Jump to content

Assuwa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Assuwa
𒀸𒋗𒉿
aš-šu-wa
unknown-1430 BC
Common languagesLuwian
GovernmentConfederation

Members

 
• legible
Kispuwa, Unaliya, Dura, Halluwa, Huwallusiya, Karakisa, Dunda, Adadura, Parista, Warsiya, Kuruppiya, Alatra, Pasuhalta, Mount Pahurina, Wilusiya, Taruisa

• obliterated
[—]lugga, [—], [—],
[—]waa, [—]luissa, [—]

Historical eraBronze Age


Assuwa (Hittite: 𒀸𒋗𒉿, romanized: aš-šu-wa) was a region of Bronze Age Anatolia located west of the Kızılırmak River. It was mentioned in Aegean, Anatolian and Egyptian inscriptions but is best known from Hittite records describing a league of 22 towns or states that opposed Hittite authority. The name disappears from history during the thirteenth century BC.

Etymology

[edit]

The name appears in different scripts over the course of a few hundred years. The individual etymologies are unknown,[1] but scholarship has come to accept that the Ancient Greek: Ᾰ̓σῐ́ᾱ, romanized: Asia is cognate to the Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, romanized: a-si-wi-ja).[2]

Geography

[edit]

Assuwa was located somewhere in western Anatolia. Linear B texts from Mycenaean Greece identified it as a region within reach of Pylos associated with levies of rowers,[15] suggesting a location separated by water from the Peloponnese. While the extent of its geography is a matter of debate,[16][17][18][19] recent scholarship has argued that much of its territory was located in the western part of classical Phrygia.[20][21][22] This same region was designated by the Hittite laws as part of the land of Luwiya, according to modern researchers.[23][20] It was likewise mentioned in a contemporary Egyptian poetical stela along with Keftiu as one of the lands to the west of Egypt.[8][24]

History

[edit]

The earliest mention of a-šu-wi(ya)[14] is from an Anatolian royal seal dating to the eighteenth/seventeenth centuries BC,[25] contemporary to the first and only mention of the land of Luwiya of the Hittite texts. [26] The name a-su-ja[6] in Minoan Linear A texts of the sixteenth century BC is also acknowledged to be a likely reference to Assuwa,[2][27] though with no clear understanding of the context.

Egyptian records mention a region called isy[14] and an Assuwan "chief" and "prince" providing supplies to Tuthmose III from 1445-1439 BC during his military campaigns against Nuhašše in modern Syria, including copper, lead, lapis lazuli, ivory, wood and horses.[9] It has been suggested these references predate Egypt's direct contacts with the Hittites and refer to a trade relationship mediated by Alashiya[8] and initiated by an Assuwan power with access to the Mediterranean.[9]

Assuwa is likewise mentioned in six surviving Hittite documents,[28] with all texts either dated to or referring to events occurring during the reign of Tudhaliya I/II.[2] Most of our knowledge comes from the Annals of Tudḫaliya, which gives a detailed account of a rebellion by a league of towns in the aftermath of a Hittite campaign against Arzawan controlled territories west of the Maraššantiya.[9][29][11]

But when I turned back to Hattusa, then against me these lands declared war: [—]lugga, Kispuwa, Unaliya, [—], Dura, Halluwa, Huwallusiya, Karakisa, Dunda, Adadura, Parista, [—], [—]waa, Warsiya, Kuruppiya, [—]luissa, Alatra, Mount Pahurina, Pasuhalta, [—], Wilusiya, Taruisa. [These lands] with their warriors assembled themselves ......... and drew up their army opposite me.[30]

Cline dates this rebellion to circa 1430 BC[9] and Bryce describes it as "the first major [Hittite] venture to the west" which was "not carried out with the aim to impose authority on the western border, but just to secure it."[31] The annals detail the defeat of a substantial Assuwan military force consisting of 10,000 soldiers, 600 teams of horses and charioteers, the capture of an Assuwan king named Piyama-dKAL,[32] the establishment of a client state under his son Kukkuli[33] and a second rebellion after which "the coalition of Assuwa was destroyed".[2]

