In studies of the Assyrian merchant community established at Kultepe
(KARUM Kanesh, level 2) in Anatolia in the early second millennium B.C.,
the texts with their associated cylinder and stamp sealings found there
have traditionally been investigated separately. This book specifically
seeks to integrate glyptic and textual studies in a way helpful both to
scholars of Old Assyrian and to those with an interest in seals and
sealing in the ancient Near East. The combined study of texts and
sealings illuminates commercial and socio-legal activity in fresh ways,
whilst the stylistic analyses sharpens chronological arguments and
throws light on the community's foreign contacts.
The book
consists of two parts. The first analyses the sealing practices (in
general and per type of record, with a special chapter on witnesses) and
the seals, their ownership, manufacture, styles, iconography and
inscriptions. Special chapters deal with the archives of the KARUM (with
a list of their locations) and with the dating of texts and seals (with
a list of the eponyms). Part two is a catalogue of 677 seals. It
consists of tables offering, in a condensed form, essential data from
the text envelopes on which the seals have been impressed, and of
drawings of each of them. Extensive indices, of names, eponyms, seal
owners/users, seal inscriptions, texts and seals complete this
well-documented volume.