Test: Which ancient city, located in modern-day Turkey, was the center of one of the first known states to use writing for record-keeping and administration?

April 7, 2026 · 6 min read

Question: Which ancient city, located in modern-day Turkey, was the center of one of the first known states to use writing for record-keeping and administration?

Perplexity

The Hittite capital Hattusa (modern Boğazkale in central Turkey) is considered the center of one of the first known states – the Hittite Empire (c. 1650–1200 BCE), which actively used writing for tax accounting, economic management, and diplomacy. The Hittites adapted Mesopotamian cuneiform for their Indo-European language, creating one of the earliest systems with full logograms and syllabic signs. This allowed for detailed records of the distribution of grain, livestock, labor, and military campaigns, as evidenced by thousands of clay tablets from the archives of Hattusa. The state extended from the Aegean Sea to the upper reaches of the Euphrates, and its rulers corresponded with Egypt and Babylon.

Archaeological excavations in Boğazkale since the late 19th century have uncovered the royal palace, sanctuaries, and vast archives – about 30,000 tablets, including treaties, laws, and economic registers. Hittite writing evolved from Akkadian prototypes but included unique elements for the Hittite language, making it a tool of the bureaucratic apparatus. This state surpassed many others in centralized administration: the king coordinated vassals through letters and decrees, recording taxes in measures of grain or livestock. The decline of Hattusa is linked to the invasions of the "Sea Peoples" around 1200 BCE, but its legacy has been preserved in texts.

The search results do not provide a direct answer, so I am relying on historical data from the excavations of H. Winckler and A. Goetze. Sources:

Wikipedia: Hattusa
Britannica: Hittite Empire
"Hittite Diplomatic Texts" (Hugo Winckler excavations)

Gemini

The ancient city of Ashur, located in modern-day Turkey (or more precisely, in northern modern-day Iraq, but closely linked to the history of Asia Minor), was one of the first centers where writing was actively used for administration and accounting. Ashur, named after the chief Assyrian god, became the capital of Assyria in the mid-2nd millennium BCE. The city was founded around the 4th millennium BCE and served as an important center for transit trade, being an outpost of Sumerian-Akkadian culture.

It was in Ashur and its trading colonies in Asia Minor that numerous cuneiform texts were found, testifying to a developed system of accounting and administration. These documents, dating from the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BCE, reflect the economic activities, administrative decisions, and legal norms of the early state. Ashur was not just a city, but a center of nomic education, where the ruler, together with the council of elders, managed affairs, using writing to record contracts, taxes, and other aspects of societal life.

Sources:

Ashur (city in Assyria)
Ashur (city) - Wikipedia
Popularly - ASHUR - Center for Paleoethnological Research
Sacred Ashur - Archaeology

ChatGPT

One of the oldest cities located in modern-day Turkey, which was the center of one of the first known states to use writing for accounting and administration, is the city of Hattusa. This city was the capital of the Hittite Kingdom, a powerful Bronze Age state that existed approximately from the 17th to the 12th centuries BCE. Hattusa was located in Central Anatolia and played a key role in the political, military, and cultural life of the region.

The Hittites used cuneiform script, borrowed from the Sumerians and Akkadians, in Akkadian and their own Hittite languages. Their writing was used in administrative documents, laws, diplomatic correspondence, and economic records, which allowed for complex administration and control over a vast state. Archaeological excavations in Hattusa have uncovered numerous clay tablets with cuneiform script, which testify to the developed bureaucracy and legal system of the Hittites, including treaties and tax documents.

Hattusa and the Hittite Kingdom are considered an important milestone in the history of writing and state administration, as they demonstrate the integration of written information recording into the administrative system, which became a precedent for subsequent civilizations in the region. This example shows how writing was initially used not only for ritual or religious texts but also for the practical needs of the state.

Sources:

History of the Ancient World. The Hittites and their state.
Archaeological research of Hattusa.
Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations.

Grok

Kültepe (ancient Kanesh) is a key candidate for such a city. Located near modern-day Kayseri in central Turkey, this mound was the center of an Assyrian trading colony (Karum Kanesh) from approximately 2000–1750 BCE. Here, Assyrian merchants from Mesopotamia established one of the earliest known international trade networks in Anatolia, functioning as an organized proto-state with a developed administration. Archaeologists have unearthed over 23,500 cuneiform tablets in Akkadian – these are the earliest written documents from Anatolia, used for accounting for goods (tin, textiles, gold), contracts, debts, and even legal cases.[1][2]

Writing here was used strictly practically: for economic management and control. The tablets recorded complex transactions, including the creation of "first companies" – for example, a recently deciphered clay tablet describes a partnership of 12 individuals with a capital of 15 kg of gold, which is 4000 years older than its modern counterparts. Kanesh served as a hub between Mesopotamia and Anatolia, where local Hattians interacted with Assyrians, and cuneiform ensured accurate accounting of supplies and profits. This was not just a trading post, but a fully-fledged administrative center with archive-houses where documents regulating the life of the colony were stored.[3][4][5]

Discoveries at Kültepe have revolutionized the understanding of Anatolian history. They confirm that writing entered Turkey long before the Hittites (Hattusa was later, from the 17th century BCE), becoming a tool for managing early economic empires. The site is nominated for UNESCO status as the beginning of Anatolia's written history, and excavations continue, revealing "wills" and legal practices.[6][7]

Sources:

Claude

I will help you find information about this ancient city. I see that the question contains an inaccuracy - it is about a city in the territory of ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), not Turkey. I will give the correct answer.

Uruk — The Forefather of Writing and State Accounting

The answer to your question concerns the ancient city of Uruk, located not in Turkey, but in Mesopotamia (the territory of modern Iraq). Uruk was the oldest city-state of the Sumerians and Babylonians in Southern Mesopotamia, founded in the 4th millennium BC. This place became the center where writing, monumental architecture, centralized governance, and a complex economy first appeared.

Mesopotamian writing in its earliest form — proto-cuneiform — was created at the end of the 4th millennium BC in the large economy of the city of Uruk as a means of economic accounting. It was in Uruk that cuneiform appeared — the first writing system in history, which arose not as a literary language, but as a tool for managing a vast economy. The earliest written records date back to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC — these are clay tablets covered with ideograms reflecting the economic activities of Uruk's inhabitants: lists of goods, livestock counts, expenditure records.

The city developed rapidly as an economic center. During Uruk's peak — around 3100 BC — its population, living within an area of 6 km² within the city walls, could have numbered up to 40,000 people, making Uruk the largest urban settlement of that time.

Sources:

Wikipedia. Uruk
CyberLeninka. Scribes of Mesopotamia
Alternative History. Uruk — the first metropolis in the world
Cyril and Methodius Mega Encyclopedia. Uruk

Sources:

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