F O R E I G N M E R C H A N T S A N D N AT I V E S TAT E S
MIDDLE BRONZE AGE CITY-STATES OF THE ANATOLIAN PLATEAU
Powerful engines of social and economic development clearly transformed Anatolia in the 20th and 19th centuries BC. It is not that the sites are entirely new—most of the important Middle Bronze Age centers are built on sites that were occupied in the Early Bronze Age. Kültepe’s main mound, for example, was inhabited throughout the third millennium, as was Alis¸ar, where a pioneering American expedition in the 1920s and 1930s sought to work through a very complex series of archaeological levels in order to establish the ceramic chronology of the central plateau. What is different is the scale of these centers. The size of the central mounds expanded, and then spilled off into terraces, producing adjacent living areas like the karum.
The places that grew the most seem to have been those that lay at intersections of important avenues of communication, rather than locations on higher ground that might more easily be defended. This is not to say that their defense was neglected. These settlements were protected by massive walls which required some organized communal effort to construct. At Alis¸ar the form of the city wall is clear. It consisted of boxes of mud brick built on stone foundations (Figure 6.7: 2). These casemates, which measured 5–6 m2, were then filled in with packed earth, and the facade presented a kind of saw-tooth appearance when viewed in plan. Von der Osten, the wall’s excavator, speculated that this unusual building principle may have been adopted to limit the damage of a breach to a confined space,23 but it is equally possible that it was simply a the result of a system of diving up labor to produce such a large undertaking quickly. In any case, the casemate technique was to live on in the Hittite Empire, albeit in a much more refined form. At Alis¸ar there is also an innovation that the Hittites would pick up: The postern gate (Figure 6.7: 1). This tunnel runs for 50 m, descending 9 m as it passes under the city wall 150 m from the northern gate. It is assumed that it would allow defenders of the city to engage a besieging enemy by sneak attack, outside the fortifications.24
Such defenses were clearly necessary, because these Anatolian principalities were politically independent of each other and no doubt frequently at war. For the most part the Assyrian documents touch only peripherally on local politics, but they do occasionally shed some light on the native authorities. In this regard, Kanesh is again the most informative site, and architectural remains are eloquent statements of power. Excavations on its citadel mound have demonstrated that it was dominated by a substantial royal establishment. While the depredations of ancient rebuilding, mining of the mound’s soil by local farmers for agricultural purposes up until a century ago, and the clumsy, vain search for the source of the Cappadocian texts by early excavators uninterested in artefacts caused enormous damage to the central mound at Kültepe, Tahsin Özgüç was able to discover the basic character of several palaces here. One of these, located near the center of the mound, is roughly circular in its ground plan, although only about a third of its perimeter can be made out.25 It was not planned as a single structure and its walls were relatively thin and composed of largely of mud brick. The pottery and small finds associated with this building date it to Level II of the karum, the time in which trade was most vigorous, giving it a construction date in the late 20th or 19th century BC. Despite the thousands of tablets found in
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destroyed by later building, lay on the south and offered the most direct approach from the karum. The building was constructed as a unit around a central courtyard. The rooms of the palace are best preserved on the northern and western sides. Some 50 of them have been excavated in the complex, eight in a kind of annex on the southwest side and the rest on the north and northwest sides. Some of these may be identified as storerooms and from the thickness of the walls and the presence of a staircase, it is presumed that the royal residential quarters were on a second story. Rooms on the southern and eastern sides of the courtyard have been destroyed, so it is not possible to be certain what functions were performed where in the building, or whether such things as workshops, unattested in the present state of the evidence, were truly absent. With an area of over one hectare, it does not match its famous contemporary, the Palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari (2.5 hectares), but it is the largest single building known in Anatolia up to this point and reflects the prominence of the local ruler. Seals, sealings, and pottery, while not present in overwhelming quantities, are unanimous in dating this building to Level Ib of the karum.
One other palace at Kültepe is located on the terrace area of the mound to the southeast of the citadel. This is incompletely exposed and does not seem to enclose a courtyard, as is the case with other palaces. It may have been some sort of adjunct administrative building rather than a royal residence. In any case, it was abandoned in the final phase of the site’s occupation, its functions presumably transferred to the new and larger palace of Warsˇama.
