Tikunani (or Tigunānum) was a small Hurrian city-state in Mesopotamia around the middle of the second millennium BC. The name refers to both the kingdom and its capital city.
History Middle Bronze Age Middle Bronze II Assuming it does refer to the same city, Tigunānum is the older form of the name, appearing in texts excavated from Mari (c. 1760 BCE) and Shemshara around the 18th century BC.Nicla De Zorzi, "Teratomancy at Tigunānum: Structure, Hermeneutics, and Weltanschauung of a Northern Mesopotamian Omen Corpus", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 69, pp. 125–50, 2017 Justel, Josué J., "Remarkable Women from Tikunani. The Role of Women in Palatial Administration", Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East, Approaches from Assyriology and Beyond, pp. 117-128, 2018Eidem, J., "The Shemshāra Archives 2: The Administrative Texts", Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter 15, 1992 Copenhagen
Tikunani Prism The Tikunani Prism is a clay artifact, 8½ inches tall with a square base roughly 2 by 2 inches, with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription listing the names of 438 Habiru soldiers of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani (a small North Mesopotamian kingdom). This king was a contemporary of King Hattusili I of the Hittites (around 1620 BC). It is of unknown provenance and is currently held in a private collection.Robert D. Biggs, "Review of Mirjo Salvini's The Habiru prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 58, iss. 4, pp. 294, October 1999
The discovery of this text generated much excitement, for it provided much-needed fresh evidence about the nature of the Habiru (or Hapiru) and their possible connection to the Biblical Hebrews. However, the majority of Tunip-Tessup's Habiru soldiers recorded in the text 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 for one Kassite name.Mirjo Salvini, "The Ḫabiru Prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani", Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, Rome, 1996
Sources All known sources are of unknown provenance. It has been suggested that they were illegally excavated in the 1990s. The cuneiform tablets bear a colophon which indicates they are part of a palace archive.Pongratz-Leisten, Beate, "Production of Knowledge in Contact Zones: Mari and Tigunānum in the Old Babylonian Period", Material Worlds: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Archaeopress, pp. 33-41, 2016 Three tablets and two prisms, one administrative and one the Tikunani Prism are held in a private collection and have been published. Eleven tablets, five omen compendia, five administrative, and one lexical are held in the Schøyen Collection and have been published.A. R. George, "Babylonian Divinatory Texts Chiefly in the Schøyen Collection. With an Appendix of Material from the Papers of W. G. Lambert", CUSAS 18 = MSCCT 7, Bethesda, CDLI Press, 2013 Civil, M., "The Lexical Texts in the Schøyen Collection" CUSAS 12, Winona Lake, 2010 Fifteen omen tablets are held in Japan in the Hirayama collection, yet unpublished. Two tablets, one omen and one administrative are held in separate private collections and have been published.Akdoğan, R. and Wilhelm, G., "Ein Täfelchen über Gerstenrationen aus Tigunanu(?)", AoF 37, pp. 159–62, 2010De Zorzi, Nicla, "Another Teratomantic Tablet from Tigunānum", Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, vol. 107, pp. 11–18, 2017
It has been reported that about 450 further Tikunani tablets were held in a private collection, of which 17 have been published. Those tablets have since been sold at auction and their whereabouts unknown. Before the sale they were transliterated by W. G. Lambert. Those transcriptions are slowly making their way into publication. The collection included about "20 letters, 360 administrative texts, about 40 legal texts, 20 divinatory texts, a broken royal inscription, and a number of fragmentary school texts". Weeden, Mark, "Hurrian in a Tablet from Tigunānum", talugaeš witteš. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, hrsg. v. Cammarosano, Michele, Devecchi, Elena, Viano, Maurizio (Kasion 2), pp. 469-488, 2020George, A.R., "Babylonian documents from North Mesopotamia", in A.R. George (ed.) Assyrian Archival Texts in the Schøyen Collection and Other Documents, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, 34. Bethesda, Md, pp. 95–108, 2017
One of the private collection tablets, in Akkadian, from a Hittite king named only by the title "tabarna" is written to a vassal king, Tuniya (possibly the same as Tunip-Teššup), the ruler of Tikunani. In the letter the king extorts his vassal for support him in an attack against the city of Ḫaḫḫum who have been dealing with the Mitanni. The tablet is thought to date to the reign of Hittite ruler Hattusili I (c. 1650–1620 BC) though that is not certain.Collins, Billie Jean, "Ḫattušili I, The Lion King", Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 50, pp. 15–20, 1998Mirjo Salvini, "Una lettera di Hattušili I relativa alla spedizione contro Ḫaḫḫu", in Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici, vol. 34, pp.61–80, 1994 It has been suggested that this is a modern forgery.Ünal, Ahmet, "Word Play in Hittite Literature?", Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, edited by Gary Beckman, Richard H. Beal and Gregory McMahon, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 377-388, 2003 In the annals of Hattusilli I it is recorded that ruler Tunip-Teššup sent him a "silver chariot".Miller, J. L., "Ḫattušili I’s Expansion into Northern Syria in Light of the Tikunani Letter", In G. Wilhelm (ed.), Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethito-logie, Würzburg, 4.-8. Oktober 1999: 410–429. Wiesbaden, 2001
Theories Location It was speculated that the location of Tikunani was in the area around Diyarbakir or Bismil,. Later work suggested that the region of the Upper Habur River that lies off the Euphrates River as the probable region of provenance.
References
Further reading Belmonte Marín, Juan Antonio, "El "horizonte geográfico" del Reino de Tigunānum (ca. 1620 a.C)" "Sentido de un empeño". Homenatge a Gregorio del Olmo Lete, hrsg. v. Lluís Feliu Mateu, Adelina Millet Albà, Jordi Vidal Palomino (Barcino. Monographica Orientalia 16)., pp. 83–116, 2021 Durand, Jean-Marieand and Charpin, Dominique, "La lettre de Labarna au roi de Tigunânum, un réexamen,”Aula Orientalis-Supplementa 22, pp. 219–227, 2006 Freydank, Helmut and Prechel, Doris, "Nochmals zum Brief des Labarna an Tunija von Tikunani" talugaeš witteš", Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Stefano de Martino on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, hrsg. v. Cammarosano, Michele, Devecchi, Elena, Viano, Maurizio (Kasion 2), pp. 193–202, 2020 Justel, Josué J., "Foreigners in Upper Mesopotamia During the Transition to the Late Bronze Age: The Case of Tikunani", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, 2026 Pruzsinszky, Regine, "Who is Who in Tigunani?: Towards an Understanding of the Sociopolitical Situation in Upper Mesopotamia during the Dark Age in the Second Millennium BCE", Mesopotamia: rivista di archeologia, epigrafia e storia orientale antica: LVIII, 2023, pp. 93–102, 2023 Thomas Richter, "Anmerkungen zu den hurritischer Personennamen der hapiru-Prismas aus Tigunana", in General |Studies and Excavations at Nuzi, vol. 10/2, Studies on the Civilization and Culture of nuzi and the Hurrians, vol. 9 Bethseda, Maryland, pp. 125–134, 1998 Salvini, Mirjo, "Alcuni nuovi testi dell'archivio di Tikunani", Nomina in aqua scripta. Homenaje a Joaquín María Córdoba Zoilo, hrsg. v. Adolfo J. Domínguez Monedero, pp. 571–584, 2021 Weeden, Mark, "State correspondence in the Hittite world", in Karen Radner (ed.) State Correspondence in the Ancient World: From New Kingdom Egypt to the Roman Empire, pp. 32–64, 2014
External links images of tablets from Tikunani at CDLI Image of the Tikukani prism