Circumstantial evidence raises the possibility that the Ahhiyawa may have supported Assuwa. For instance, a Mycenaean-style sword found at Hattusa bears an inscription suggesting that it was taken from an Assuwan soldier and left as an offering to the Hittite storm god.[34][35][36][37] Some scholars have speculated that certain details in the Iliad could reflect a memory of this conflict, including the seemingly anachronistic character of Ajax as well as references to pre-Trojan War escapades of Bellerophon and Heracles in Anatolia.[9]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Woudhuizen translated a-šu as a Luwic adverb meaning "good." See Bomhard, A. R. (1984). Toward proto-Nostratic : a new approach to the comparison of proto-Indo-European and proto-Afroasiatic, p. 112. Netherlands: North-Holland. Google Books
  2. ^ a b c d e f Cline, Eric H. (1996). Assuwa and the Achaeans: The Mycenaean Sword at Hattusas and Its Possible Implications. The Annual at the British School at Athens, Vol. 91, pp. 137–151. ResearchGate
  3. ^ Achterberg, W. (2004). The Phaistos Disc: A Luwian Letter to Nestor, p. 99. Netherlands: Dutch Archaeological and Historical Society. Academic.edu
  4. ^ Best, Jan, Woudhuizen, Fred. (1988). Ancient Scripts from Crete and Cyprus, p. 83. Germany: Brill. Google Books
  5. ^ Best Jan, Woudhuizen, Fred. (2023). Lost Languages from the Mediterranean, pp. 18, 69-70. Germany: Brill. Google Books
  6. ^ a b Packard, David W. (2023). Minoan Linear A, p. 4, 43, 95. Germany: University of California Press. Google Books
  7. ^ Emanuel, Jeffrey P.. Black Ships and Sea Raiders: The Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Context of Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie, p. 53. United Kingdom: Lexington Books (2017). Google Books
  8. ^ a b c Strange, John. (2023). Caphtor/Keftiu: A New Investigation, p. 19. Germany: Brill. Google Books
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Cline, E. H. (2015). 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, p. 28–41. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press. Google Books
  10. ^ Rose, C. B. (2014). The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy pp. 108-109. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Google Books.
  11. ^ a b Cline, Eric H. (1997). Achilles in Anatolia: Myth, History, and the Assuwa Rebellion. Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael Astour on His 80th Birthday, pp. 189–210. Eds. Gordon D. Young, Mark W. Chavalas, and Richard E. Averbeck. (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press), Academia.edu
  12. ^ Collins, Billie Jean; Bachvarova, Mary R.; Rutherford, Ian (28 March 2010). Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbours. Oxbow Books. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-78297-475-8. assuwa pylos "aswia" = Linear B A-si-wi-ja
  13. ^ Latacz, J. (2004). Troy and Homer: towards a solution of an old mystery. United Kingdom: OUP Oxford. Google Books
  14. ^ a b c Woudhuizen, Fred. (2023), The Luwians of Western Anatolia: Their Neighbours and Predecessors, pp. 34-66, 119. United Kingdom: Archaeopress Publishing Limited. Academia.edu
  15. ^ Palima, Thomas G. (1991). Maritime Matters in the Linear B tablets, p. 279, 302-304. Austin: University of Texas. (University of Texas Files)
  16. ^ Unwin, Naomi Carless. (2017). Caria and Crete in Antiquity: Cultural Interaction Between Anatolia and the Aegean, p.118. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Google Books.
  17. ^ Wood, Michael. (1998). In Search of the Trojan War, p. 187. United States: University of California Press. Google Books
  18. ^ Page, Denys Lionel. (1976). History and the Homeric Iliad, p. 103-109. United Kingdom: University of California Press. Google Books.
  19. ^ Woudhuizen, Fred. (2018). The Luwians of Western Anatolia: Their Neighbours and Predecessors, p. 26. United Kingdom: Archaeopress Publishing Limited. Google Books
