At the beginning of the 1966 season of excavations at Tell al Rimah work was continued in Site A, Trench Ab of the Temple courtyard (Level Ib). It was from this same provenance that a number of tablets had been cleared at the end of the previous season, but of the forty tablets and fragments found only a few appear to relate to the Abu-ṭāb archive discovered in that year. Some tablets were sufficiently legible to be treated, read and copied immediately; others, despite laboratory treatment, are unlikely to yield much further information that can be given in the brief notes in the Register (Appendix D) or in the copies presented in Plates LVII-LXVI.

Date. Twenty-one of the texts are dated by eponyms which, compared with Middle Assyrian tablets previously known, indicate a period of at least twenty-five years predominantly to the end of the reign of Shalmaneser I (1274–1245 B.C.), with some to the early years of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1208) i.e. c. 1260–1230 B.C. Limmu-officials otherwise unattested and now to be placed within this period are Ištu-dAuma (TR. 3001, 3002), Ṣiili-Adad (3007), Adad-šum-lišir (3016) and some broken names. The month names follow the accepted M. Assyrian practice as at Aššur and Bilia. Three texts are written in a skilled hand on a fine reddish clay, reminiscent of the Neo-Assyrian libraries and are to be dated somewhat later. These are a census of storerooms, stables and other large buildings round the temple controlled by individuals (3017); a list of tenants or owners of plots of land between 33–60 iku (3020); TR. 3024 lists names of persons.