title: Tikunani Prism
text: # Tikunani Prism
  
  The Tikunani Prism is a clay artifact with an Akkadian cuneiform inscription listing the names of 438 Habiru soldiers of King Tunip-Teššup of Tikunani (a small North Mesopotamian kingdom). This king was a contemporary of King Hattusili I of the Hittites (around 1550 BC).
  
  The discovery of this text generated much excitement, for it provided much-needed fresh evidence about the nature of the Habiru (or Hapiru) and their possible connection to the Biblical Hebrews. However, the majority of Tunip-Tessup's Habiru soldiers recorded in the text had Hurrian names that could not be explained in any Canaanite language (the family which Hebrew belongs to) or any other Semitic language. The rest of the names are Semitic, except for one Kassite name.
  
  The Prism is 8½ inches tall, with a square base roughly 2 by 2 inches. It is held in a private collection of antiquities in England, and its provenance is unknown.
  
  