Hazor Cuneiform Tablets
The tablets provide direct written evidence of literacy, administration, and intellectual life at Canaanite Hazor. They help establish the city's connections with the wider ancient Near East and supplement the information preserved in Egyptian and Mesopotamian records.
About the Discovery
Archaeologists excavating Hazor have discovered a number of clay tablets and fragments written in cuneiform, the writing system widely used across the ancient Near East. The texts include administrative, legal, and scholarly material. Some were written in Akkadian, a language used for communication between kingdoms.
The tablets show that people at Hazor participated in a wider world of writing, recordkeeping, and international exchange. Hazor also appears in written records discovered elsewhere, including the archives of Mari in Mesopotamia and the Amarna letters from Egypt. Together, these sources show that Hazor was an important Canaanite center long before the period of the Israelite monarchy.
Scripture Reference
Joshua 11:10; Judges 4:2 (references to Hazor; the tablets do not mention Joshua or the biblical King Jabin).