Anatolia and the Levant

Abstract

Emar, modern Meskene, is located on the great bend of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Excavations under J. Margueron between 1972 and 1976 brought to light more than five hundred cuneiform tablets, of which nearly three hundred were legal documents written in Akkadian. More than two hundred additional legal documents have since been published, derived from illegal excavations at Emar and sites in the vicinity. All the texts date to the thirteenth and twelfth centuries.1 Excavations at Ekalte (Tall Munbaqa, 23 km north of Meskene) have produced some eighty tablets of legal content.2