Assuwa and the Achaeans: The 'Mycenaean' Sword at Hattusas and Its Possible Implications Author(s): E. H. Cline
Source: The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 91 (1996), pp. 137-151 Published by: British School at Athens Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30102544
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ASSUWA AND THE ACHAEANS: THE 'MYCENAEAN' SWORD AT HATTUSAS AND ITS POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS1
Introduction
Ove hansen has recently suggested in the pages of this Annual that the inscribed bronze sword found at Hattusas (modern Bogazkoy) in 1991 is a Mycenaean Type B sword. He suggested further that the sword might be used as evidence for Hittites fighting in the Trojan war against the Mycenaeans and for a historical background to the war.2 The following paper presents a separate, independent, investigation of the sword, which concludes that it may well be a variant of an Aegean Type B sword, but might reflect only Mycenaean influence rather than outright manufacture. In addition, it is suggested that the sword must be interpreted in the light of events occurring not during the Trojan war, but some 200 years earlier, during Assuwa's rebellion against the Hittites c.1430 bc.
The Sword at Hattusas
The bronze sword at Hattusas, capital city of the Hittites, was discovered in 1991 by a bulldozer operator during repair work being carried out on roads in the Eski Orenyeri Mevkii area, located some 750 m south-west of the monumental Lion Gate.3 The single line of Akkadian inscribed on one side of the blade reads:
1 This article began life in Aug. 1992, when the discovery of the inscribed sword found at Hattusas become known to the present author, courtesy of Dr Judith Binder. The initial thought that the sword might be of Aegean origin led to speculation regarding the possible contacts between the bronze age Aegean and the coalition of north-west Anatolian states known as Assuwa. Serious investigative efforts first began during the summer of 1993, during a welcome period of extended research in the libraries of University College, London. Since then the manuscript has taken many twists and turns during the long road to publication and has benefited from the advice and aid of a number of scholars, the efforts of J. Tempesta and S. Reed of the Inter-library Loan staff at California State University, Fresno, and Xavier University (Cincinnati) respectively, and the assistance of K. Bulk.
I would especially like to thank R. H. Beal, J. Binder, T. R. Bryce, B. J. Collins, C. D. Fortenberry, O. R. Gurney, V D. Hanson, D. Harris, J. P. Holoka, G. L. Huxley, J. Klinger, R. Maxwell-Hyslop, J. D. Muhly, A. E. Raubitschek, P. Rehak, N. K. Sandars, A. and S. Sherratt, T. F. Strasser, A. Unal, E. T. Vermeule, J. Younger, E. Zangger, and various anonymous reviewers for their comments on and criticisms of earlier versions of this article and for bringing relevant references to my attention. Oral variants of this topic were presented at the annual meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America in Dec. 1994 (cf. AJA gg.2 (1995), 335) and to audiences at the University of Cincinnati and California State University, Fresno;
suggestions received after each of the above presentations are hereby gratefully acknowledged. Although the secondary literature for many of the topics addressed below is enormous, references have been kept to a minimum where possible, as a measure of economy. FIG. 1 was drawn by R. S. Harris, FAIA. Special abbreviations:
Hansen = O. Hansen, A Mycenaean sword from Bogazkoy-Hattusa found in 1991', BSA 89 (1994), 213-15
Sandars = N. K. Sandars, 'The first Aegean swords and their ancestry', AJA 65 (1961), 17-29
Unal etal. = A. Unal, A Ertekin, and 1 Ediz, 'The Hittite sword from Bogazkby-Hattusa, found 1991, and its Akkadian inscription', Muze, 4 (1991), 46-52, with illustrations
2 Hansen.
3 Primary publications: Unal et al; Anon., 'Ein hethitisches Schwert mit akkadischer Inschrift aus Bogazkoy', Antike Welt, 23.4 {1992), 256-7 and figs. 1-3; A. Ertekin and I. Ediz, 'The unique sword from Bogazkoy/Hattusa', in M. J. Mellink, E. Porada, and T. Ozgtic (eds), Aspects of Art and Iconography: Anatolia and its Neighbors. Studies in Honor ofMmet Ozgiig (Ankara, 1993), 719-25, with illustrations; A. Unal, 'Bogazkoy Kilicinin Uzerindeki Akadca Adak Yazisi Hakkinda Yeni Gozlemler', in Mellink, Porada, and Ozgilc (eds), Aspects of Art and Iconography, 727-30; P. Neve, 'Die Ausgrabungen in Bogazkoy-Hattusa 1992', AA (1993), 621-52 (esp. 648-52, with photographs in figs. 27-8).
i38
ERIC H. CLINE
i-nu-ma mDu-ut-fya-li-ya lugal.gal kur "wA-ds-su-wa u-ljal-liq gir ^a an-nu-tim a-na °Iskur be-li-su ti-se-li
As Duthaliya the Great King shattered the Assuwa country, he dedicated these swords to the storm-god, his lord.4
The sword was apparently among a number inscribed and dedicated at Hattusas by Tudhaliya II after his victory over Assuwa c.1430 BC. It was undoubtedly 'among the spoils brought [back] from West Anatolia'; for, as Unal notes, 'Hittite kings were accustomed to dedicate their booty to protective deities as an expression of gratitude for divine assistance.'5 This sword has no ready parallels in Anatolia, or indeed anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean, and is currently the subject of much discussion.6
The sword is made of bronze, has a raised midrib and several secondary sideribs on the blade, a rectangular tang now bent back (perhaps ritually 'killed'), square flanged shoulders, and four rivet-holes (two in the hilt and two in the tang) for the attachment of a handle which is now missing but for traces of a white residue (presumably a glue used to help attach the handle). It measures 79 cm and weighs 680 g. The blade tapers sharply from hilt to point. The inscription was apparently carved into the blade soon after the manufacture of the sword, for the thin film of patina which covers the sword extends over the inscription.7
Hansen suggested that the sword is an Aegean Type B sword, dating to the LH II period.8 His criteria were simple, concerning only the width of the blade and tang and the rivet-holes, but the identification appears to be essentially correct. The best (although not identical) parallels are to be found among Aegean Type B swords, including one sword in particular which was found in a later Roman context within the market area at Izmir, on the western coast of Anatolia.9 Such Type B swords were in use primarily during the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries BC and apparently were made exclusively on the Greek mainland, probably in the Argolid region, where there is a heavy concentration at Mycenae in particular.10 They are rare outside the Aegean area; that at Izmir is the only one previously identified east of the Dodecanese islands.
