The Tikunani Prism is an eight and a half inch square clay artifact with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription listing the names of the Habiru soldiers of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani, around 1550 BC.
The discovery of this prism generated substantial excitement, for it brought much-needed fresh evidence about the nature of the Habiru (or Hapiru).
It turns out that the majority of Tunip-Tessup's 438 Habiru servants had Hurrian names that could not be explained by reference to any Canaanite language (the family to which Hebrew belongs) or even Semitic. The remaining names were Semitic, and one was Kassite. The prism also brought into question the suggestion that the Habiru might never have been an ethnic group.
The prism is presently in a private collection of antiquities in England.
References
- Mirjo Salvini , The Habiru prism of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani. Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, Rome (1996). ISBN 8881470934
- Robert D. Biggs , (Review of the above). Journal of Near Eastern Studies 58 (4), October 1999, p294.
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