The Anatolian Bridges in Old Assyrian Texts

Old Assyrian cuneiform texts which are unearthed in Bo？azk？y, Ali？ar, Kaman Kaleh？yük, Kayal？p？nar, Acemh？yük, and primarily in Kültepe are the oldest written sources of Anatolia, and which with their rich content from many aspects allow us to get to know Anatolia of approximately 4000 years ago. The content of these documents, which have reached 25000 in number nowadays, are related to financial subjects since a major part of them belong to Assyrian merchants. Furthermore, in addition to the political, legal and social structure of the period, these documents also contain information on the historical geography of Anatolia. In this respect, the texts mainly report the names of the cities where merchants carried out commercial activities or supplied goods and despite being rare, the names of the rivers and mountains they had to pass or cross. A small number of documents contain information on the fees merchants had to pay when they crossed the bridges on their routes. This study addresses the bridges mentioned in the Old Assyrian texts in the period corresponding to the first quarter of 2000 B.C. and investigates on which rivers these bridges can be nowaday