Proceedings of the 2nd Kültepe International Meeting. Kültepe, 26-30 July 2015. Studies Dedicated to Klaas Veenhof

This second volume in a series of publications of the Kültepe International Meetings collects sixteen papers on the Anatolian and Syrian Bronze Age read at the Second Kültepe International Meeting in July of 2015. It anchors the site in the dimensions of time and space by bringing together specialists to present studies on the effects of commercial and cultural interaction in a broad chronological and geographical perspective. Focus is on the period 2500-1600 BCE when Central Anatolia was divided into dozens of densely populated microstates, each centred on an individual urban and palatial institution, but connected through a shared linguistic, material and religious horizon. Tying together this competitive system of peer polities was also a complex network of commercial exchange operated by local and foreign merchants working in and beyond the region. The site of Kültepe provides the best documentation for this international network through a unique convergence of textual, physical and scientific data. This allows volume authors to extrapolate beyond the confines of the site itself to explore some of the foundational technological, commercial, cultural and biological connections that spanned the Eurasian landmass in the Bronze Age under the headings ‘Movement, Resources, Interaction’.

Preface

Acknowledgements

Movement

Murat Çayır, The 1997 Kültepe Texts: The Archives of Alaku and Ennam-Anum and his Son Aššur-Malik

Andrew Fairbairn & Nathan Wright, Grinding, Burning and Trading at Kültepe: Archaeobotanical Evidence for Economic Differences between Settlements in Anatolia's Middle Bronze Age

Alessio Palmisano, Drawing Pathways from the Past: the Trade Routes of the Old Assyrian Caravans Across Upper Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia

Jacob Jan de Ridder, Slavery in Old Assyrian Documents

Bike Yazıcıoğlu-Stantamaria, Locals, Immigrants, and Marriage Ties at Kültepe: Results of Strontium Isotope Analysis on Human Teeth from Lower Town Graves

Resources

Eva Andersson Strand, Catherine Breniquet, Cécile Michel, Textile Imprints on bullae from Kültepe

Jan Gerrit Dercksen, New Evidence for Beeswax during the Old Assyrian Colony Period and the Ur III Period

Michael A. Johnson, Fikri Kulakoğlu, K. Aslıhan Yener, Gonca Dardeniz, Evren Yazgan, Experimental Smelting of Tin from Senir Sırtı and Hısarcık near Kayseri: Mostly Heartbreak, Some Elation

Melissa Ricetti, Sealing without a Seal: Alternative Sealing Media at Kültepe during the Old Assyrian Period

Interaction

Alfonso Archi, Metals In Third Millennium B.C.: Standpoint Ebla

Mogens Trolle Larsen, A Complex Business Transaction with Diplomatic Repercussions. The Conflict with Ušinalam

Agnete Wisti Lassen, The ‘Bull-Altar’ in Old Assyrian Glyptic: A Representation of the God Assur?

Luca Peyronel, From Ebla to Kanesh and Vice Versa. Reflections on Commercial Interactions and Exchanges between Northern Syria and Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age

Fikri Kulakoğlu, Early Bronze Age Monumental Structures at Kültepe

Hiroshi Sudo, Yuji Yamaguchi and Ryoichi Kontani, An Archaeological Assessment of the Kayseri Province during the Chalcolithic Period: New Evidence from the Archaeological Survey Project in Kayseri, Turkey (KAYAP)

Klaas R. Veenhof, Acemhöyük: Seals, Chronology and History