Constitution, Contents, Filing and Use of Private Archives: The Case of Old Assyrian Archives (nineteenth century BCE)

The archives of the ancient Near East do not correspond to a collection of cuneiform tablets preserved for their historical value, but more to a set of texts all kept in the same place, concerning the same individuals or dealing with the same topics. They were accumulated as long as they were considered to be useful. Besides uncovering official archives used by large organisations (palaces and temples), archaeologists have also excavated many private archives; these belonged to individuals and were found in their houses. Assyrian merchants’ archives unearthed at Kultepe (the ancient town of Kanes) in Central Anatolia represent the first important group of private cuneiform archives and they mainly date back to the nineteenth century BCE. These archives consist of letters, legal texts and memoranda. They were arranged on shelves or inside labelled containers using a classification system that gives us hints about the use merchants made of their archives.