Cuneiform Texts and Sealings

A group of Mitannian-period texts and sealings were found in the palace of the Southwestern area.

The finds, housed now in the Archaeological Museum in Deir ez-Zor, comprise about 50 inscribed objects, among them c. 20 clay tablets or fragments of such texts. The rest consists of heavily destroyed small clay objects, some of them with irregular forms, but all sealed with specified Mitanni-style seals, to which short inscription belong that normally mention a personal name and the delivery of a quantity of satukku-beer.

• The inscribed and sealed objects and the cuneiform texts form a coherent archive as the clay tablets refer to expenditures of a palace household with only two different commodities that are primarily quantities of satukku-beer and of ad/takurru-vessels filled with some beverage.

• The recipients mentioned comprise household personal, female and male, some of them for travelling, eventually adding the name of a temple or of some place names.

• The vocabulary shows a clear Hurrian background.

• Rather remarkable are deliveries for people from Misru/Egypt, Ugarit, Arrapha and from Alasia/Cyprus. They show that the persons came from important kingdoms which is a further indication to Tall al-Hamidiya being the residence city of the Mitannian empire.