  20. ^ a b Forlanini, Massimo. (2008). The Historical Geography of Anatolia and the Transition From the Karum-Period to the Early Hittite Empire. Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period, p. 58, 67 Academic.edu.
  21. ^ Schachner, Andreas. (2022). Hattusa and Its Environs: Archaeology, p. 37-49. Hittite Landscape and Geography. (2022). Eds. Lee Z. Ullmann and Mark Weeden. Netherlands: Leiden, Boston: Brill. Google Books
  22. ^ Wouduizen, Fred (2021). "Arzawa, Assuwa and Mira: Three Names For the Same Country in Western Anatolia" (video). European Association of Archaeologists.
  23. ^ Blasweiler, Joost. (2016). The kingdom of Purušhanda in the land Luwiya, pp. 31-38. Arnhem, Arnhem (NL) Bronze Age. Academia.edu
  24. ^ Nederhof, Mark-Jan. (2006). Transliteration and translation for "The 'poetical' stela of Tuthmosis III, p. 4. Laurinburg, NC: St. Andrews University. St. Andrews University archives.
  25. ^ Ambos, Clause and Krauskopf, Ingrid. (2008). The curved staff in the Ancient Near East as a predecessor of the Etruscan lituus, p. 132. Bouke van der Meer, L. (Hrsg.), Material Aspects of Etruscan Religion. Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leiden, May 29 and 30, 2008, Babesch Suppl. 16, 2010, S. 127-153. University of Heidelberg Archives.
  26. ^ Giusfredi, Federico., Pisaniello, Valerio, Matessi,  Alvise. (2023). Contacts of Languages and Peoples in the Hittite and Post-Hittite World: Volume 1, The Bronze Age and Hatti, p. 288. Netherlands: Brill. Google Books
  27. ^ Emanuel, Jeffrey, (2017). Ships and Sea Raiders: The Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Context of Odysseus’ Second Cretan Lie, p. 53. United Kingdom: Lexington Books. Google Books
  28. ^ KUB xxiii 11 þ 12 (CTH 142), KUB xxiii 14 (CTH 211.5), KUB xxvi 91 (CTH 183), KUB xxxiv 43 (CTH 824), KUB xl 62 þ KUB xiii 9 (CTH 258)
  29. ^ Rose, Charles Brian. (2014). The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy, pp. 108-109. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Google Books
  30. ^ Bryce, Trevor. (1999). The Kingdom of the Hittites, p. 35, 54-55, 136. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press. Google Books.
  31. ^ Nostoi: Indigenous Culture, Migration + Integration in the Aegean Islands + Western Anatolia During the Late Bronze + Early Iron Ages, p. 134. Eds. Konstantinos Kopanias, Nikolaos Chr Stampolidēs, Çiğdem Maner. United Kingdom: Koç University Press, 2015.
  32. ^ The name has been identified as Luwian in origin. Greenberg, Joseph H. (2000). Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1, p. 171. United States: Stanford University Press. Google Books
  33. ^ The name has been identified as Hurrian in origin. See Nyland. Ann. (2009) The Kikkuli Method of Horse Fitness Training, Revised Edition, p. 9. Maryannu Press, Sydney."
  34. ^ Bryce, Trevor (2011). "The Late Bronze Age in the West and the Aegean". In Steadman, Sharon; McMahon, Gregory (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0015.
  35. ^ Bryce, T. (2006). The Trojans and Their Neighbours, pp. 33-35. Kiribati: Routledge. Google Books
  36. ^ Beckman, Gary; Bryce, Trevor; Cline, Eric (2012). "Epilogue: Mycenaean-Hittite Interconnections in the Late Bronze Age Revisited". The Ahhiyawa Texts. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 978-1589832688.
  37. ^ Castleden, Rodney (2005). The Mycenaeans. Routledge. pp. 202–203. ISBN 9781134227822. It was political instability of this kind, not just in Assuwa but all along the Aegean coast, that the Mycenaeans were able to exploit. One fragmentary letter mentions Assuwa and Ahhiyawa together, implying that the rebellion of Assuwa may have been supported by the Mycenaeans. Another (ambiguous) letter says 'the king of Ahhiyawa withdrew or retreated' or someone 'relied on the king of Ahhiyawa', so the Mycenaean king was either leading his army in Anatolia or supporting rebellion from afar.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assuwa&oldid=1259208983"