Kültepe and its tablets in the spotlight

31 August 2024

In 2015, when this blog was launched in response to the destruction wrought by Daesh in Iraq and Syria, I devoted a post to Kültepe and its potential as a pilot site for interdisciplinary research. At the beginning of August 2024, the archaeological site brought together nearly eighty researchers from five continents for its sixth international symposium.

Kültepe, ancient Kanesh, is one of the most important Bronze Age sites in Central Anatolia. Continuously excavated for 76 years, it presents significant levels of occupation dating from the second half of the 3rd millennium and the first centuries of the 2ndmillennium BCE. It is a site of extraordinary richness, combining important monumental and domestic architecture with abundant archaeological material.

By the middle of the 3rd millennium, Kültepe, which covers almost 200 hectares, was already a major cultural and commercial centre between the Mediterranean and Syria. The monumental buildings unearthed on the hill contain a rich ceramic repertoire, as well as hundreds of alabaster idols of a cultic nature.

A large stone building excavated on the south-western side of the citadel and dating from the second half of the 18th century contained two-metre-high jars for storing more than 2,000 litres of grain, as well as numerous vessels evoking feasts. Skeletons of lions and bears found nearby bear witness to royal hunts. Among the spectacular discoveries of recent years are numerous fragments of a large jar showing applied clay decorations: a lyre player in a bird mask, nude dancers, a lion and deer.

In the lower town, Assyrian merchants traded and lived in harmony with the local population. Archaeologists have unearthed almost 23,000 cuneiform clay tablets constituting their private archives. These unique sources, included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2015, give us a glimpse into the intimate lives of families and allow us to reconstruct the life of certain districts four thousand years ago!

DNA and isotope analyses of skeletons buried beneath the floors of houses have made it possible to identify members of the same family and to clarify their status. In a 21st-century BCE grave, a man in his forties was the son of an immigrant woman. Many of the objects buried with him came from southern Mesopotamia: gold and silver jewellery, bronze vessels and weapons, haematite weights and a cylinder seal. We therefore know that foreigners had already settled in Kültepe by this time.

Around 1700, the town was partly destroyed by fire and was deserted because the area was flood prone,, making it unsuitable for agriculture. It continued nevertheless to be remembered, for a Hittite text by Hattusha recounts the legendary life of a queen of Nesha (Kanesh) who gave birth to thirty sons, whom she delivered to the river. The boys were rescued and brought up far from home. A few years later, she gave birth to thirty daughters and decided to bring them up. The boys returned home as adults and married their sisters, committing a crime of incest punishable under Hittite law.

In the 8th century BCE, Kültepe appears under the name of Tabal in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings. The site was later occupied during the Hellenistic period under the name of Anisa.

As the symposium drew to a close at Kültepe, Le Monde published a series of five articles devoted to Kültepe: ‘Les lettres de Kanesh’, published between 5 and 9 August 2024. With great finesse, Stéphane Foucart set out the salient facts provided by the Kanesh tablets, showing the richness of this unique documentation and making judicious comparisons with contemporary times.

For those who would like to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of Kanesh four thousand years ago, the documentary film, Ainsi parle Tarām-Kūbi. Correspondances Assyriennes (France, 2020), gives voice to one of the Assyrian women through her correspondence.