Anatolia 4,000 years ago: Early occupations

The excavations at the Kultepe-Kanis-Karum Ruins, located on the Kayseri-Sivas highway, continue under the leadership of professor Fikri Kulakoglu and with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality. The findings shed light on Anatolia's trade history, revealing the professions practiced 4,000 years ago.

Kulakoglu, head of Kultepe Excavations, noted that the professions of 4,000 years ago closely resemble those seen today; “Today, there is a person responsible for every kind of task you think of. There are heads of workers, heads of people responsible for oil production, people responsible for grain production, commanders, heads of janitors, laundresses, carpenters, potters, cooks, barbers, priests, weavers, boatmen, builders, guides, innkeepers and musicians.”  

While excavations at the 6,000-year-old Kultepe Kanis-Karum Ruins have been going on for 75 years, Kulakoglu said that around 23,500 cuneiform tablets were recovered during the excavations.

Stating that some of the tablets found in the excavations also provide information about the professions of the period, Kulakoglu said that the professions that can be thought of today also existed 4,000 years ago.

“Indeed, within the historical scope starting with the tablets here, we can find many documents from international treaties to the names of kings in these tablets. Among these, one of the interesting issues for Anatolia; there are also documents that clearly show the conditions of being a state, of being a central administration. These are legal documents, court decisions, or bureaucrats working in the palace. Bureaucracy is an indispensable element of being a state. Therefore, as far as we understand from the tablets found in Kültepe, there are texts containing the names of at least 50 bureaucrats.

In these texts, we not only learn the titles of the people working in the palace, but we also learn about the professions practiced during this period. There are high-level bureaucrats, as well as bureaucrats responsible for certain areas. For example, there is a bureaucrat in charge of the city gates. Similarly, we come across a title that we can call the supervisor of market vendors. Nearly 50 titles are mentioned in the texts.

In addition to these, there are people who are not big bureaucrats but who are in charge of certain professions, such as the head of the cattle keepers, the head of the woodcutters and lumberjacks, the chief vine-maker, the officer in charge of the threshing, the officer in charge of the warehouses, the head of the gunsmiths, the officer in charge of the orchards, the criers, the gardeners, the table-makers, and all the other professions you can think of today.

There are heads of laborers, heads of people in charge of oil production, people in charge of grain production, heads of soldiers, heads of porters, laundresses, carpenters, potters, cooks, barbers, priests, weavers, boatmen, builders, guides, innkeepers and musicians. We can find almost all the professions and bureaucrats that we can see in modern society today in the Kültepe tablets of 4,000 years ago.”

Source: Newsroom