A multi ethnic population of Hittites, Assyrians,Egyptians and the north-west Semitic speaking natives inhabited this port of call situated in the middle Euphrates and on the frontier of the Hittite province of Syria, facing Babylonia to the south-east and Assyria to the north-east. It flourished during the last days of this hegemonic power system which was broken by the inroads of the Aramaeans, the Israelite, the Sea Peoples, and the rise of the Phoenician city states in the 12th century BC. The tablets published here are in a variety of languages and cover the full range of types of documents found from rituals and cultic inventories to legal documents and payment lists.
Each text type is discussed and parallels to previously published texts are given. Every document is provided with an introduction placing it in its context, a transliteration, translation and philological and textual notes.Further more they are presented in photographs, hand copies and with drawings of all the Hittite and Syrian sealings. These texts provide insights into the political, economic, social and religious life of the critical period of the late 13th and early 12th centuries BC when the face of the Near East underwent global changes.
By Joan Goodnick Westenholz
Hardcover, 210 pages,English text
ISBN 978-9056930233