Pre-defence seminar: Anatolians and their Social Life in the Old Assyrian Period

We are happy to announce the following pre-defence seminar at ToRS.

Most welcome to the seminar where we will discuss

Xiaowen Shi’s project
Anatolians and their Social Life in the Old Assyrian Period

Tuesday, 9 April, 2.15pm to 4pm
in the CIF meeting room (5^th floor, Snorresgade 17-19)

External examiner: Professor Mogens Trolle Larsen (University of Copenhagen)

In order to receive a copy of two of his chapters, please sign up with Xiaowen

xshi@hum.ku.dk

(abstract see below)

Abstract

During the 20^th century BC, Assyrian merchants from northern Mesopotamia went to Anatolia to begin a lively and profitable trade with the local population. To facilitate the trade, the Assyrians began settling in Anatolia. One such ‘colony’ is well known from a large number of archival texts, mainly from the ancient city of Kanesh (modern Kültepe) dating to the Old Assyrian period. While the texts have been studied time and again to better understand the lives of the Assyrian traders, the indigenous people with whom they interacted are still relatively obscure. Therefore, my dissertation focuses on gaining a better understanding of and insight into native Anatolians as seen through the lens of Assyrian texts. In my dissertation I analyze new archives of local businessmen. One of these archives belonged to a man named Peruwa and offers some insight into his dealings with Assyrian traders and other local businessmen, while the other archives, offer information on several businessmen, all named Enišaru. I also analyse agriculture village life in Anatolia through references to two villages, Talwahšušara and Tumliya. Previous studies have already shown that during this time Anatolia was divided into several kingdoms or principalities, which consisted of one or several city-state surrounded by a large number of agriculture villages. My study offers a unique insight into how local Anatolians interacted with Assyrian tradesmen and with each other and how this was different from the ways in which Assyrian tradesmen dealt with Anatolian businessmen. In particular, I focus on loans for Anatolian businessmen and how these enabled local businessmen to deal with Assyrians. The results also show that Anatolians’ social life, though inevitably affected by Assyrians immigrants in terms of family legal practises, was still keeping some of its own character.