Sep 17, 2026 07:04 PM
https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/live-from-...-years-ago
INTRO: The oldest private correspondence in human history is about marriages and divorces, trade and tax evasion, livestock breeding or weaving… Women’s voices stamped in clay four millennia ago offer eerily topical accounts of the affairs of the day.
Their names were Suhkana, Kunnaniya, Lamasha or Hattitum. They were wives, widows, cattle breeders, accountants or religious devotees, and they lived in Mesopotamia – 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found thousands of letters written on clay tablets. The messages sent or received by these women convey their emotions, their anger, fatigue, enthusiasm or anxiety.
The historian and archaeologist Cécile Michel, a senior researcher specialising in Mesopotamia at the ArScAn1, has compiled the oldest private correspondence in the history of humanity. And has sorted out part of it to allow us to walk in the shoes of some 30 women, sharing their daily lives.
In Ashur (present-day Qal’at-Sherqat, in northern Iraq) and Kanesh (present-day Kültepe, in Turkey, see map below) lived families of traders, whose members sometimes took off for several months, travelling hundreds of kilometres from home to sell fabrics, oil, tin, spices… “There were about 10,000 people living in Ashur at the beginning of the second millennium BC and 30,000 in Kanesh, forming the core of a network of about 40 Assyrian trading posts in Anatolia,” the researcher explains.
The only way to keep in touch with loved ones, to oversee the construction of a house or a family’s daily life from a distance, was by writing. These populations mastered cuneiform script, using the tip of a reed to etch characters into tablets of wet clay. The tablets were then placed in clay envelopes, closed and stamped with a small cylinder seal that identified the sender.
“Wrapped in leather or cloth, they were transported on the backs of donkeys,” Michel recounts. “A regular caravan took about six weeks to cover 1,000 kilometres. For urgent matters, it was possible to hire a private messenger with a mule who could deliver the mail in three weeks.”
The scientist has helped decipher 12,000 of the 22,000 tablets found at the Kanesh site. In a society based on trade, a great many of the messages concern money and merchandise. For example, a woman named Shishahshushar received this note from her husband: “Why did you write this: ‘Apart from 20 sacks of wheat and 15 sacks of barley that Kudubis gave me, there is nothing else!’? Where are the 40 minas of copper in the form of sickles and the 2.5 minas of tin that Ili-ishar and Huluba brought to Shana? This is urgent! Send me a report if they fail to get payment for the outstanding debts…”
The letters bear witness to an entire very modern-style social and economic system, which already included bearer cheques (redeemable by any adult) and limited partnerships, some of whose active associates were merchants.
“In this society, people took out many loans, for commercial purposes or personal necessity,” Michel explains. When grain reserves were exhausted and parents no longer had enough to feed their families, they would go into debt. And if they couldn’t meet the repayment deadlines, they would sometimes offer the creditor a family member, a child or woman, as a slave to discharge the debt. “When local sovereigns ascended to the throne, they would sometimes enact measures for the general cancellation of debts, freeing these slaves,” she adds.
Marriage contracts in some regions – for example in Ashur and the southern Babylonian city of Nippur (present-day Niffer, or Nuffar) – seem surprisingly modern. Husbands and wives enjoyed equal rights. Both could receive inheritances, lend money and purchase houses and slaves. Either party could request a divorce, and each would pay the same compensation fees... (MORE - details)
INTRO: The oldest private correspondence in human history is about marriages and divorces, trade and tax evasion, livestock breeding or weaving… Women’s voices stamped in clay four millennia ago offer eerily topical accounts of the affairs of the day.
Their names were Suhkana, Kunnaniya, Lamasha or Hattitum. They were wives, widows, cattle breeders, accountants or religious devotees, and they lived in Mesopotamia – 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found thousands of letters written on clay tablets. The messages sent or received by these women convey their emotions, their anger, fatigue, enthusiasm or anxiety.
The historian and archaeologist Cécile Michel, a senior researcher specialising in Mesopotamia at the ArScAn1, has compiled the oldest private correspondence in the history of humanity. And has sorted out part of it to allow us to walk in the shoes of some 30 women, sharing their daily lives.
In Ashur (present-day Qal’at-Sherqat, in northern Iraq) and Kanesh (present-day Kültepe, in Turkey, see map below) lived families of traders, whose members sometimes took off for several months, travelling hundreds of kilometres from home to sell fabrics, oil, tin, spices… “There were about 10,000 people living in Ashur at the beginning of the second millennium BC and 30,000 in Kanesh, forming the core of a network of about 40 Assyrian trading posts in Anatolia,” the researcher explains.
The only way to keep in touch with loved ones, to oversee the construction of a house or a family’s daily life from a distance, was by writing. These populations mastered cuneiform script, using the tip of a reed to etch characters into tablets of wet clay. The tablets were then placed in clay envelopes, closed and stamped with a small cylinder seal that identified the sender.
“Wrapped in leather or cloth, they were transported on the backs of donkeys,” Michel recounts. “A regular caravan took about six weeks to cover 1,000 kilometres. For urgent matters, it was possible to hire a private messenger with a mule who could deliver the mail in three weeks.”
The scientist has helped decipher 12,000 of the 22,000 tablets found at the Kanesh site. In a society based on trade, a great many of the messages concern money and merchandise. For example, a woman named Shishahshushar received this note from her husband: “Why did you write this: ‘Apart from 20 sacks of wheat and 15 sacks of barley that Kudubis gave me, there is nothing else!’? Where are the 40 minas of copper in the form of sickles and the 2.5 minas of tin that Ili-ishar and Huluba brought to Shana? This is urgent! Send me a report if they fail to get payment for the outstanding debts…”
The letters bear witness to an entire very modern-style social and economic system, which already included bearer cheques (redeemable by any adult) and limited partnerships, some of whose active associates were merchants.
“In this society, people took out many loans, for commercial purposes or personal necessity,” Michel explains. When grain reserves were exhausted and parents no longer had enough to feed their families, they would go into debt. And if they couldn’t meet the repayment deadlines, they would sometimes offer the creditor a family member, a child or woman, as a slave to discharge the debt. “When local sovereigns ascended to the throne, they would sometimes enact measures for the general cancellation of debts, freeing these slaves,” she adds.
Marriage contracts in some regions – for example in Ashur and the southern Babylonian city of Nippur (present-day Niffer, or Nuffar) – seem surprisingly modern. Husbands and wives enjoyed equal rights. Both could receive inheritances, lend money and purchase houses and slaves. Either party could request a divorce, and each would pay the same compensation fees... (MORE - details)