A team of archeologists recently uncovered a small clay tablet from the 15th century BC while working on the ruins of the ancient city of Alalakh in modern-day Turkey. After further examination, it turned out that the tablet was a receipt for a furniture purchase.
The tablet contained inscriptions on cuneiform, one of the oldest-known forms of writing, and used the extinct language of Akkadian. It listed a purchase made by an unknown buyer that included wooden tables, chairs, and stools.
Alalakh, which now lies close to Turkey’s border with Syria, was founded in the early second millennium BC and abandoned in 600 BC. It was once the capital of the Mukis Kingdom and part of a major trade route, which could explain why merchants issued receipts. The area was first excavated by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1930s and has been revisited several times since.
Experts are still working on deciphering the entire tablet and hope they will be able to uncover more information and find out more about the buyer and the seller involved in the transaction.
“We believe that this tablet, weighing 28 grams, will offer a new perspective to understand the economic structure and state system of the Late Bronze Age,” said Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Turkey’s minister of culture and tourism, in a statement published on social media.