Leather and Leather Trade in Kültepe Texts

Abstract

In the Assyrian Trade Colonies Period, Assyrian merchants traded especially tin and various wool fabrics, which were the main products they brought from Assyria, in the city-states of Anatolia. In addition, the merchants often tried to increase their income by trading products such as copper and wool of Anatolian origin. Leather or fleece, another Anatolian product, can be added to these Anatolian goods, which Assyrian merchants traded inside Anatolia. Two basic Akkadian terms, ārum and maškum occur in the Kültepe tablets for the meaning of leather or fleece/hides. Among these terms, which appear in more than 100 documents in total, especially maškum is more reflected in the texts as a commercial product; there are records of hundreds of them being bought and sold or transported from one place to another. The Kültepe tablets record a total of 45 ārum and 1674 maškum. In addition, there are records of maškum weighing approximately 42 talents in three different documents. It is not clear what kind of a distinction there is between the terms ārum and maškum as for the characteristics of the leather/fleece. However, the difference between these words could be in terms of the form of leather/fleece or whether it had undergone any processing, but not the animals from which it originated. ārum does not describe the skin of any animal except cattle, but the term maškum is also occurring for cattle skin in the documents. It is believed that the leather tanning process is one of the oldest occupations that human beings have mastered in terms of manufacturing techniques. In this respect, it is clear that leather tanning was known and practiced during the Old Assyrian Trade Colonies Period. However, there is no clear evidence in the Kültepe texts that would enable us to distinguish tanned leather from other rawhide or fleece. On the other hand, ārum, associated with the Hebrew word ‘ōr meaning “hide” in CAD A/II, p. 318a, may be related to the words erû “bare, empty” in CAD E, p. 320b, and a/arum “to be naked” in CDA p. 80a, and erium “naked” derived from this word. Accordingly, one may think that the term ārum may correspond to leather that had undergone some manufacturing process for tanning in some way.