KAYSERİ, TURKEY—According to a Hürriyet Daily News report, three documents describing a local cheese have been uncovered at the site of Kültepe-Kaniş-Karum in central Anatolia. “It is understood from the tablets that there was a cheese called ‘Kültepe Cheese’ in the region 4,000 years ago,” said Fikri Kulakoğlu of Ankara University. The Assyrian documents also indicate that people carried the cheese with them while traveling, Kulakoğlu explained. For more on the many thousands of cuneiform tablets that have been uncovered at Kültepe, go to "Assyrian Women of Letters."
4,000-Year-Old Assyrian Documents Describe Local Cheese
News July 18, 2024
Recommended Articles
Features July/August 2021
The Ugarit Archives
Thousands of cuneiform tablets written in a distinctive script tell the dramatic story of a Bronze Age merchant city in Syria
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2026
Put On Your Best Face
An opulent Roman villa hid a very peculiar staircase and an underground room for secret rites
Digs & Discoveries July/August 2026
Hurry Up and Celebrate
Features January/February 2026
The Cost of Doing Business
Piecing together the Roman empire’s longest known inscription—a peculiarly precise inventory of prices
-
Features July/August 2024
The Assyrian Renaissance
Archaeologists return to Nineveh in northern Iraq, one of the ancient world’s grandest imperial capitals
(Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project) -
Features July/August 2024
A Dynasty Born in Fire
How an upstart Maya king forged a new social order amid chaos
(Courtesy Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal) -
Features July/August 2024
Making a Roman Emperor
A newly discovered monumental arch in Serbia reveals a family’s rise to power in the late second century a.d.
(Serbia’s Institute of Archaeology) -
Features July/August 2024
Rise and Fall of Tiwanaku
New dating techniques are unraveling the mystery of a sacred Andean city