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In central Turkey, archaeologists have unearthed a 3,800-year-old warehouse. Sixteen large jars, buried on a steep slope. The building dates to the period that Turkish archaeologists themselves refer to as the Assyrian trading colony era—a chapter in our history that is less about kings and wars, and more about donkeys, contracts, and letters home.

The news broke on August 12 and went almost unnoticed by the Assyrian public. Near Hattuşa in the Çorum Province, a large storage and trade complex dating to around 1800–1750 B.C. has been discovered. The discovery was made on the northwestern slope of Büyükkale, between what would much later become the Hittite royal palace and the great temple. The excavations are being led by the German Archaeological Institute, with Professor Andreas Schachner serving as director of the excavation.

Sixteen large storage jars have been unearthed so far, buried in a slope that was terraced and stepped to support the building. It has been an extensive undertaking.

The city was called Hattush at that time

The site is known today as the capital of the Hittites. But this discovery predates the Hittites. At that time, the city was called Hattush, and its lower district was home to a colony of Assyrian merchants. Schachner has described it as follows: it now appears that we have uncovered the very trade and storage center of Hattush as it was back then. As early as the 1960s, a similar building was unearthed about thirty meters northeast of the new excavation pit; together, they may constitute parts of a significantly larger commercial district.

No one knows yet what the pots contained. A landslide crushed the building and knocked off the upper parts of the vessels, which were later filled with clay, stones, and gravel. Now, soil from the bottoms of the pots is being collected for botanical analysis—if any seeds remain, it will be possible to determine whether they were grains, legumes, or something else.

The Network Between Assur and Anatolia

From around 1950 B.C. and for two centuries thereafter, merchants from Assur built up a trade network throughout Anatolia. The most famous center was located at Kanesh, today’s Kültepe outside Kayseri. From there, they operated through larger trading settlements, known as karum, and smaller stations called wabartum. Hattush was one of the cities in this system.

The word “karum” means quay or harbor—the point of arrival for caravans, a harbor without a sea right in the middle of the Anatolian Plateau. High-quality tin and textiles came into Anatolia, while silver and gold went out. Tin was crucial: when alloyed with copper, it became bronze.

Here is what should interest Assyrian readers the most. About 23,000 cuneiform tablets have been found at Kanesh, and they do not deal with conquests. They deal with loans, contracts, disputes, wills, and marriage contracts—as well as letters between merchants in Anatolia and their families back home in Assur. The collection is considered one of the largest collections of private texts ever discovered in the Middle East. It was these merchants who brought writing to Anatolia.

What Was Left

Around 1700 B.C., Hattush was burned to the ground by Anitta, king of Kussara, who, according to his own inscription, allowed weeds to grow over the ruins and cursed anyone who would ever rebuild the city. The curse did not last long. The trade network began to decline around the same time.

The pots remained on the hillside. And what remained, in Turkish archaeological terminology, was the name for the entire era: Asur Ticaret Kolonileri Çağı, the Assyrian Trading Colonies Period.

The excavations are continuing westward. Sixteen pots may seem like a small thing to some, but the discovery points to something much greater—that the Assyrian presence and its influence extended farther than the map of the empire suggests.