Abstract
This paper focuses on the Anatolian local town, Timilkia, which is one of well-attested caravan stations, being located between Hurama and Hahhum on the main route toward Kanish. Timilkia was also known as location of a karum, and as that of a local palace as well, but it is a fact that role of the town in the Old Assyrian trade was not yet discussed in details (cf. K. R. Veenhof, AOATT, 333f.; K. Nashef, Rekonstruktion, 43f.). The area between Hurama and Hahhum was already identified as where Assyrian merchants were engaged in smuggling operation (pazzurtum), for the purpose of evading their duty to pay import-tax (nishatum) to the local palace in Kanish. The present author suggests in this paper, by examining some references of Timilkia (mainly “Reisespeenabrechung”s <cf. A. M. Ulshöfer, Privaturkunden, Texte 272-302> and letters, ATHE 62, CCT 4 18a; ICK 1 150; kt. 89/k 213; KTK 64), that the town was not among caravan stations in general where a caravan from Assur stopped only for lodging, but was used as the smuggling centre by the Assyrian merchants, that was presumably the main reason the Assyrians established the karum at the town, although both neighbours, Hurama and Hahhum, were also location of karum's.
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More From: Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan
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