*Rescheduled from Michaelmas term 2023*

Excavations at the site of Kültepe (ancient Kaneš) in central Turkey, conducted since 1948, have unearthed rich archaeological and written evidence for the presence of Assyrian business firms: merchants from their home city of Ashur on the Tigris River who managed and recorded a long-distance trade in metals and textiles. Assyrian merchants also brought cuneiform literacy with them, marking the beginning of Anatolia’s written history. The letters and business documents recovered from the private archives of resident merchants at Kaneš comprise an astonishing corpus of more than 23,000 texts and fragments.

Oddly, nearly all these texts come from the earliest phase of Assyrian presence at Kaneš, while the second phase sees a drastic reduction in documentary evidence. The sharp decline in texts seems consistent with a trajectory of shrinking Assyrian business and gradual impoverishment for the town. Indeed, the third and final level of occupation prior to the site’s abandonment lacks written material altogether. Even more oddly, the second phase of occupation—when there are some but not many texts, so presumably some but not many Assyrians—is also when we witness a huge spike in the volume of gold, silver, and other precious materials deposited in graves. Is this a settlement that is flourishing or diminishing? Or is the wealth simply changing hands? Are the dead more well-off than the living?

This lecture problematizes these and other discrepancies surrounding the high archaeological visibility of grave wealth against a background of low textual visibility at Kanesh, during a time of political transformation in Anatolia’s Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1500 BCE). 

Zoom Access: 

https://zoom.us/j/98801030722?pwd=NmtWS3JVa0Y5TnM4OWRocjlrK1BKQT09