Mavi Boncuk |
This tablet is one of the many letters that come from Kültepe and attest to the communication of merchants across long distances. In the cuneiform text, which reads left to right, Ilabrat-bani writes to Amur-ili, a transporter from a well-known merchant family, to update him concerning textiles delivered to another trading settlement, to request garments for himself, and to offer advice for travel. Writing covers the entire surface of the tablet, including the sides. Small tablets with crammed writing are common at this time, probably because these messages – along with items for trade – had to be carried across long distances.
When the merchants from Ashur in Assyria came to Anatolia early in the second millennium B.C., they brought with them the writing techniques invented in Mesopotamia: the script known as cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") and the medium of clay tablets encased in clay envelopes. The merchants also brought their art in the form of cylinder seals, which marked the traded goods, storerooms, and written records. The Assyrian merchants wrote in the Assyrian language, but tablets and cuneiform were later adopted in Anatolia by the Hittites, who wrote their own language with the imported techniques.
The records of the Assyrian trading colonies, of which Kültepe (ancient Karum Kanesh) was one, provide detailed information about one part of a lively international trade in the early second millennium B.C. that extended from Egypt to the Caucasus to Central Asia and the Indus Valley. The Assyrian tablets describe the exchange of tin and textiles from Ashur for silver from Anatolia as well as detail the specifics of contracts and lawsuits, and about bandits and other misfortunes.
This tablet is one of the many letters that come from Kültepe and attest to the communication of merchants across long distances. In the cuneiform text, which reads left to right, Ilabrat-bani writes to Amur-ili, a transporter from a well-known merchant family, to update him concerning textiles delivered to another trading settlement, to request garments for himself, and to offer advice for travel. Writing covers the entire surface of the tablet, including the sides. Small tablets with crammed writing are common at this time, probably because these messages – along with items for trade – had to be carried across long distances.
When the merchants from Ashur in Assyria came to Anatolia early in the second millennium B.C., they brought with them the writing techniques invented in Mesopotamia: the script known as cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") and the medium of clay tablets encased in clay envelopes. The merchants also brought their art in the form of cylinder seals, which marked the traded goods, storerooms, and written records. The Assyrian merchants wrote in the Assyrian language, but tablets and cuneiform were later adopted in Anatolia by the Hittites, who wrote their own language with the imported techniques.
The records of the Assyrian trading colonies, of which Kültepe (ancient Karum Kanesh) was one, provide detailed information about one part of a lively international trade in the early second millennium B.C. that extended from Egypt to the Caucasus to Central Asia and the Indus Valley. The Assyrian tablets describe the exchange of tin and textiles from Ashur for silver from Anatolia as well as detail the specifics of contracts and lawsuits, and about bandits and other misfortunes.