Tikunani

Tikunani (or Tigunānum) was a small Hurrian city-state in Mesopotamia around the middle of the second millennium BC. The name refers to both the kingdom and its capital city.

History

Assuming it does refer to the same city, Tigunānum is the older form of the name, appearing in texts excavated from Mari (c. 1760 BCE) and Shemshara around the 18th century BC in the Old Babylonian period.

The currently published texts from Tikunani all appear to date to the Middle Bronze Age to Late Bronze Age transition period in the 1600s BC. At that time Tikunani was frequently engaged in military activities involving bows, arrows, and chariots and directed against Kassites and the city of Ḫaḫḫum. Friendly relations were maintained with the Hittities to the west. In one text it reads:

"... These Kassites have stationed in your land, and they are coming up to Urpan to (present) battle. ... The chariots and the ʿabirū which are with my father, my father must send to me quickly; my father should not differ it. ... They should protect your city, Urpan. ..."

Tikunani Prism

The Tikunani Prism is a clay artifact, 8½ inches tall with a square base roughly 2 by 2 inches, with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription listing the names of 438 ʿApiru soldiers (or workmen, the reading is unclear) of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani. This king was a contemporary of King Hattusili I of the Hittites (around 1620 BC). It is of unknown provenance and is currently held in a private collection.

The discovery of this text initially generated much excitement, for it was suggested that it provided much-needed fresh evidence about the nature of the Habiru (or Hapiru) and their possible connection to the Biblical Hebrews. However, the majority of Tunip-Tessup's Habiru soldiers recorded in the text had Hurrian names that could not be explained in any Canaanite language (the family which Hebrew belongs to) or any other Semitic language. The rest of the names are Semitic, except for one Kassite name. The linkage between the ʿApiru and later Hebrews has since been discounted.

Sources

All known sources are of unknown provenance. It has been suggested that they were illegally excavated in the 1990s. The cuneiform tablets bear a colophon which indicates they are part of a palace archive. Three tablets and two prisms, one administrative and one the Tikunani Prism are held in a private collection and have been published. Eleven tablets, five omen compendia, five administrative, and one lexical are held in the Schøyen Collection and have been published. Two tablets, one omen and one administrative are held in separate private collections and have been published. Fifteen omen tablets are held in Japan in the Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum, yet unpublished..

It has been reported that about 450 further Tikunani tablets were held in a private collection, of which 17 have been published. Those tablets have since been sold at auction and their whereabouts unknown. Before the sale they were transliterated by W. G. Lambert. Those transcriptions are slowly making their way into publication, totally 44 by 2026. The collection included about "20 letters, 360 administrative texts, about 40 legal texts, 20 divinatory texts, a broken royal inscription, and a number of fragmentary school texts".

One of the private collection tablets, in Akkadian, from a Hittite king named only by the title "tabarna" is written to a vassal king, Tuniya (possibly the same as Tunip-Teššup), the ruler of Tikunani. In the letter the king extorts his vassal for support him in an attack against the city of Ḫaḫḫum who have been dealing with the Mitanni. The tablet is thought to date to the reign of Hittite ruler Hattusili I (c. 1650–1620 BC) though that is not certain. It has been suggested that this is a modern forgery. In the annals of Hattusilli I it is recorded that ruler Tunip-Teššup sent him a "silver chariot".

"... be a man with respect to the man of Hahhum. Devour his food rations like a dog! The oxen which you take shall be your own. The sheep and goats which you take shall be your own. Be a man with respect to him! I from this side, and you from that side. ..."

Location

It was speculated that the location of Tikunani was in the area around Diyarbakir or Bismil,. Later work suggested that the region of the Upper Habur River that lies off the Euphrates River as the probable region of provenance.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nicla De Zorzi, "Teratomancy at Tigunānum: Structure, Hermeneutics, and Weltanschauung of a Northern Mesopotamian Omen Corpus", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 69, pp. 125–50, 2017
  2. 1 2 Justel, Josué J., "Remarkable Women from Tikunani. The Role of Women in Palatial Administration", Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East, Approaches from Assyriology and Beyond, pp. 117-128, 2018
  3. ↑ Eidem, J., "The Shemshāra Archives 2: The Administrative Texts", Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter 15, 1992 Copenhagen
  4. 1 2 3 Justel, Josué J., "Foreigners in Upper Mesopotamia During the Transition to the Late Bronze Age: The Case of Tikunani", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, 2026
  5. ↑ Robert D. Biggs, "Review of Mirjo Salvini's The Habiru prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 58, iss. 4, pp. 294, October 1999
  6. ↑ Mirjo Salvini, "The Ḫabiru Prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani", Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, Rome, 1996 ISBN 9788881470945
  7. ↑ Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, "Production of Knowledge in Contact Zones: Mari and Tigunānum in the Old Babylonian Period", Material Worlds: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Archaeopress, pp. 33-41, 2016
  8. 1 2 Mirjo Salvini, "Una lettera di Hattušili I relativa alla spedizione contro Ḫaḫḫu", in Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, vol. 34, pp.61–80, 1994
  9. ↑ A. R. George, "Babylonian Divinatory Texts Chiefly in the Schøyen Collection. With an Appendix of Material from the Papers of W. G. Lambert", CUSAS 18 = MSCCT 7, Bethesda, CDLI Press, 2013 ISBN 978-1-934309-47-6
  10. ↑ Civil, M., "The Lexical Texts in the Schøyen Collection" CUSAS 12, Winona Lake, 2010
  11. ↑ Akdoğan, R. and Wilhelm, G., "Ein Täfelchen über Gerstenrationen aus Tigunanu(?)", AoF 37, pp. 159–62, 2010
  12. ↑ De Zorzi, Nicla, "Another Teratomantic Tablet from Tigunānum", Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, vol. 107, pp. 11–18, 2017
  13. ↑ Homan, Z. S.,"Nuzi and Tigunanum", Mittani Palaeography, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 149–218, 2019
  14. ↑ Salvini, Mirjo, "Alcuni nuovi testi dell'archivio di Tikunani", Nomina in aqua scripta. Homenaje a Joaquín María Córdoba Zoilo, hrsg. v. Adolfo J. Domínguez Monedero, pp. 571–584, 2021
  15. ↑ Weeden, Mark, "Hurrian in a Tablet from Tigunānum", talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, hrsg. v. Cammarosano, Michele, Devecchi, Elena, Viano, Maurizio (Kasion 2), pp. 469-488, 2020
  16. ↑ George, A.R., "Babylonian documents from North Mesopotamia", in A.R. George (ed.) Assyrian Archival Texts in the Schøyen Collection and Other Documents, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, 34. Bethesda, Md, pp. 95–108, 2017
  17. ↑ Collins, Billie Jean, "Ḫattušili I, The Lion King", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 50, pp. 15–20, 1998
  18. ↑ Ünal, Ahmet, "Word Play in Hittite Literature?", Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, edited by Gary Beckman, Richard H. Beal and Gregory McMahon, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 377-388, 2003
  19. ↑ Miller, J. L., "Ḫattušili I’s Expansion into Northern Syria in Light of the Tikunani Letter", In G. Wilhelm (ed.), Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethito-logie, Würzburg, 4.-8. Oktober 1999: 410–429. Wiesbaden, 2001
  20. ↑ Cox, Rory, "Hatti: Ius in bello; Concepts and Practices", Origins of the Just War: Military Ethics and Culture in the Ancient Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 234-266, 2023

Further reading