This past summer, with the generous support of a Charles Harris Project Grant, a team of PhD students in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and History of Art at Johns Hopkins University joined the ASOR affiliated Turkish Ministry of Culture & Tourism and Mustafa Kemal University excavations at Tell Atchana, ancient Alalakh, in Hatay, Türkiye, which are under the direction of Murat Akar, to investigate one of the most promising discoveries made at the site in recent years: the possible remains of a Late Bronze Age archive of cuneiform tablets. What made this group of excavators distinctive was that each student had been trained not only in archaeology but also in reading Akkadian cuneiform, bringing together the two areas of expertise needed to recover and document such an archive with exceptional care.

Background to the Project

Following the devastating 2023 earthquakes, over the past three years the excavation team has focused on restoring the iconic Bronze Age monuments originally excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1930s and 1940s. Further restoration efforts have included the stabilization of sections of the Area 1 squares excavated between 2003 and 2016, adjacent to the Level IV Palace and the Administrative Castle Complex. This large-scale restoration program, partially funded by the ASOR Shepard Urgent Action Grant in 2023, has also led to new discoveries at the site.

In particular, four cuneiform tablets were discovered during cleaning and stabilization operations conducted in the southern section of Sq. 32.54 in the 2024 season. One of the team’s experienced field supervisors, Baran Kerim Ecer, spotted the tablets within an extremely burnt deposit sealed by the succeeding building phase known as the Hittite Fortress. To test the possibility that additional texts may have survived, the 2025 excavation season was planned to include work in Sq. 32.64 (south of Sq. 32.54), which had previously been explored only on a limited scale.

Accordingly, project excavation’s staff epigraphers, Jacob Lauinger and Zeynep Türker, applied to ASOR for a Charles Harris Project Grant. The funds provided by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and ASOR enabled the excavation team to carry out 16 weeks (!) of intensive fieldwork. The targeted burnt deposit was sealed beneath the massive mudbrick foundations of the Hittite Fortress, previously explored in the adjacent squares and published as part of the Alalakh Excavations second monograph (Figure 2).

Excavations in Sq. 32.64

Excavations began in May, and the first eight weeks were devoted solely to understanding the architectural layout and the stratigraphic relationship between the Level II–III Hittite Fortress and the burnt deposit (Level IV) beneath it. This initial phase of work was conducted by Arman Alp, an MKU graduate student trained at Tell Atchana. The team of PhD students from Johns Hopkins arrived at the Tell Atchana Excavations and Amuq Valley Reseach Center in July to begin the excavation of the Level IV burnt deposit. The square was under the supervision of Zeynep Türker and Lauren Cook, both of whom had previously gained field experience at Tell Atchana and were familiar with the site’s stratigraphy thanks to ASOR’s travel grant program for PhD students.

Once the Hittite Fortress level had been fully explored within the boundaries of the square, an area measuring 7 × 5 meters in the northern half was initially leveled down to reach the burnt deposit. Following the removal of the fortress foundations, and contrary to the typical practice in Near Eastern archaeology, the project adopted a “Do-It-Yourself” policy. Only a skilled and experienced team of archaeologists, assisted by archaeology students, worked in the trench due to the extremely delicate nature of the context (Figs 3-6). The excavations almost immediately confirmed our initial assessments: more than a dozen tablets and fragments were recovered from this relatively small exposure, along with seal impressions and sealing materials (Fig 7).

Many of the tablets were discovered in the burnt destruction layer containing collapsed mudbricks, large carbon deposits, and dense concentrations of pottery, as well as ornaments made of gold and faience. The burnt deposit partially exposed on the northern section of Sq.32.64 is understood to be very thick and due to delicate and slow excavation methodology applied, the associated floor levels has not been reached yet. Therefore, it was decided to explore this level to the full extent of the square in order to better understand the architectural layout and the contextual distribution of the finds. At present, excavations are still ongoing at the site, carried out by the core members of the Alalakh excavation team, with the aim of removing the remaining portions of the Hittite Fortress, preparing the area for continued exploration that will further investigate the burnt level beneath, in 2026 (Fig. 8).

Most of Alalakh’s tablets were excavated in the 1930s and 1940s, often with limited documentation of their archaeological context. The discovery of this new archive provides a rare opportunity to examine such material in situ. Each tablet was photographed and recorded with a total station to document their spatial distribution in a three-dimensional context. The associated organic materials were collected for radiocarbon analysis, and soil samples were carefully taken to preserve contextual information for future study. All excavated soil was sifted, allowing the recovery of additional seal impressions and tablet fragments smaller than a thumbnail, demonstrating the necessity of employing a meticulous excavation strategy. The finds were then carefully transferred to the Tell Atchana Excavations and the Amuq Valley Research Center. In close cooperation with Jacob Lauinger and Zeynep Türker, the cleaning and conservation of the tablets were carried out by Hatice Nur Aydın, a highly skilled conservator who has specialized in tablet restoration due to the large number of tablets recovered at the site over the past three years (Fig 9). This process was followed by high-resolution photographic documentation prior to in-depth epigraphic study.

Re-Excavating the Level IV Palace

While the Sq. 32.64 team focused on exploring this previously untouched area of the Royal Precinct of Alalakh, another team concentrated their efforts on re-excavating the Level IV Palace. Many of the rooms had been filled with decayed mudbrick following the original excavations of the monument in the 1930s, while others contained backfill from Woolley’s excavation dumps. This line of work has also led to exciting new discoveries, including additional tablets from the palace that are contemporary with those from Sq. 32.64. Together, these finds provide new perspectives on Woolley’s legacy excavations at Tell Atchana and the associated archival data (Fig 10).

Conclusion

Although further excavation will be necessary to confirm the architectural layout and extent of the deposit and further conservation and study of the cuneiform tablets is required to fully grasp the nature of their documentation and to integrate them with other cuneiform tablets from both the site and the larger region, this new archive promises to add valuable new data to our understanding of Alalakh and its Late Bronze Age society.

Preliminary assessment of the content of the tablets suggests that most of them are administrative in nature (although two are legal texts). The administrative texts record diverse matters such as personnel, the disbursement of goods, and furniture. In other words, both the context and also the content of the tablets strongly suggest that we are dealing with the remains of an archive located in a building in this area of Alalakh’s palace-castle complex. This brings up to possibility of exploring another self-contained administrative building adjacent to the Level IV palace.

The 2025 season brought exciting leads but also with many open questions. In 2026, excavation of the square will continue in order to clarify the extent of the archive and the nature of the space in which it was stored. The international team of archaeologists including the Johns Hopkins University graduate students are eager to be back at the site. Working closely with the Hatay Archaeological Museum, the team is committed to preserving these finds and sharing their significance with both scholars and the local community. We are deeply grateful to ASOR for supporting this work possible. Your support allowed our team to carefully excavate, document, and study what may prove to be one of the most important discoveries at Alalakh since the renewed excavations began at the site over twenty years ago.