Tablets from the vicinity of Emar and elsewhere

Abstract

The cuneiform Akkadian tablets published here belong to a private collector in England. They were bought from a dealer in 1981. Most of them are closely associated by prosopography, seal impressions and types of text with those excavated at Meskene, ancient Emar on the Euphrates, and published comprehensively by D. Arnaud, in:Recherches au Pays d'Aštata, EmarVI. 1–4 (Paris 1985–7), as well as a few now in private hands and published in various journals.Owing to many problems in fixing the chronology of the Late Bronze Age, exact dates cannot yet be given to these texts, although useful synchronisms have emerged from published Emar material. No. 26 in the main corpus mentions the Kassite king Melisihu, datedc.1186–1172 B.C. or 1181–1167 B.C. No. 201 in the main corpus mentions Ini-Tešup king of Carchemish son of Šahurunuwas and grandson of Šarri-kušuh (a.k.a. Piyassilis). The latter had been installed in Carchemish by his father Suppiluliumas I and confirmed by his brother the Hittite king Arnuwandas, prior to the time of Emar archives, when the Nuzi records may already have come to an end and Assyria under Assur-uballiṭ I (1365–1330) had begun to assert its power.