The Textiles traded by the Assyrians in Anatolia (19th-18th Centuries BC)

International audienceThe cuneiform private archives from Kaniš, dated to the beginning of the 2nd millennium B.C., belonged to Assyrian merchants who traded many textiles between their home city Aššur and central Anatolia. The numerous terms linked to textiles cited by these tablets have been extensively studied by K. Veenhof in 1972. Since then, thousands of texts have been published and deciphered, which have supplied so many new data that a new analysis is desirable. Of those exported to Anatolia, many were imported in Aššur, others were produced in Aššur or somewhere in northern Mesopotamia. In addition the Assyrian traded textiles which were produced in Anatolia. This implies that the textiles had different origins and that their names come from different languages. Most of them occur only in the Old Assyrian dialect and the overlap with the Old Babylonian vocabulary is limited.Archaeology has not produced any remains of textiles, which means that we have to try to identify them on the basis of the designations, their combinations and the context in which they occur, which most of the time is not helpful (enumerations, lists…). This means that the researcher is faced with at least three main tasks:1. Establish the origin of the textiles (Southern Mesopotamia, Aššur, Northern Mesopotamia, Anatolia) and their material2. Make a distinction between untailored textiles or ready-to-wear garments and understand their categorisation3. Analyse their nature and functions on the basis of the various qualifications (quality, price, size, weight, colour, finishing…