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How were commercial transactions conducted 3,500 years ago? What did people buy, how did they pay and in what manner did the acknowledgement of payment come? To find answers for these intriguing questions, one must dig deep.
Dig they did, in Turkey’s Reyhanli district, but for an entirely different reason. Workers engaged in restoration work after the deadly earthquake of February 2023 were digging through the rubble when they chanced upon a curious object — a small clay tablet. It measured 4.2 cm in length, 3.5 cm in width, was 1.6 cm thick and weighed 23 grams. There was something etched on the surface. They turned it over to the authorities and it went into the hands of archaeologists.
It turns out that the tablet was actually a receipt, made out 3,500 years ago, for a purchase of large number of wooden tables, chairs and stools, and mentioned the names of the buyer and the seller. The furniture did not survive the passage of time, but the receipt did.
The receipt is in the Akkadian language, which has been deciphered. The script is one of the world’s ancient ones, in what is called ‘cuneiform writing’.
This, though, is not a unique discovery — there have been similar finds in the recent past. Last year, restoration work at an ancient palace damaged by the earthquake threw up another tablet with writings in Akkadian. It was an agreement made by Yarim-Lim, the first king of Alalakh, to purchase another city — 3,800 years ago.
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