A Hittite treaty tablet from Oylum Höyük in southeastern Turkey and the location of Ḫaššu(wa)

Abstract

In the summer of 2012 Oylum Höyük yielded its first Hittite cuneiform tablet and thus joined five other Hittite tabletyielding sites in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria. The tablet was probably removed from a nearby Hittite imperial-period monumental building, which seems to have been the Hittites’ administrative centre at Oylum, and incorporated into Iron Age debris. The wording of the text, in its preserved parts, shares traits with Hittite state treaties. It also has striking similarities with Hittite instruction texts, due to the generic affinities between these two genres. However, on the basis of the overall structure of the Oylum tablet and, most significantly, the inclusion of a list of oath gods at the end of the text, it is proposed that we are dealing here with a treaty. This article clarifies the genre and comprehensible context of the tablet, provides a transliteration and, as far as it is possible, a translation of the text, provides some philological comments and ends with the suggestion that the ancient name of Oylum Höyük was Ḫaššu(wa).