New cuneiform tablets found at ancient Kanesh

Archaeologists discovered new 4000-year-old clay tablets written in cuneiform script at the site of the ancient city of Kanesh at present-day Kültepe, Kayseri province, Turkey.

New cuneiform tablets found at the site (by AA Photo)

Over the course of 70 years of excavations at the site, archaeologists have discovered over 23000 cuneiform-script tablets. Many of the tablets excavated are exercise tablets, apparently used by children to practice their writing, as well as  ones used for trade or business, used to record anything considered valuable. The ancient city of Kanesh was the capital of the ancient kingdom and centre of a complex network of Assyrian trade colonies in the 2nd millennium BC. According to the researchers the discovery of the tablets shows the beginning of writing and literacy in ancient Anatolia, as these are the first written tablets in Anatolia and apparently the ancient Anatolian people learned how to read and write in Kültepe.

(after AA Photo & Daily Sabah)

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