Rethinking on the Anzaf Tablet

Abstract

At the citadel of Van-Yukarı Anzaf, one of the important royal settlements built during the reign of the Urartian king Minua, during the 2001 archaeological excavations, an unsealed inventory tablet, which has no similar example in Urartian sources so far, was found. In the first publications of this unique tablet, which probably records the amount of weapons distributed, the back side was thought to be the front side. However, according to our new evaluations, it is understood that the beginning of the tablet is the other side. This new update not only led to a change in the content, but also helped to place the Anzaf Tablet in a more meaningful framework within Urartian History and bureaucratic sources. It was observed that this "unit", consisting of 15 people in total, was mostly sorted according to a hierarchical order within itself. These details observed in the content of the tablet made it possible to make some suggestions about the tablet as a whole. It is thought that there may be an indirect similarity with other bureaucratic correspondences of Urartian and some visual elements found on metal artefacts. In addition, although not directly mentioned in the tablet, it has been suggested that the personnel list mentioned only as an assumption may be about the distribution of weapons belonging to the chariots and the cavalry soldiers accompanying them.