifica ha intrapreso in reazione a questa ondata annientatrice della storia e dell’umanità stessa. Tuttavia è evidente che siamo, di fatto, ancora impotenti e ininfluenti: nella maggior parte dei casi non siamo neppure in grado di quantificare a fondo l’entità di quanto è andato o andrà perduto per sempre. Quest’anno la rivista Mesopotamia ha deciso di dedicare il suo cinquantesimo numero ad alcuni dei siti iraqeni che negli ultimi anni sono stati oggetto della furia devastatrice del Daesh: Nimrud, Ninive, Khorsabad e Hatra. Abbiamo dunque chiesto a colleghi di dedicare un loro studio ad argomenti che riguardassero proprio quei siti oggi danneggiati o distrutti. A loro va il ringraziamento della redazione per la sentita e numerosa par- tecipazione a questo numero speciale. Avremmo voluto celebrare in modo diverso i cinquant’anni della rivista, ma siamo convinti che la ricerca, lo studio e la trasmissione della conoscenza siano strumenti fondamentali nella lotta contro ogni forma di oscurantismo e barbarie. * * * In the last years, the Middle-Eastern archaeological heritage experienced sudden and unprecedented attacks causing irreversible harm to sites and monuments that had survived almost unaltered through the centuries. The response of the scientific community to such a wave of destruction has resulted in many actions. None- theless, it is clear that we are still uninfluential and powerless: in the majority of cases, we are not even able to estimate the full extent of the losses. The journal Mesopotamia has decided to dedicate its fiftieth issue to some of the Iraqi sites that have recently been the object of the destructive fury of Daesh: Nimrud, Nineveh, Khorsabad and Hatra. We asked collea- gues and friends to dedicate a paper to these sites, now badly damaged or destroyed. On behalf of the whole editorial board, our thanks to all of them for contributing to this special issue. We wish we could celebrate the fifty years of the journal in a different way, but we strongly believe that research, study and transmission of knowledge are essential tools in the battle against all forms of obscurantism and barbarity. CARLO LIPPOLIS MESOPOTAMIA L 2015 SommaRIO ST JOHN SIMPSON , Destructions now and then: causes and effects ................................................ p. 1 Nimrud JASON UR - JU LIAN READE , The hydraulic landscape of Nimrud ..................................................... » 25 ALESSANDRA LOMBARDI , Nimrud – Fort Shalmaneser. The north-west corner of the external fortification: Area S6 ................................................................................................................ » 53 GEORGINA HERRMANN , Nimrud and its ivories ................................................................................ » 79 DOMINIQ U E COLLON , The cylinder seals from the 1988-1989. Excavations at Nimrud .................. » 87 Luc A PEYRONEL , The lion, the duck and the scorpion. Royal Assyrian weights from the North-West Palace at Nimrud ................................................................................................... » 93 ALESSANDRA CELLERINO , Glass from the Italian excavation in Fort Shalmaneser ............................ » 113 Nineveh, Khorsabad DAVID KERTAI , The creatures that protected the doors of Nineveh during the second millennium BCE ....................................................................................................................... » 147 DAVIDE NADALI , An urban perspective of Nineveh .......................................................................... » 157 STEFANIA MAZZONI , Across the mountains. Horsemen, war and visual representation .................... » 177 Hatra ENRI C O MAR C ATO , A look at Hatrene society: the role of the rbyt in light of the Mesopotamian rab bīti ................................................................................................................................ » 191 ROBERTA VEN C O RI cc IARDI , Decorazione architettonica figurata del grande Temenos di Hatra ....... » 209 Luc INDA DIRVEN , Horned deities of Hatra. Meaning and origin of a hybrid phenomenon ............. » 243 Notiziario Bibliografico G. HERRMANN , S. LAIDLAW , Ivories from Rooms SW11/12 and T10 Fort Shalmaneser (1949-1963) (Angelo Di Michele) ........................................................................................... » 261 P. V. B ARTL , Die Ritzverzierungen auf den relieforthostaten Assurnaṣirpals II. aus Kalḫu (Carlo Lippolis) ........................................................................................................................ » 263 R. MENEGAZZI , Seleucia al Tigri. Le terrecotte figurate dagli scavi italiani e americani (Laurianne Martinez-Sève) ...................................................................................................... » 265 K. ABD U LLAEV , Buddhist Iconography of Northern Bactria (Antonio Invernizzi) ........................... » 267 E. DąBROWA (a cura di), The Greek World in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC (Daniela Francesca Marchiandi) .............................................................................................. » 269 PLATES Luc A PEYRONEL The lion, the DUck and the ScoRpion. Royal ASSYRian weightS FROM the NORth-WEST Palace at NIMRUD Introduction inscribed objects dated to Asarhaddon (680-669 BC) and Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC) (especially the texts The North-West Palace of Nimrud/Kalhu has fallen found in ZT) witness the persistence of some traits prey to Daesh’s destructive violence, revealed on the linked to the control of the royal bureaucracy until web on 11th April 2015 in a shocking a video show- the destruction in 612 BC. A final, latest occupation ing carved reliefs being smashed and palace structures might date to the very end of the Assyrian period, with bombed.1 In few minutes humankind lost a large part the re-adaptation of some structures by local residents of an extraordinary monument of Neo-Assyrian palace returning to the town shortly after its fall, as may also architecture, which boasted a research history lasting be seen in other buildings in the town. more than one and a half centuries.2 English, Polish A characteristic of the material kept in the palace is and Iraqi archaeologists excavated the palace, with the the occurrence of archives and objects dating to dif- first exploration by H.A. Layard in 1845 and 1846,3 ferent periods, from the 9th to the end of the 7th cen- and the building continually produced unexpected dis- turies BC. Although the sequence of building phases coveries during its investigation. The British expedition is still controversial, it has been underlined that the led by M.E.L. Mallowan in 1950s and 1960s brought bulk of precious items (e.g. carved ivories, bronzes) to light the northern quarter and the area around the found in the palace was collected under Sargon II, bitanu, and discovered the ‘banquet stela’ erected by as a result of the western military campaign and the Ashurnasirpal II to commemorate the construction of victory over Karkemish in 717 BC.10 In particular, an his royal residence and the re-founding of Khalhu as inscription of Sargon found in room U indicates that a new capital;4 the Polish team concentrated in the the king used that room as a treasury for booty from ‘south wing’ and studied the throne-room decoration;5 the western military campaign. Thus Mallowan was by the mid-1970s onwards, restoration and excava- wrong to think that the destruction and abandonment tion were carried out by Iraqi archeologists, bringing of the building might have occurred at the end of to light the southern part of the palace and the royal Sargon’s reign; the destruction deposit is now firmly tombs of the Assyrian queens with their exceptional dated to a century later. funerary assemblages.6 Among the economic and administrative devices The history of the palace, founded by Ashurnasir- found in the NW Palace, inscribed and/or marked pal II (883-859 BC), spans the entire Neo-Assyrian balance weights stand out. Several specimens bear empire, until the final destruction of the town in royal inscriptions identifying them as instruments per- 612 BC. It was completed by Ashuransirpal’s son, taining to the imperial administration, guaranteed by Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC), who also built the the name of the king and by the specific mention of arsenal-palace, and his successors continued to use metrological values. Unfortunately the total number of the residence, although Adad-Nirari III (810-783