Alışar Höyük

Alishar Hüyük (in modern Yozgat Province, Turkey) was an ancient city in Central Anatolia. It is near the modern village of Alişar, Sorgun. It has been suggested that in the Iron Age the site was part of the polity of Tabal.

Alishar Hüyük was occupied beginning in the Neolithic Period, through the Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and the Hittites, and into Phrygian times. The remnants of a Late Roman or Byzantine church were also found. During the Neolithic times (found at 26 meters below the mound surface and about 11 meters above virgin soil) the site was in the middle of a lake and occupation was restricted to the mound. As the area dried in the Chalcolithic Age occupation slowly spread off the mound and outer defenses were built. Eventually in the Early Bronze Age a large defensive fortification wall, with gates, was built.

A trading post in the Assyrian Trade Network between Hattusa and Kanesh.

One tablet carried the eponym Adad-bāni which has been dated to the final years of Shamshi-Adad I (r. 1808-1775 BCE) of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. Mention in those tablets of the town Ankuwa has caused speculation that the site is the Ankuwa mentioned in other Hittite texts.

Fifty three (allowing for copies) cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian of the Cappadocia type were found there. The tablets appear to be typical of an Assyrian trading outpost typical of that time in Anatolia. In two cases the writer mentions having returned from Zalpuwa (Zalpa) and in another Kanesh and Hattusa are referred to. One tablet mentions a trader Amur-Assur, also mentioned in tablets at the karum in Kultepe. Two of the tablets carry the seal of an "Anitta the Prince" which has led to speculation that this was Anitta who was king of Kuššara in the late 1700s BC.

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).