Mercantile and religious identities in Anatolia in the Middle Bronze Age

This chapter on identities in ancient Anatolia focuses on a case study from the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1600 BCE), the earlier part of which corresponds to a well-documented period of cross-cultural encounters between local and foreign communities in the context of long-distance trade. From the twentieth through eighteenth centuries BCE (corresponding to the Old Assyrian Period for north Mesopotamia), merchants from the north Mesopotamian city of Aššur (modern site of Qal'at Sherqat in Iraq) managed a highly lucrative and extensive trade venture importing tin and textiles into Anatolia in exchange for gold and silver. Organized around a complex network of trade outposts (kārum) and smaller waystations (wabartum) along the caravan route, the principal node for Assyrian business in Anatolia was kārum Kaneš/Neša (modern site of Kültepe near Kayseri in Türkiye). Excavations at Kültepe have uncovered a substantial corpus of cuneiform documents from the private archives of resident Assyrian businessmen, and to a much smaller extent their Anatolian colleagues. The wealth of information on Old Assyrian business, economy, society, and institutions derived from Kütlepe texts gains further significance when considered within the broader content of archaeological discovery at Kültepe. Excavations in the Lower Town of ancient Kaneš have revealed the physical remains of the very houses and neighbourhood in which foreign merchants conducted business, set up homes, and had families, offering us the possibility of examining a culturally mixed society from material evidence as well as from textual accounts.