Abstract This study explores the personal copyist statement in the tablet colophons, the scribes who appear in them and the tablets’ findspots in order to demonstrate the relationships between text, scribe and the scholarly work environment of H ˘ attusa in the late Empire period (second half of the 13 th cent. BC). It is initially demonstrated how Hittite scribal statements were appended to specific types of texts and had a recurring structure that reflects their purpose. A look at festivals follows. Two large Hittite festivals, the h ˘ is ˇuwa and an.tah ˘ .s ˇum SAR , were both prepared by scholars related to or working under Walwaziti, the chief scribe of H ˘ attusili III, and his family. However, at some point, perhaps during the reign of Tudh ˘ aliya IV, the complex work on the an.tah ˘ .s ˇum SAR festival came under the authority of another scribal group, that of Anuwanza. In this context it is also considered whether certain shelf lists may have been accounts of tablets removed from an archival section. Keywords: Archives, colophons, scribes, shelf lists, Hittite festivals, Anuwanza, Walwaziti The majority of tablet collections from H ˘ attusa are now commonly defined as ‘living’ archives, abandoned by the local bureaucracy at the end of the Empire period (early 12 th century BC). 2 The locations of the largest ‘living’ archival spaces – in Büyükkale building A (Bk. A), the Temple I complex (T.I) 3 and the nearby House on the Slope (HaH) – have also been associated with the main spaces of scribal activity, suggested to have been situ- ated either inside the buildings in the cases of Bk. A (Naumann 1971: 431; cf. Neve 1982: 107) and HaH (Torri 2010b) or nearby in the case of T.I (Gordin 2010a). Fortunately, the scribes of the last century or so of the Empire period acquired the habit of signing at least 1 Large parts of this study were carried out within the framework of the DFG research training group 1458 ‘Notational Iconicity’ (Schriftbildlichkeit), at the Freie Universität Berlin. It was brought to final publication under the funding of the State of Israel, Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, The Center for Absorption in Science. I wish to thank Maria Elena Balza for allowing me to present these results at her Berlin workshop (June 2010). My gratitude also goes to Giulia Torri for our long discussions and to Yori Cohen, Jared Miller and Mark Weeden for their helpful remarks on earlier versions of this paper. 2 For recent reviews of the major find spots at H ˘ attusa (i.e. ‘archives’) see van den Hout (2005; 2006) and Klinger (2006) as well as the on-line Konkordanz (henceforth Konk.) of Silvin Kos ˇak, which has become essential for any ‘Text/Context’ study, such as the present one. 3 Following the cautious approach of van den Hout (2006: 78 with n. 7) regarding the relation between the storerooms and Temple I itself. Shai Gordin The Tablet and its Scribe: Between Archival and Scribal Spaces in Late Empire Period H ˘ attusa 1 Altoriental. Forsch., Akademie Verlag, 38 (2011) 2, 177–198