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Concept
Kültepe
Summary
Kültepe (Turkish: ash-hill), also known as Kanesh or Nesha, is an archaeological site in Kayseri Province, Turkey, inhabited from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, in the Early Bronze Age. The nearest modern city to Kültepe is Kayseri, about 20km southwest. It consisted of an Upper city, and a lower city, where an Assyrian kārum, trading colony, was found. Its ancient names are recorded in Assyrian and Hittite sources. In cuneiform inscriptions from the 20th and the 19th century BC, the city was mentioned as Kaneš (Kanesh); in later Hittite inscriptions, the city was mentioned as Neša (Nesha, Nessa, Nesa), or occasionally as Aniša (Anisha). In 2014, the archaeological site was inscribed in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey. It is the place where the earliest record of a definitively Indo-European language has been found, Hittite, dated to the 20th century BC.
Kaneš or Neša, inhabited continuously from the Early Bronze Age, c. 3000–2500 BC (only in the Upper City), to Byzantine times, flourished as an important Hattian, Hittite and Hurrian city, containing a large Assyrian kārum (merchant colony) from the 20th to 18th centuries BC. This kārum appears to have served as "the administrative and distribution centre of the entire Assyrian colony network in Anatolia". A late record, from circa 1400 BC, recounts the story of a king of Kaneš called Zipani, with seventeen local city-kings who rose up against Naram-Sin of Akkad, who ruled circa 2254–2218 BC.
During the kārum period, and before the conquest of Pitḫana, these local kings reigned in Kaneš:
Ḫurmili (before 1790 BC)
Paḫanu (a short time in 1790 BC)
Inar (c. 1790–1775 BC), then
Waršama (c. 1775–1750 BC).
The king of Zalpuwa, Uḫna, raided Kaneš, after which the Zalpuwans carried off the city's Šiuš idol. Pitḫana, the king of Kuššara, conquered Neša "in the night, by force", but "did not do evil to anyone in it". Neša revolted against the rule of Pitḫana's son, Anitta, but Anitta quashed the revolt and made Neša his capital.
Official source
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