Individual agency and cultural negotiation and mediation during the Old Assyrian karum period.

The research will investigate the role of the individual in intercultural contact within long-distance trade between Assur in northern Iraq and central Turkey during the 20th-18th centuries BCE and explore how an understanding of individual action can elucidate the intersections between socio-cultural change, mobility, and early political economy.
The rich archives documenting the lives of Assyrian traders participating in this trade while living abroad in Anatolia and the archaeological remains and contents of their houses provide an exceptional dataset to conduct a novel investigation into how individuals negotiated intercultural interaction and consider migration, multiculturalism, and their effects on economic structures.