Clay tablets
 Cuneiform texts!
The excavations in the Assyrian settlement have yielded almost 400 cuneiform texts so far. Most stem from the days of the Assyrian king Assur-nerari III (1192-1187 BC), the last years of the fortress. A number date from the second half of the administration of the Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta I (1233-1197 BC) and from his successor Assur-nadin-apli (1197-1193 BC). These somewhat older texts have been preserved accidentally or on purpose.
 From the texts it appears that the settlement was a fortified one (a dunnu) and belonged to the grand vizier, Assur-iddin and his son and successor Ili-pada. As the grand vizier usually resided elsewhere, the daily administration was in the hands of the steward (abarakku) Tammitte. Tammitte lived in the fortress, where he also had his offices and where a number of lower administrative clerks worked as well. The fortress and the farm that belonged to it employed about 1000 people. Half of these were slaves, mostly prisoners of war. The other half were Assyrian serfs. The larger part of these people must have lived in small farms on the surrounding land. One of these small farms may have stood on Khirbet esh-Shenef.
 The fortress at Tell Sabi Abyad was an important customs office, situated along a caravan route to the Assyrian capital, Assur. Tammitte was supposed to inspect the passing caravans carefully, so as not to be cheated out of tax money. This task was taken seriously: in one of the recovered texts the steward is threatened with death in case later inspection were to show that certain goods were missing. The majority of the texts deal with matters of local government, like giving out rations, the deliveries of grain and seed corn, the management of the fields, the brewing of beer, and settling quarrels. For example, tools had to be handed out to the farmhands, a potter had to make new pottery, and there was an urgent demand for a perfumer.
 From the texts it appears that the slow and bureaucratic Assyrian government offered its civil servants several opportunities for lining their own pockets. During his tours of inspection through the kingdom the grand vizier would repeatedly visit the fortress at Tell Sabi Abyad. He would make sure everything was in order. At the same time he arbitrated in all kinds of quarrels and business differences between citizens or between citizins and the authorities. Of course he would let himself be paid well for this with slaves, grain, sheep or she-asses, all according to the gravity of the matter. All agreements concerning the payments were neatly put down in writing. Thus we read that the grand vizier let himself be persuaded to arbitrate in a quarrel between two men, Sigelda and Adad-suma-iddina, about an unredeemed loan. Sigelda's wife, Damqat-Tasmetu, offered the grand vizier one slave as a reward. With the Assyrians matters of state and private affairs went hand in hand. The cuneiform texts from Tell Sabi Abyad will be studied and published by dr. F.A.M. Wiggermann of the Free University Amsterdam.
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