Attarsiya [lower-alpha 1] was an Ahhiyan warlord who lived around 1400 BC. He is known from a single Hittite text, which recounts his military activities in Western Anatolia and Alasiya. These texts are significant because they provide the earliest textual evidence of Mycenaean Greek involvement in Western Anatolian affairs. Scholars have noted potential connections between his name and that of Atreus from Greek mythology.
The Indictment of Madduwatta describes two incidents involving Attarsiya which occurred in Western Anatolia. In the first incident, Attarsiya attacked an unnamed land and forced the local warlord Madduwatta to flee. Madduwatta found refuge with the Hittite king Tudhaliya I/II who installed him as vassal ruler of Zippasla and the Siyanta River Land, territories which seem to have been located somewhere near the Arzawa Lands. [1]
In the second incident, Attarsiya again attacked Madduwatta, this time with an army that allegedly included 100 war chariots and 1000 infantry. Attarsiya was initially victorious, though Madduwatta's Hittite backers dispatched an army under Kisnapli. The Indictment of Madduwatta gives a brief description of the battle: [1] [2]
Kisnapli went into battle against Attarsiya 100 [chariots and ... infantry] of Attarsiya [drew up for battle]. And they fought. One officer of Attarsiya was killed, and one officer of ours, Zidanza, was killed. Then Attarsiya turned [away(?)] from Madduwatta, and he went off to his own land. [3]
This description has been interpreted as suggesting a duel between the two sides' champions, though it is also possible that only these two casualties were considered worthy of mention. [4] After the battle, Attarsiya returned home and Madduwatta was reinstalled as ruler. [1]
Later on, Attarsiya raided the island of Alashiya together with Anatolian allies including his former enemy Madduwatta. This attack alarmed the Hittites, who claimed Alashiya as a tributary but lacked the naval resources to directly control it. [5]
Attarsiya is known solely from the Indictment of Madduwatta (CTH 147), a fragmentary Hittite text written around 1380 BC. This document, written on behalf of the Hittite king Arnuwanda I, recounts the Hittites' troubled relationship with a restive vassal named Madduwatta. Attarsiya plays a role in several episodes described in the text. [6] [7] When the Indictment of Madduwatta was first translated, it was assigned an erroneous date at the end of the 13th century BC. However, subsequent scholarship showed that it was in fact two centuries older based on archaic characteristics of the texts. [lower-alpha 2] [8]
The Hittite account of Attarsiya's exploits provide the earliest textual evidence of Mycenaean involvement in Anatolia. These incidents are contemporary with archaeological evidence of growing Mycenaean presence at Miletus, which may have served as Attarsiya's base, as it did for later Mycenaean warlords. [9] The Hittites' growing awareness of the Mycenaeans is attested by roughly contemporary finds from Hattusa including a Mycenaean-style sword seized from a participant in the Assuwa Revolt and a pot sherd decorated with an image that appears to depict a soldier wearing a boar's tusk helmet. [10] [11] [12] In the decades after Attarsiya, Mycenaean involvement increased, to the point that the Hittite king Hattusili III even addressed the Ahhiyawan king as a peer. However, the Mycenaeans were driven out of Anatolia around 1220 BC, during the reign of Tudhaliya IV. [13] [14]
Attarsiya's exploits are also significant for what they reveal about the political structure of the Mycenaean world. While Linear B records suggest a number of independent Mycenaean palace-states, one potential reading of the Indictment implies that Attarsiya's army consisted of 100 chariots and 1000 infantry. Since these numbers are greater than any single Mycenaean palace-state could have mustered, some researchers such as Jorrit Kelder have argued that Ahhiyawa was an alliance or confederation. [15] [16]
It has been suggested by several scholars that the term Attarsiya might be related to the Greek name "Atreus", borne by a mythical king of Mycenae. [17] [18] However, scholars have cautioned that even if there is a connection, that does not entail that Attarsiya himself was the basis of the mythical Atreus. [19]
Martin West proposed that Atreus is a secondary form based on the patronymic Atreïdēs, which is in turn derived from the Mycenaean *Atrehiās. [19] According to an alternative view proposed by Hittitologist Albrecht Goetze, Attarsiya could be a possessive adjective, meaning "belonging to Atreus", analogous to the typical Homeric way of referring Agamemnon and Menelaus, throughout the Iliad . [8] British scholar Martin Litchfield West suggested that Atreus is a shorter form of an older Greek Bronze Αge era name, more closely connected with Attarsiya, like Atresias, Atersias or Atarsias. [20]
A further possible link to the grecophone sphere is the Linear B term ta-ra-si-ja, well attested in Pylian tablet series JN, a word which means "copper/bronze allotment" or "weight unit of copper/bronze", or something similar, applied to metalworkers. In the Pylos JN 415 tablet, there is also found an adjective a-ta-ra-si-jo, meaning "without copper/bronze". The context in which ta-ra-si-ja occurs during the Late Helladic period suggests that those who produced or worked with the allocated raw materials were a large work force and the work was of a low-paid status. [21] Worth noting at Pylos around 1200 BC is the independence of a-ta-ra-si-jo smiths from allotments accorded ta-ra-si-ja smiths. It was evidently optional for anyone able to obtain sufficient quantities of copper or bronze from sources outside the palace to do so as an a-ta-ra-si-jo.[ citation needed ]
The Achaeans or Akhaians is one of the names in Homer which is used to refer to the Greeks collectively.
