Kaniş

Kaniş, known today by its Turkish name Kültepe, lies about 20 kilometers northeast of Kayseri and ranks among the most important trade-archive sites in the ancient Near East. Occupied since the early third millennium BC, the settlement reached its height in the early second millennium BC, when a lower-city district beside its mound hosted a kārum, a merchant colony of traders from Assur in distant Assyria. These merchants exchanged tin, textiles and other goods along routes linking Mesopotamia with central Anatolia, leaving behind more than 23,500 cuneiform tablets recovered from private houses, the largest surviving archive of private documents from anywhere in the ancient Near East. The tablets record everyday business dealings between Assyrian traders and the local Anatolian population, giving historians an unusually detailed window into Bronze Age commerce. Ongoing excavations continue to reveal the layout of both the upper mound and the merchant quarter below it, making Kültepe a key reference point for understanding early international trade networks.