Ernest Mackay's excavations on behalf of the Oxford(Weld)-Field Museum Expedition to Mesopotamia on mound A at Kish (1923–25) were published with exemplary speed and in considerable detail, though the author made clear in his account the very real difficulties involved in establishing the integrity of the grave-groups he was reporting. Unfortunately the publication of the cemetery, in two successive parts, is not consistent. Mackay chose to assemble his finds, both pottery and minor objects, on plates in a typological series; but even these are selective not comprehensive. In the case of graves 1–38, which appeared in the first half of the cemetery report, he included a chart from which it is possible, using it in conjunction with the plates on which the location of each object is marked, to reconstruct the grave-groups, though without the field numbers which were never published. In the second half of the cemetery report, which covered graves 39–154, Mackay adopted a system of illustration on plates similar to that used in the first report but with the addition of field numbers for each object. But this time he did not include a chart tabulating the grave-groups. Once again it is possible to reconstruct certain grave-groups from the plates, with assiduous attention to the detailed notes on various types of object given in the main text, though rarely with complete accuracy as by far the greater number of grave-groups were incompletely illustrated. As Mackay's carefully annotated field-cards have survived it is possible to reconstruct all the recorded grave-groups in full, though descriptions of individual objects are at times very cryptic. Even a cursory glance through the catalogue of graves reveals the disturbed condition of a great many of them. As the report intimates, and the field-cards confirm, there were many more graves whose contents had been scattered by human or natural activity. A great many objects, exactly comparable to those reported from grave-groups, were recorded without context from the upper levels of mound A.