Tikunani Prism

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The Tikunani Prism is an 8½ inch clay artifact with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription listing the names of the Habiru soldiers of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani (a small N. Mesopotamian kingdom). This king was a contemporary of King Hattusili I of the Hittites (around 1550 BC).

The discovery of this prism generated much excitement, for it provided much-needed fresh evidence about the nature of the Habiru (or Hapiru). It turned out that the majority of Tunip-Tessup's 438 Habiru soldiers had Hurrian names that could not be explained in any Canaanite language (the family which Hebrew belongs to) or any other Semitic language. The rest of the names are Semitic, except one which is Kassite. This also brought into question the earlier suggestion of some scholars that the Habiru were never an ethnic group.

The prism is presently in a private collection of antiquities in England.

[edit] References

• Mirjo Salvini, The Habiru prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani. Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, Rome (1996). ISBN 88-8147-093-4
• Robert D. Biggs, (Review of the above). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 58 (4), October 1999, p294.

[edit] External links

• Article about Tikunani Prism Image:
• Tribes and Territories in transition (PDF; the link doesn't work yet you can find the book on BnB, Amazon etc.)
• "Wer findet Abraham?" (German)