Athar Alrafedain

The "Encyclopedia of Law in Ancient Iraq", which is in its final stages of completion, included hundreds of topics
related to written and unwritten law that governed the Iraqi communities that lived in Mesopotamia since the
dawn of history and the beginning of the use of writing as a means of codification and transfer of ideas and customs,
and then laws, decrees and instructions In the first half of the third millennium until the end of the national rule in
Iraq and its fall under the fire of the Persian and Greek foreign occupation in the middle of the first millennium BC.

The research sheds light on the archaeological religious buildings that the city of Mosul was famous for, including shrines and shrines, and the designs that were adopted in their planning, as well as the planning of residential houses in the city of Mosul during the early Islamic eras, as well as many service buildings dating back to the Ottoman era, such as markets, inns, hotels and bathrooms, as well as buildings with Military character, such as the city wall of Mosul.

Qoynajik hill is of cultural importance, as it includes the palaces and temples of the Assyrian kings. That is why it attracted the first excavators, starting with the British Consul Claudius Rich, who drew an accurate map of the city of Nineveh and conducted scattered excavations in the hill in 1820. His writings on the antiquities of Iraq, especially Quynajik Hill, stimulated European governments, as France sent Paul Emile Botta." To excavate in Nineveh in 1842, followed by Henry Layard, the British prospector, and his assistant, Hormuzd Rassam, in 1845, whose excavations continued until 1851. Because of the importance of his discovery, which adorns the British Museum, the English excavators continued their excavations in this hill, which was characterized by randomness, Until the prospectors corrected their course when Leonard Kink took over, and followed by Campbell Thompson and Max Mallowan. 

The Assyrian state, represented by its kings, faced many internal and external conspiracies. Indeed, on the internal level, we find that these conspiracies did not succeed except with the participation of one of the king’s sons or brothers (Tukulti Ninurta I, Shalmaneser III, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal), and these conspiracies are not documented by the participants. It appears in the writings of the king who eliminated it, and this can be explained by the fact that the scribes working in the king’s palace could not document such a matter for fear of participating in, in case the conspiracy did not succeed. The reason for these revolutions is the system of inheriting the throne to the eldest son, and in the absence of this right, these conspiracies occur because the person excluded from the throne is not convinced of this procedure.

The myrtle plant is an aromatic oil plant from ancient times to the present, and it is one of the plants that was planted throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean basin and was called by different names. It usually grows in wet areas and is an aromatic fragrant evergreen shrub.

Bribery is one of the serious evils that have plagued societies since ancient times until the present time, given that the consequences of it are devastating to society in all its aspects, including moral, social and economic ones, as it has become part of the tradition that leads in society. The cuneiform texts provided us with valuable information about the role of the ancient kings of Iraq in combating this phenomenon and issuing deterrent legal rulings against bribes, some of whose rulings lead to death.

The research deals with the most prominent civilizational achievements in the Metal Stone Age in prehistoric sites in Mesopotamia, and also deals with the most important cultural roles in this era that preceded the Early Dynastic Period.

The settlement passed through two main temporal phases: the phase of collecting time, which took most of human life on earth, and then the phase of sustenance production, which began in the early Stone Age, that happened about 11,000 years BC, which witnessed the stages of real human development and the first steps towards our current civilization. The discovery of agriculture was the great turning point in the march of human civilizations is the main incentive for stability in fixed and permanent places where people seek refuge.

In the year 1990, Warsh hill, located in Al-Qadisiyah Governorate, 25 km to the north-east of the city of Afak, was excavated. The excavators found two layers that dated the newest to the early Islamic era, while the oldest, which was with two building floors, dated to the ancient Babylonian era (Larsa Kingdom). In terms of the clay figure that was found on this site, which was of the economic type and dated to the years of the reign of four Larsa dynasty kings: Abi-Sari, Somuel, Nur-Adad and Sin Adnam.

The research aims to shed light on one of the most prominent highlights of the Assyrian civilization in its human heritage, which is ethics. It has been proven with conclusive evidence that military force has never been the way to build nations and achieve their goals unless members of society are cohesive and possess the values ​​and morals inherent in their souls and inherited through Generations have become one of the systems in which societies are not established without them. Despite the strength and valor of the Assyrians and their successive wars to protect their sprawling state, they were also known for their sound nature and colors of moral thinking.

The archaeological excavations that took place in various archaeological cities provided us with thousands of cuneiform texts that included various types of science and knowledge. One of these cities is the city of Nineveh, which was famous for its library full of thousands of cuneiform texts, which are preserved by the British Museum today. Today we chose a number of its texts, which included recipes for treating scorpion stings snakes and dog's bites are among the medical texts that abound in this library.

Cuneiform texts related to medicine state that the method of fumigation was one of the medical treatment methods that were used in ancient Iraq to treat or contribute to many medical conditions. Fumigation was approved by the practitioner and the physician alike. The prevailing belief among the ancient Iraqis was that the main cause of diseases was the result of the wrath of the gods because of the sins committed by a person towards his gods, relatives, or a member of his family or clan. As for the doctor, he resorted to fumigation to treat many medical conditions that afflicted humans at the time, such as headaches, feet, ears, stomach and other diseases.

When studying the fabrics, it is necessary to rely on the fresco carvings that adorned the halls and rooms of the Assyrian palaces, as well as the frescoes. The cuneiform texts are also among the important sources in our study of the fabrics in Mesopotamia, as they included valuable information about the fabrics, their names, types, colors and sources. The research talked about the names of fabrics, their types and sources of manufacture, as well as their various uses.

