A Babylonian Ration Document from the Hatay Archeology Museum

Abstract

The tablet with inventory number 11883, which was purchased and brought to the Hatay Archaeology Museum, belongs to an archive discovered at Alalah but now preserved in the British Museum. Access to this archive was provided as a result of the excavations carried out in Alalah (Tell Atchana), thus revealing the Kingdom of Mukiš/Alalah, whose royal center was Alalah (Reyhanlı/Hatay). The tablets obtained from Alalah were accepted as one of the main sources for the Middle and Late Bronze Age of the Eastern Mediterranean geography, along with other archives related to the period, and these tablets were mentioned in the literature as the Alalah Tablets. The content of the cuneiform tablets constituting this archive consisted mostly of commercial documents, royal decree texts, population records, and king lists. To the extent that they were reflected in the tablets, the main goods that shaped commercial life of the time consisted of mines and local productions specific to the Amuq Plain and soldiers, workers, or slaves determined in line with the needs of the palace. The document numbered 11883, which will be discussed here for the first time, has been dated to Alalah Level IV with both grammatical and paleographic features and personal names recorded in the Middle Babylonian writing tradition of Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the period, as far as it can be deciphered. In this study, the transliteration and translation of the text with inventory number 11883 have been made, and the general political and commercial outlook of the level thought to belong to the tablet has been presented. Here, the K/Qadume place name, which is thought to be mentioned in lines 2, 4, and 7 of the relevant text, was also emphasized.

It is declared that scientific and ethical principles were complied with during the preparation of this study and all the works referred are mentioned in the bibliography.

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This article has been reviewed by at least two reviewers using a double blind peer review model. A similarity check was performed to confirm that it was free of plagiarism.

Use of Artificial Intelligence
No artificial intelligence-based tools or applications were used in the preparation of this study. The entire content of the manuscript was produced by the authors in accordance with scientific research methods and academic ethical principles.

License
This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC).

I would like to express my gratitude to all museum employees, especially Ms. Ayşe Ersoy, the Director of the Hatay Archaeology Museum, for the permissions and support required for the publication of the tablet.