Cuneiform Tablet Discovered in Southern Turkey

HATAY, TURKEY—According to an Anadolu Agency report, Murat Akar of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University and his colleagues discovered a 3,800-year-old clay cuneiform tablet while working at the site of a palace in southern Turkey’s Accana tumulus. The mound, identified as the remains of Alalakh, the capital of the Mukish Kingdom during the Middle and Late Bronze Age, had been damaged by the earthquakes that occurred earlier this year. Written in Akkadian, the cuneiform text refers to an agreement made by Yarim-Lim, a king of Alalakh, to purchase another city. “It proves [to] us that those kings had the economic power and potential to buy another city in those times,” Akar said. “There is also the name of the important people of the city who witnessed this sale on the tablet, most likely,” he concluded. To read more about Bronze Age cuneiform tablets, go to "The Ugarit Archives."