The research dealt with the translation and analysis of a cuneiform text dating back to the Akkadian era. The text consists of fifteen lines, eight of them on the obverse and seven on the back. The subject of the text included the delivery of a quantity of barley to persons, one of whom was "Blei Tap Tap", who worked as a clerk, who received a quantity of barley representing a ration for three months.
As for the second person, he received a quantity of 10 bale of barley as a ration for two months, who worked as a master builder. As for the third person, he received one bale of barley as a ration for two months.

The student of the civilization of Iraq and its Arab-Islamic heritage since the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate at the hands of the Mongols in the year 656 AH until the beginning of the Ottoman rule in the year 941 AH will find that the situation in Iraq in general and Mosul in particular was characterized by chaos and instability, and many invading foreign governments began to rule, starting with the Mongols and the Ilkhanids. Then the Jalayiris, then the Turkmen, and finally the Safavid Persians, who went too far in violating the cities of Iraq, one after the other, until the Ottomans came and took control of the country.

The throne chair in the modern Assyrian era is one of the most prominent models of thrones in ancient Iraq, as the Assyrian artist excelled in depicting a large number of these forms of thrones on a variety of materials, the most prominent of which was depicted on the mural carvings that decorated the walls of the halls of the Assyrian palaces. The throne chair of King Sen - Achi - Ariba is one of the most important of those thrones in terms of its manufacture and decoration.

Since the ancient Iraqis had invented writing thousands of years ago, they must have needed means or signs to clarify the purposes of writing. As the reader and the listener need special tones in the voice or symbols in writing, by which comprehension and awareness occurs when hearing speech and reading the written, which prompted them to be guided by signs that the situation requires to help in separating phrases.

The Assyrian royal texts are among the most important texts that developed in the Assyrian eras, which took their style from the Sumerian and Babylonian peoples, where they were often written on stones, and this continued until the modern Assyrian era, the Assyrian royal inscriptions were directed primarily at the gods, so they were placed in places hidden from view.

For more than four thousand years there is still news of the Assyrian royal campaigns against the neighboring kingdoms and peoples. It occupies a large part of the writings of Jewish rabbis and modern researchers, with different points of view, sometimes biased, and full of grudges and hatred against the Assyrians. This is what we notice on the books of the Old Testament (the Torah), and on the writings of a number of Western researchers who described the Assyrians with bad qualities that indicate a hardness of heart and looseness of the soul. Therefore, we worked to memorize the humanitarian dimension in the policy of the Assyrian kings by reviewing a number of related cuneiform texts, which contradicted what Jewish researchers and others worked to show on the Assyrians.

The ancient Iraqis mastered all aspects of economic, social and political life and they were creative in it. Among those aspects is what has to do with their knowledge of the barber's profession and its importance in their daily lives and in various fields in which the barber played a prominent role.

Archaeological excavations revealed many wooden doors covered with bronze tapes, on which various subjects of artistic scenes were executed. These gates were discovered in various Assyrian cities dating back to the Neo-Assyrian era. Examples of this were also found in Haddad hill in the Hamrin Basin area. These tapes express an important civilizational stage that has a clear impact on the later arts in terms of implementation and continuous experience.

for livestock. Including cattle is of great importance in the economic life in ancient Iraq, perhaps the most prominent of which is to benefit from its products, especially meat, dairy, leather, wool, and others. In this area, one of the priorities of the ancient Iraqis, especially the kings, was the supervision of organized sheds for livestock breeding, multiplication and fattening, and this study came to shed some light on the barn Cattle fattening in the city of Larsa during the ancient Babylonian era.

In 1999, a group of archaeological pieces were seized at the Iraqi-Jordanian border, totaling (1016) pieces, the cuneiform texts representing the largest part of them, and these pieces were confiscated for the benefit of the General Authority for Antiquities and Heritage (the Iraqi Museum). Note that the texts date back to the Akkadian era and are of great importance, as they go back to an era in which the country was united under a unified central government under the leadership of King Sharrukin the Akkadian. What increases the importance of these texts is that they came from the cities of the southern part of Iraq known as the land of Sumer, and it was written in the Sumerian language under the Akkadian rule.

Archaeological excavations indicate that the history of the city of Nineveh dates back to early times that exceed the fifth millennium BC, according to the study of pottery evidence, models of seals and the foundations of the plans of the buildings discovered there. Civilizational developments have continued in the archaeological site of Nineveh, based on a study of the remnants of the archaeological layers and determining their temporal roles up to the historical ages when cuneiform texts began to appear among the contents of the site to shed more light on the civilizational history of this city.

The city of Mosul is one of the most important cities that has maintained its cultural continuity since the most ancient times, and this is what we notice in many of its archaeological heritage buildings, especially those dating back to the Ottoman era, including residential houses, some of which still exist, testifying to the city’s status and the ability of its people to Creativity and innovation, and from this house the house of Hamed Al-Amin, who preserved the artistic styles and architectural methods that were followed when building houses in the Ottoman era.

Given the importance of the fountain from an archaeological and functional point of view, we studied it not only by relying on archaeological studies and library references, but by relying on the scientific method represented by field studies and visiting relevant mosques. The study did not depend on the description only, but went beyond the study of the fountain in its planning, design, architectural and technical elements.

The Babylonians introduced the greatest of civilizational achievements in the history of mankind in different branches of knowledge, especially mathematics, because it is the language of sciences and the basis upon which the other sciences are built, such as astronomy, physics, chemistry, geometry and etc. Actually, the achievement, that took place in Mesopotamia are regarded as the cornerstone of all inventions that appeared in different adjacent countries and in later different periods. Also, the remains and the information that came down to us underline the greatness of this people and the originality of this civilizationز