RESOURCESin order to get to more valuable, older levels below. When later ma-
terials were collected, they were the last to be studied or published.
Much that has been done remains unpublished or has been published
very slowly and in obscure places. In some places the more recent
levels are so close to the surface that they have eroded away. Recently
priorities have been determined by development projects which threaten
sites, making "salvage" archaeology neces~ary.
What has been done so far is extremely valuable. But since these
excavations represent such a small fraction of what remains in the
ground, conclusions based on them can only be tentative. The exca-
vations at Hira were reported by D. Talbot Rice with a map in "Hira,"
]RCAS 19 (1932): 254-68, with plans and photographs in "The Ox-
ford Excavations at Hira, 1931," Antiquity 6 (1932): 276-91, together
with G. Reitlinger in "Oxford Excavations at Hira," ]RAS 2 (1932):
245-69, and in "The Oxford Excavations at I;:Iira," Ars Islamica 1
(1934): 51-73. Two fifth-century Sasanian palaces were published by
S. Langdon and D. B. Harden in "Excavations at Kish and Barguthiat
1933," Iraq, 1 (1934): 113-36. D. and]. Oates, "Nimrud 1957: The
Hellenistic settlement," Iraq 20 (1958): 114-57, is important here
mainly for what the authors have to say about the destruction of
surface materials.
The vicinity of the Sasanian imperial capital at Mada'in has received
relatively greater attention than other sites. The first real archaeology
on the Sasanian remains was reported by o. Reuther in "The German
Excavations at Ctesiphon," Antiquity 3 (1929): 434-51; by E. Kiihnel
and F. Wachtsmuth in Die Ausgrabungen der zweiten Ktesiphon-Ex-
pedition (Winter 1931/32) (Berlin, 1933); by J. Upton in "The Ex-
pedition to Ctesiphon 1931-32," The Bulletin of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art 27 (1932): 188-97; and by J. Schmidtin "L'Expedition
de Ctesiphon 1931-32," Syria 15 (1934): 1-23. Since Tell Umar had
already been identified as the site of the Seleucid and Parthian city of
Seleucia, the round walled city was identified as Ctesiphon. ~. Shakri
discussed some of the Sasanian remains east of the Tigris around the
lwan Kisra in "A Sassanian Canal at al-Madain (Saqiyya sasaniyya fi-
I-Mada'in}," Sumer 11 (1955): 209-11. More thorough excavations
have been undertaken by an Italian team beginning in the fall of 1964.
Early results were published by G. Gullini in "First Report of the
Results of the First Excavation Campaign at Seleucia and Ctesiphon
(1st October - 17th December 1964)," Sumer 20 (1964): 63-65, and
in his "First Preliminary Report of Excavations at Seleucia and Cte-