While it is generally true that the tablets found at Kültepe shed little light on the Anatolian politics of the era, there is one conspicuous exception, which was found beside the ruins of the gateway to the later palace on the citadel. It was sent to king Warsˇama himself by the king of the neighboring land of Mama, and is worth quoting extensively:
Thus says Anum-hirbi, the Mamean ruba¯ um 27 to Warsˇama, the Kanisˇean ruba¯ um, say: “You wrote me: ‘The Taisˇamean is my slave; I shall take care of him. But do you take care of the Sibuhean, your slave?’ Since the Taisˇamean is your dog, why does he argue with the other sˇarrus? Does the Sibuhean, my dog, argue with the other sˇarrus? Is a Taisˇamean ruba¯ um to become the third ruba¯ um with us? When my enemy defeated me, the Taisˇamean invaded my country. He destroyed twelve of my cities and carried away their cattle and sheep. He said ‘The ruba¯ um is dead, so I have taken up my fowler’s snare.’ So instead of protecting my country and giving me heart, he not only burned up my country but created evil-smelling smoke. While your father Inar was besieging the city of Harsamna for 9 years, did my land invade your land and did it kill an ox or sheep? Today you wrote me as follows: ‘Why do you not free the road for me?’ I will free the road.”28
The discovery of this document put an end to the early notion that the Assyrian merchants were operating under some sort of imperial umbrella held by Assur. The Anum-hirbi letter, on the contrary, shows a hierarchy of authority in which there are rulers of important places like Mama and Kanesh holding subordinate rulers in check—or at least that is what the king of Mama says they should be doing. There is no reference here to the Assyrians whatsoever.
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It is interesting that this exercise in diplomacy had to be conducted through the medium of the Assyrian language and script. We don’t know whether the scribe who took Anum-hirbi’s dictation was a native Anatolian trained in Assyrian, or an Assyrian pressed into service by the palace, but the letter is a clear demonstration that literacy was Assyrian monopoly.
As noted already, the palace of Warsˇama is the largest palace that we have from the period of the Assyrian trading colonies, but it is not the only one. Another site of great importance is Acemhöyük, located 19 km to the west of Aksaray, adjacent to the modern village of Yes¸ilova. The ancient identity of this site is not entirely certain, although its excavator, Nimet Özgüç, was inclined to identify it with the famous Burusˇhattum,29 which is known to lie several days’ journey to the west of Kanesh. We know there was a karum at Burusˇhattum and indeed there is evidence for both Assyrian merchants and contact with Kanesh at the site. The mound is more oval in shape than Kültepe, measuring approximately 650 m NE–SW and 400 m NW–SE. Two palace complexes have been excavated, one known as Sarıkaya on the southeastern edge of the mound, and the other of nearly equal size, Hatipler Tepesi, in the northwest central area. The principles of building in evidence here are different from the palaces of Kanesh. Neither palace enclosed a central court, but rather all rooms seem to have adjoined one another. Hatipler may actually have been an agglutinative structure, but Sarıkaya, with its nearly square arrangement and surrounding porticos, looks planned from the outset (Figure 6.9: 1) It is possible, however, that they are separate units of the one large administrative structure.30 In any case, both were destroyed at the same time in an extraordinarily violent fire that has turned some of the mud bricks in the walls to glass and the pottery here appears to be contemporary with the pottery at Karum Ib.
No karum as such has been excavated at Acemhöyük, although one may well lie beneath the modern village beside the site or elsewhere in the unexcavated areas around the höyük. Evidence for the Assyrian trade, however, comes from a series of bullae, or clay dockets, that were once fastened to commodities or their containers and were found in the palace storerooms. These bear seal impressions, and occasionally brief inscriptions. Interestingly, some of the latter say
“to the karum Kanesh,” which might have seriously misled an archaeologist in identifying Acemhöyük, had we not already been quite certain that Kültepe was Kanesh. What they do show is the latter serving in its role as a transhipment point for caravans from Assur, from which goods were moved to other sites, like Acemhöyük. One other important offering of the bullae is a reference to Shamshi-Adad, the Amorite king of northern Mesopotamia and partial contemporary of Hammurabi of Babylon, who created an empire for himself that included Assur, Mari, and Shubat-Enil (Tell Leilan). This provides an important synchronism for the Karum Kanesh Level Ib period.31
Evidence for the activities of Assyrian merchants has been found at several sites outside of
Kültepe, but in all cases it dates to the end of the Karum Kanesh Ib period, when the trade was operating at a reduced level. At this time more of the trade seems to be within Anatolia, and, most significantly, there are few references to importing tin.32 About 60 tablets were found at Bog˘ azköy in private houses located below the citadel rock which was later to be the site of the
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