The ancient town of Kültepe (Kultepe, Kanesh, Kaneš), where the earliest writing originates, rises to a thriving trade city and kārum or karum in Bronze Age Anatolia. Along with growing cities Ur, Memphis and Babylon, Kültepe is a major hub of trade, travel and social interaction. It's a land-bound region located in the center of Anatolia, modern day Turkey, connected by a network of ancient roads.
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Many routes evolve from trade, such as the Amber Road. The main Amber Road runs from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and North Africa. Other pathways branch off or become river systems, seeing the distribution of amber through much of the known world.
The Amber Roads serve also as a series of migration routes, paths of Bronze Age wanderers, trading networks and early fortifications. People along the trade routes often worked together to keep the pathways safe for travelers, and themselves.
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In the Bronze Age, trading roads can range from broad centers of commerce to animal trails in the woods. In some areas route safety is a concern. The animal trails might also be made by bears or lions, who still live in Eurasia during the Bronze Age.
In Mesopotamia many roads lead to Kültepe, sitting in the center of the Mesopotamian world like a Sun with earthly rays, which are the roads. In the lower city of Kültepe is an Assyrian kārum (pl. karu), or trading colony.
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Kārum comes from the Old Assyrian. It applies to Anatolian trade posts of the 20 - 18th centuries BCE. The main city for trade was Kültepe. It was also the administrative and distribution center for the Assyrian settlements in Anatolia. The city is the source of the earliest record of a definitively Indo-European language, Hittite, going back to the 20th century BCE.
The kārum is part of the city decreed by local authorities to be given to early Assyrian merchants and tradespeople. As long as the goods stayed in the kārum the merchants didn't have to pay taxes.
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As money doesn't yet exist, merchants establish rates of value of gold and silver. Gold is considered worth eight times as much as silver, and is used for wholesale trade, while silver is the preferred medium for retail. By 1500 BCE, the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose I declares gold to be currency.
From Kültepe, Anatolia the kārum cities stretch to the west as far as Ankara and north to the Black Sea. Smaller towns and regions develop similar versions, mabartu (sing. mabartū), about the same time. Trade includes copper, tin, fabrics, wool, luxury items, food and spices and a strange new metal, amutum, considered an early example of iron.
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During the Bronze Age Kültepe saw battle and conflict. An ancient cuneiform tablet tells of an uprising by seventeen kings against the dominant powers 2254–2218 BCE.
In the18th century BCE the city was conquered by several different rulers, who battled each other for the crown. In the 17th century BCE, the descendants of King Annitta moved the capital to Hattusa to found the line of Hittite kings.
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After the rise of the Hittite Empire, the kārum vanishes from Anatolian history. Today, the remains of the kārum settlement form a large circular mound 500 m in diameter and about 20 m high, also called a tumulus or tell.
A kārum settlement is the result of several stratigraphic periods. New buildings are erected on remains of earlier periods. The result is a well-defined stratigraphy from prehistoric times to the early Hittite period.
At one point the city was burned and rebuilt, at another it was abandoned and rebuilt. A large quantity of cuneiform plaques and tablets, the first ancient writing, have been found. Most were in the area of the kārum.
The tablets above are a letter sent from a merchant in Assyria (North Mesopotamia) to another in Kültepe, discussing the trade of precious metals and warning: "This is important; no dishonest man must cheat you! So do not succumb to drink!"
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