Excavations at Alalakh and the palace archives

Record summary

Leonard Woolley’s excavations at Tell Atchana identified ancient Alalakh and documented a sequence of Bronze Age palaces, temples, burials, and cuneiform tablets. The site’s archives illuminate political dependence, landholding, marriage alliances, and regional connections involving Syria, Anatolia, and the Mitanni sphere. It matters for comparison because institutional texts can be studied alongside architecture and household archaeology. Excavation records, tablet editions, and revised chronological studies are needed, since Woolley’s original phasing and historical synthesis have not remained uncontested.