The purchase of large furniture is recorded on cuneiform tablets –

An Akkadian cuneiform tablet documenting a large furniture purchase was discovered during excavations at the Bronze Age Aksana mound in the ancient city of Arara in Hatay Province in southeastern Turkey. The tablet is small, just 1.65 inches by 1.38 inches, 0.63 inches thick, and weighs less than an ounce. It dates to the 15th century BC and is written in Akkadian, the language used in Mesopotamia at the time. The first line records a large number of wooden tables, chairs, and stools, as well as who paid for them and who received them.

The mound is located in the ancient city of Alalakh, capital of the Bronze Age city-state of Mukhis. The mound was first excavated by British archaeologist Leonard Woolley in the 1930s, and the most recent excavation project began in 2021 to explore the religion, commerce and daily life of the Late Bronze Age settlement, as well as its diplomatic and trade links with Eastern Mediterranean powers such as the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Mitanni Empire in the Fertile Crescent.

Hittite and Mitanni artifacts were found in different layers of the mound, imported through active trade routes through the Amik Valley. These empires wanted to establish commercial links with Alalach because agriculture was so abundant there. They wanted the Amik Valley to be their granary, feeding their growing empire. The skeletal remains found in the mound have been subjected to archaeological DNA extraction and analysis, and researchers have found that they were locals living in the town, not tourists, traders or foreign dignitaries.

This year, the excavation team also worked to restore some of the remains of the building that were damaged in the devastating earthquake in 2023. The stele was discovered during the restoration work.

Researchers continue to interpret the inscriptions on the stele, focusing on details that reveal information about the parties involved in the furniture exchange, the precise number of items, and the complexity of commercial transactions at the time. Preliminary findings suggest that Arara society had a highly organized economic system in which records were used for economic planning and administrative decision-making.