YBC: Highlights 59 (2023-12-22)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

A Temple Picked Clean (YPM BC 009599, NBC 6615; Old Assyrian period (about 2000– 1700 BC); Kültepe (ancient Kanesh), central Anatolia; 50 x 42 x 14 mm; clay)

Tens of thousands of cuneiform documents have come to light at Kültepe, the site of the Assyrian merchant colony of Kanesh in central Anatolia. Many are letters exchanged between the settlers in Kanesh and their business partners, relatives, and wives in the capital Assur and a variety of other Assyrian trade settlements. This letter was sent to the Assyrian authorities at Kanesh by Assyrians from the merchant colony at Urshu, who are deeply distressed. Their temple had been plundered, and all the precious paraphernalia of the god Assur had disappeared. The letter reads: What never happened before (has happened now): Thieves have entered the temple of Assur, [stealing] the golden sun (disk) on Assur’s breast and Assur’s dagger. (…) (All) has been taken away. The temple has been picked clean. They left nothing. We searched for the thieves but cannot find them. The letter provides us with important insights into how richly divine statues were decorated during the Old Assyrian period. More striking, however, is that Urshu is thus far the only place outside the city of Assur that is known to have had its own cult statue and temple of Assur. As outrageous as the crime described here seems, temples and divine statues were of course vulnerable to theft and sacrilege. Other texts show as well that divine statues in the ancient Near East were heavily adorned with golden ornaments and other precious materials, and that temples stored many valuable items, which proved tempting for lowlifes. A legal document from Achaemenid Uruk records a case in which two men, Itti-Shamash-balatu and Shamshaya, were accused of stealing from a local temple. They were caught by a temple administrator with silver they had taken from the institution’s offering stores. After unsuccessfully trying to buy his silence with some of their loot, the two were forced to return the stolen silver to the chest (Joannès 2000a, 215, no. 156). The Assur letter ends in a plea: Our dear fathers and lords, take care of the matter there (that is, at Kanesh)! It seems unlikely, however, that the officials at Kanesh were able to do much to help their compatriots in Urshu. See it in the exhibition “Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks ... Highlights from the Yale Babylonian Collection” at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, 6 April 2019 – 30 June 2020 CDLI entry: P286279

credit: Wagensonner, Klaus; Werwie, Kate
image credit: Wagensonner, Klaus