Excavations have started at the Kültepe ruins where the oldest written documents in Anatolia were found

The 76th year of excavations at Kültepe, an important karum in Anatolia during the Assyrian trade colonies, has begun.

Kültepe is about 24 km from Kayseri city center. It functioned as an important trade center of the Assyrians and Hittites from 2000 BC to 1200 BC.

The most important feature of Kültepe is that the oldest written documents discovered in Anatolia were unearthed here. These tablets are written in Assyrian cuneiform and contain information on various subjects such as trade, law, religion and daily life.

The world’s largest cuneiform archive was found in Kültepe. This archive contains more than 25,000 tablets.

75 years of excavations have uncovered many important structures including Assyrian and Hittite palaces, houses, temples, workplaces and warehouses.

Kültepe hosts 5000-year-old palace structures

Prof. Dr. Fikri Kulakoğlu, Head of Kültepe Excavations, Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of Archaeology, said that they have started the 76th year of Kültepe excavations, which have been going on for 75 years, and said, “We have come to the 76th season of Kültepe excavations. We have started excavations this year and we are doing our first works thanks to Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality. I think we will be here again until the end of the year. Our excavations shed light on the history not only of Kayseri, not only of Anatolia, but also of the Near East and the Middle East. Our target this year is again the large monumental palace structures we see behind us. In other words, there are palace structures dating back to 5 thousand years ago. We plan to investigate them and of course we plan to go to earlier layers during this research. In other words, we are trying to bring the history of Kültepe and Kayseri earlier.”