The Hittites were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in modern day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia, including the kingdom of Kussara, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom, and an empire centered on Hattusa. Known in modern times as the Hittite Empire, it reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.
Mopsus was the name of one of two famous seers in Greek mythology; his rival being Calchas. A historical or legendary Mopsos or Mukšuš may have been the founder of a house in power at widespread sites in the coastal plains of Pamphylia and Cilicia during the early Iron Age.
Arzawa was a region and political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. In Hittite texts, the term is used to refer both to a particular kingdom and to a loose confederation of states. The chief Arzawan state, whose capital was at Apasa is often referred to as Arzawa Minor, while the other Arzawan kingdoms included Mira, Hapalla, Wilusa, and the Seha River Land.
Mycenaean Greece was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. The most prominent site was Mycenae, after which the culture of this era is named. Other centers of power that emerged included Pylos, Tiryns, and Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens in Central Greece, and Iolcos in Thessaly. Mycenaean settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, and on Cyprus, while Mycenaean-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant and Italy.
Wilusa or Wilusiya was a Late Bronze Age city in western Anatolia known from references in fragmentary Hittite records. The city is notable for its identification with the archaeological site of Troy, and thus its potential connection to the legendary Trojan War.
Alashiya, also spelled Alasiya, also known as the Kingdom of Alashiya, was a state which existed in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and was situated somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was a major source of goods, especially copper, for ancient Egypt and other states in the Ancient Near East. It is referred to in a number of the surviving texts and is now thought to be the ancient name of Cyprus, or an area of Cyprus. This was confirmed by the scientific analysis performed in Tel Aviv University of the clay tablets which were sent from Alashiya to other rulers.
Assuwa was a confederation of 22 states in western Anatolia around 1400 BC. The confederation formed to oppose the Hittite Empire, but was defeated under Tudhaliya I/II. The name was recorded in various centres in Mycenaean Greece as Asiwia, which later acquired the form Asia.
Madduwatta was a Late Bronze Age warlord who conquered a portion of southwest Anatolia. He is known from the Hittite text known as the Indictment of Madduwatta.
Kurunta was younger son of the early 13th century BC Hittite king Muwatalli II and cousin of Tudhaliya IV. Kurunta was thereby a Hittite prince and king of Tarhuntassa country. It has been suggested that he may have captured the Hittite capital for a very short time during the reign of the Hittite king Tuthaliya IV and declared himself a great king.
The Kaska were a loosely affiliated Bronze Age non-Indo-European tribal people, who spoke the unclassified Kaskian language and lived in mountainous East Pontic Anatolia, known from Hittite sources. They lived in the mountainous region between the core Hittite region in eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea, and are cited as the reason that the later Hittite Empire never extended northward to that area. They are sometimes identified with the Caucones known from Greek records.
Quwê – also spelled Que, Kue, Qeve, Coa, Kuê and Keveh – was a Syro-Hittite Assyrian vassal state or province at various times from the 9th century BC to shortly after the death of Ashurbanipal around 627 BC in the lowlands of eastern Cilicia, and the name of its capital city, tentatively identified with Adana, in modern Turkey. The name Que reflects the Assyrian transmission of the indigenous name Hiyawa, the same state is known as Hume from Babylonian sources.
The Tawagalawa letter is a fragmentary Hittite text from the mid 13th century BC. It is notable for providing a window into relations between Hittites and Greeks during the Late Bronze Age and for its mention of a prior disagreement concerning a city called Wilusa, generally identified with the archaeological site of Troy.
Pitassa is an as-yet undiscovered frontier city in western Anatolia, mentioned in Bronze Age archives at Hattusa. The name seems Luwian or considered Hittite. It occasionally formed the border between Hatti and various iterations of Arzawa. Another account referred to it as an imperial geographical designation for the region found at the foot of the Sultan Mountains and extend northwards all the way to the Sakarya River and Gordion near Polath. It is also described as part of the region of Classical Lycaonia, which was located east of the Salt Lake.
Piyamaradu was a warlord mentioned in Hittite documents from the middle and late 13th century BC. As an ally of the Ahhiyawa, he led or supported insurrections against the Hittite empire in Western Anatolia. His history is of particular interest since his area of activity may have included Wilusa, thus suggesting a potential connection to the myth of the Trojan War.
The Achaeans were one of the four major tribes into which Herodotus divided the Greeks, along with the Aeolians, Ionians and Dorians. They inhabited the region of Achaea in the northern Peloponnese, and played an active role in the colonization of Italy, founding the city of Kroton. Unlike the other major tribes, the Achaeans did not have a separate dialect in the Classical period, instead using a form of Doric.
The prehistory of Anatolia stretches from the Paleolithic era through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is generally regarded as being divided into three ages reflecting the dominant materials used for the making of domestic implements and weapons: Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. The term Copper Age (Chalcolithic) is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages.
The military nature of Mycenaean Greece in the Late Bronze Age is evident by the numerous weapons unearthed, warrior and combat representations in contemporary art, as well as by the preserved Greek Linear B records. The Mycenaeans invested in the development of military infrastructure with military production and logistics being supervised directly from the palatial centres.
Hapalla, also written as Haballa, was a kingdom in central-western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. As one of the Arzawa states, it was a sometime vassal and sometime enemy of the Hittite Empire.
The Seha River Land was a kingdom in Western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age known from Hittite texts. Part of Arzawa, it was located north of Mira and south of Wilusa, and at one point controlled the island of Lazpa.