Foreign merchants in Anatolia during the Age of Assyrian Trade Colonies

Written documents are the fundamental sources for investigating our history. Mound Kultepe, located 25 km far from Kayseri, has the collection of cuneiform script written in ancient Assyrian dialect which is dated to first quarter of two thousand B.C. Much of the documents concerned belong to the Assyrian merchants and contain important information about the period called the Age of Assyrian Trade Colonies. Today, the number of these documents is close to 25,000 indicating that Assyrian merchants were found predominantly in Anatolia from the beginnig of the second millenium B.C. However, when the texts are examined, apart from Assyrian merchants, Akadian, Eblaites, Amurrian, Subarian and other merchants whose origins are unknown are in commercial activities in Anatolia. In this study, foreign merchants coming to Anatolia for trade about 4000 years ago will be held through sampling from cuneiform scripts.