Archaeologists have unearthed 4,000-year-old tablets that represent one of the first written trade agreements in Anatolia, according to a professor from Ankara University's Faculty of Letters, History and Geography.
"We have discovered the cuneiform-script tablets in Kültepe-Karum excavations in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri," Günbattı said.
Archaeologists have been carrying out excavations in Karum village near the Kültepe mound, where Assyrians used to live, since 1948. They have unearthed some 23,000 cuneiform-script tablets so far.
"Around 4,500 tablets have been smuggled abroad since 1948," Günbattı said. He said Assyrian tradesmen who settled in the region 4,000 years ago sold tin and fabrics they brought from Mesopotamia.
The two tablets indicated that the oldest trade agreement in Anatolia was made 4,000 years ago, Günbattı said.
"The Assyrian Kingdom in Mesopotamia made written trade agreements with the Kanesh and Hahhum kingdoms near Adiyaman," he said.
Kültepe is a modern village near the ancient city of Kanesh (Hittite Neša), located in Kayseri.
Kanesh was inhabited continuously from the Chalcolithic period through Roman times. It flourished most strongly as an important “karum” (merchant colony) in the Old Assyrian kingdom, from about 20th to 16th centuries B.C. A late (c 1400 BC) witness to an old tradition includes a king of Kanesh called Zipani among 17 local city-kings who rose up against the Akkadian Naram-Sin, who ruled from about 2254 to 2218 B.C.
It is the site of discovery of the earliest traces of the Hittite language, and the earliest attestation of any Indo-European language, dated to the 20th century B.C.
Source: Hurriyet [August 30, 2010]