A 3,500-year-old cuneiform tablet detailing a comprehensive furniture shopping list has been unearthed at the site of Aççana Mound, also known as the ancient city of Alalah, in the Hatay Province of southern Turkey.
The tablet was discovered during restoration work in the old city of Alalah, which was part of a post-earthquake reconstruction project. The excavation site, now a large mound spanning approximately 22 hectares, is located in the district of Reyhanlı, Hatay, near the border with Syria. Alalah was a flourishing urban settlement in the 2nd millennium BCE, primarily inhabited by the Amorites, a Bronze Age people from the Levant.
Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Ersoy, announced the discovery and said: “We believe that this tablet, weighing 28 grams, will provide a new perspective on our understanding of the rich heritage of Anatolia for future generations.”
The tablet, dating back to the 15th century BCE, measures 4.2 by 3.5 cm with a thickness of 1.6 cm and weighs approximately 28 grams. Written in Akkadian cuneiform, the text provides an administrative record of extensive furniture purchases, including wooden tables, chairs, and stools. Akkadian, an extinct Semitic language, was widely spoken in the ancient Near East and is considered the earliest known Semitic language. The cuneiform script, characterized by its wedge-shaped impressions, is one of the oldest known writing systems, originally developed by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.
Linguists and researchers, including Associate Professor Dr. Jacob Lauinger and his doctoral student Zeynep Türker from Johns Hopkins University, have been meticulously deciphering the tablet. The inscriptions reveal not only the items purchased but also detailed information about the buyers and sellers involved in these transactions.
The detailed records indicate that Alalah was a significant commercial and administrative center, strategically located on important trade routes. The transactions recorded on the tablet suggest a highly organized economic system, with records potentially used for economic planning and decision-making.
The ongoing research aims to further understand the economic and administrative intricacies of the ancient city of Alalah. Experts are particularly interested in the precise quantities of the items listed and the specifics of the trade logistics mentioned in the tablet.
“This tablet provides a new perspective in terms of understanding the economic structure and state system of the Late Bronze Age,” Ersoy noted in a statement.
