The tablet of Akaptaḫa, or Agaptaḫa, is an ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

n private commemorative inscription on stone of the donation of a 10 GUR field (about 200 acres) by

Kassite The Kassites () were a people of the ancient Near East. They controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire from until (short chronology). The Kassites gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon in 1531 B ...

king Kaštiliašu IV ( 1232 BC – 1225 BC) to a fugitive leatherworker from

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n-occupied Ḫanigalbat in grateful recognition of his services provisioning the

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

n army with bridles (''pagumu'', a loanword from

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

or perhaps

) .

The tablet

The

Mitanni Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...

kingdom of Ḫanigalbat, here given the Babylonian pronunciation ''Ḫaligalbatû'', had been annexed under the preceding reign of Adad-nārārī I (1307–1275 BC) or Salmānu-ašarēdu I (1274–1245 BC) and Akaptaḫa (a

name) seems to have been one of the political refugees (''munnabittu'', refugee, displaced person, foreigner) who consequently sought asylum in the Kassite kingdom. He made his home in Padan (var. Padnu), one of the eastern provinces somewhere (

Jebel Hamrin Hamrin is a town in northern Iraq which sits on the western shore of a man-made lake of the same name, both of which are at the southern extreme of the Hamrin Mountains. Hamrin is home to approximately 25,000 people. Most revenue comes from fishi ...

, according to Jensen) in the upper Diyala region which had been claimed by the Kassites since the time of Agum II. The object was recovered during the French excavations at

Susa Susa ( ) was an ancient city in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris, between the Karkheh River, Karkheh and Dez River, Dez Rivers in Iran. One of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East, Susa served as the capital o ...

at the end of the 19th century, where it had been taken as war booty during one of the

Elam Elam () was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of modern-day southern Iraq. The modern name ''Elam'' stems fr ...

ite invasions following the overthrow of Kaštiliašu IV by

Tukulti-Ninurta I Tukulti-Ninurta I (meaning: "my trust is in he warrior godNinurta"; reigned 1243–1207 BC) was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian Empire. He is known as the first king to use the title "King of Kings". Reign Tukulti-Ninurta I succeed ...

, those of Kidin-Hutran III (ca. 1224 BC and 1217 BC),

Shutruk-Nakhunte Shutruk-Nakhunte (sometimes Nahhunte) was king of Elam from about 1184 to 1155 BC (middle chronology), and the second king of the Shutrukid Dynasty. Elam amassed an empire that included most of Mesopotamia and western Iran. Under his command ...

(ca. 1158 BC) and Kutir-Nahhunte II (1155 BC). The tablet describes itself using the same term applied generally to

kudurru A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC. The original kudurru would typically be stor ...

s as a ''narû'', "stele", and falls into the same tradition of entitlement monuments, excepting the absence of religious iconography and the format of the granting and cursing formulae. The text invokes "the gods of the king", presumably the

Kassite deities Kassite deities were the pantheon of the Kassites ( Akkadian: ''Kaššû'', from Kassite ''Galzu''), a group inhabiting parts of modern Iraq (mostly historical Babylonia and the Nuzi area), as well as Iran and Syria, in the second and first mil ...

Šuqamuna and Šumalia. The inscription uses an informal mix of monumental and cursive

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

, precedes the royal name with a masculine (¹ or ^m) rather than the divine (^{DINGIR

''Dingir'' ⟨⟩, usually transliterated DIĜIR, () is a Sumerian word for 'god' or 'goddess'. Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and ...}) or (^D)

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ...

and spells his name with ''-ti-li-'' in place of the more usual ''–til-'', suggesting its provincial origin or perhaps its lack of authenticity. The name Akaptaḫa appears on four accounts of salaries or ration lists from

Nippur Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...

as the father of Ninurta-ašarēdu, dated to the sixteenth year of an unnamed king probably Nazi-Maruttaš (1291 BC), the father of Izkur-Šuqamuna, in the twentieth year of an unnamed king, that of Arunayû the twenty-first year of

Kurigalzu II Kurigalzu II (c. 1332–1308 BC short chronology) was the 22nd king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon. In more than twelve inscriptions, Kurigalzu names Burna-Buriaš II as his father. Kurigalzu II was placed on the Kassite ...

and as DUMU''-Akaptaḫa'' on an inventory of gardening implements from Nazi-Maruttaš’ second year but these incidents are probably for someone else as they appear too early.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tablet of Agaptaha Kassites Kudurru boundary stones Sculpture of the ancient Near East Archaeological discoveries in Iran 13th-century BC inscriptions