Cuneiform Texts from Kazane Höyük

• Published in: Journal of cuneiform studies 1998-01, Vol.50 (1), p.53-58
• Main Authors: Michalowski, Piotr, Misir, Adnan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Archives; Archives & records; Art and archaeology; Comparative studies; Cuneiform; Excavations; Generalities; Museums; Research principies; Synthesis; Verbs; Writing systems; Writing tablets
• ISSN: 0022-0256; 2325-6737
• DOI: 10.2307/1360032

Kazane Hoyuk is a large fortified urban site located on the Urfa Plain of southeast Turkey.2 Surveys and test excavations have revealed substantial occupation on the site going back to the Late Neolithic and perhaps earlier.3 The city reached its maximum size of 100 ha. in the mid third millennium when it was surrounded with a massive wall, and apparently remained a major center into the early second millennium B.C., although present evidence does not allow us to establish precisely how much of the outer town was still occupied. Sometime before the fifth season of excavation, two Old Babylonian cuneiform tablet fragments were brought to the museum by Kazane villagers, apparently found by children in the outer town, toward the southwest corner of the site, in an area that has some second millennium pottery on the surface.6 One is a fragment of a letter and the other is an administrative text. There have been a number of important studies of the limum dates of this period in recent years, culminating with the fundamental article by Robert Whiting, who has provided us with a fairly secure list of dates for the rule of Samsi-Addu.13 Seven of the fifty-seven years of the great king's reign were dated by eponyms whose names begin with Assur. According to Henry Wright, personal communication. 8.