More from Tayinat
We have previously reported on the excavations at Tel Tayinat, which was the capital of the Hittite kingdom of Palastin. The large temple on the site yielded a copper disk engraved with a cuneiform inscription dedicating it "for the life of Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria". Now the University of Toronto team has announced a major new discovery.
Archaeologists are never satisfied. An archaeologist finds some wonderful temple or palace that is a wonder of the world; tourists come from all over to see it, National Geographic does a feature on it, The Discovery Channel makes a film about it, learned scholarly papers appear debating the significance of it - and all the while the archaeologist himself is chewing his fingernails to the quick and cannot sleep at nights, simply because he wants to know what is underneath it! He will not rest until he has been able to dig the thing up and tear it down, shove all the wonderful mosaics and frescoes (or whatever it is that he has found) onto the rubbish dump, all to find that underneath the building was virgin rock.
He has found precisely nothing, but at least he can sleep nights once more!
It would appear that the University of Toronto archaeologists belong to this school, for having taken their photographs and made their plans of the temple, they came back the next season to dig up the floor and find out what lay beneath. In this case they struck lucky: underneath part of the temple was a cella or "holy of holies" in which lay treasure in the form of implements made of iron, bronze and gold. These included libations vessels and other ritual objects.
Though gratifying, these are not enough to have excited the archaeologists. What has thrilled them is the discovery of a cache of cuneiform tablets that are dated to the Iron Age between 1200 and 600 BC.
According to Dr Timothy Harrison, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and director of the Tainat Archaeological Project, "The assemblage [of objects] appears to represent a Neo-Assyrian renovation of an older Neo-Hittite temple complex, providing a rare glimpse into the religious dimension of Assyrian imperial ideology." Then, referring to the new discovery, he adds: "The tablets, and the information they contain, may possibly highlight the imperial ambitions of one of the great powers of the ancient world, and its lasting influence on the political culture of the Middle East."
This was not the only writing discovered by the team. In 2008 they found a series of monumental stelae that formed part of the sacred precinct of this typical neo-Hittite temple. The stelae had been carved with long inscriptions in Luwian, a now extinct language. Unfortunately when Tiglath-pileser conquered Tayinat in 738 BC the stelae were shattered - possibly accidentally in a fire but also possibly deliberately - and the tiny sherds of stone are scattered all over the site. There does not appear to be any hope of joining the letters that remain to reconstruct the inscriptions.
The Assyrians turned Tayinat into a provincial capital with a local governor and a sophisticated administration, but as the Assyrian kingdom weakened Tayinat was attacked by unknown enemies and destroyed by fire. Heavily charred brick and wood filled the rooms of the temple and, by baking the clay tablets, preserved them for us.
Harrison has high hopes for their contents. "They promise a richly textured view of the cultural and ethnic contest that has long characterised the turbulent history of this region." We wish him luck: most tablets found in temple archives are nothing more than records of who paid tribute and made offerings to the god and the discovery that Joe son of Bloggs brought a goat and three sacks of grain to the temple is unlikely to shake the earth.
That is not to say that even information like that is without value. Analysing the names of the contributors, for example, can tell us about the ethnic mix of those who worshipped at the temple. We might even get hints at what was grown and produced in the area or what was imported from afar. As for anything more exciting, we shall wait and see.
previously reported May 8, 2009 Return
© Kendall K. Down 2009