However, the identification of the Hattusas sword as Aegean Type B is not as cut-and-dried as Hansen's article would seem to indicate, and strenuous objections to such an identification have already been raised.11 For example, while Ertekin and Ediz agree that 'the most similar sword' to that at Hattusas is the Type B sword found at Izmir, they feel that 'the Bogazkoy sword is different from these [Type B] swords, having fewer rivet holes on the shoulder and tang, shoulders at a less acute angle and the deep grooves on the blade which display a richer composition.'12
4 Translation and transliteration following Ünal et al. 51 and Ünal (n. 3), 727-8; Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 721.
5 Ünal et al. 52; Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 721-2.
6 Cf. R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.c. (Princeton, 1993), 197-8 and fig. 3 c; Hansen 213-15; H.-G. Buchholz, 'Eine hethithische Schwertweihung', Journal of Prehistoric Religion, 8 (1994), 20-41; M. Salvini and L. Vagnetti, 'Una spada di tipo egeo da Bogazköy', PP 276 (1994), 215-36 and figs. 1-2; E. H. Cline, 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor: Minoans and Mycenaeans abroad', in W.-D. Niemeier and R. Laffineur (eds), Politeia: Society and State in the Aegean Bronze Age (Liege, 1995), 266, 270-3.
7 Ünal et al; Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3).
8 The Type B identification was originally suggested by Hansen and tentatively confirmed by C. Macdonald in 1992, according to correspondence of 15 June 1992 cited by
Hansen, 213 n. 1; see now Hansen, 213-15, for a brief explication of his reasoning. Also in agreement with this identification are M. J. Mellink, 'Archaeology in Anatolia', AJA 97 (1993), 106, 112-13; Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 215-36.
9 Sandars, esp. 27-8, pi. 19.7; cf. K. Bittel, 'Kleinasiatische Studien', Ist. Mitt. (1942), 175; K. Bittel and A. Schneider, Archäologische Funde aus der Türkei, 1942', AA 58 (1943), 207—8 and fig. 3.
10 Sandars, 23, 25, 27; ead., 'Later Aegean bronze swords', AJA 67 (1963), 117; C. D. Fortenberry, Elements of Mycenaean Warfare (Cincinnati, 1990), 148-9, 167, 369-72 (nos. 246-60).
11 Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 722-4; I. Kilian-Dirlmeier (pers. comm., 12 May 1994); N. K. Sandars and R. Maxwell-Hyslop (information courtesy of O. R. Gurney, pers. comm., i Dec. 1994).
12 Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 722.
AŠŠUWA AND THE ACHAEANS
139
In fact, as Sandars has shown, Type B swords can have between three and five rivet-holes; thus, the four present on the Hattusas sword are neither 'fewer' nor more numerous than should be expected. Such swords usually have the rivets placed 'horizontally across and immediately below the top of the blade', with several rivet-holes in the tang itself.13 The Hattusas sword has two such rivets placed horizontally across the shoulder immediately below the top of the blade and two more rivets placed vertically within the tang. A Type B sword found in Shaft Grave VI at Mycenae has an identical placement of two rivets across the shoulder, although it also has three rivets running vertically up the tang, one more than the sword at Hattusas.14 Similarly, Type B swords 'have square or slightly pointed flanged shoulders', which is precisely the situation on the sword at Hattusas.15 Finally, as to 'the deep grooves on the blade which display a richer composition' and the presence of a high spine on the Hattusas sword, Type B swords can certainly (although not always) have a high midrib/spine and therefore deep grooves on either side.16
Additional objections have been raised by Kilian-Dirlmeier, who points out that the cross-section of the Hattusas sword is not typical for a Type B weapon; that, moreover, on Aegean swords of all types the midrib usually runs right up to, and ends at, the haft; and that in the Aegean multiple midribs are usually a late feature, beginning primarily in LH III A 2.17 On the other hand, a number of these 'problematic' features on the Hattusas sword are also found on the Type B sword found at Izmir. On the Izmir sword, for example, 'the midrib is lower than usual and [is] itself finely ribbed'.18 It is possible, as Salvini and Vagnetti have suggested, that the Hattusas sword (and, by association, probably the Izmir sword as well) is an advanced variation on the traditional Type B sword; such an approach would address Kilian-Dirlmeier's concerns while still allowing for an Aegean origin.19
At the very least, it can be argued that the Hattusas and Izmir swords reflect Aegean inspiration, if not actual manufacture. If they were not actually made in the Peloponnese on the Greek mainland, whence came most Type B swords, then it is possible that there was a workshop, as yet unidentified, somewhere in western Anatolia which manufactured both these swords, as well as a number of other similar objects.20
13 Sandars, 17.
14 Ibid. 17, 24, pi. 18.5; cf. also the sword from the Dendra tholos tomb, which also has two rivets across the blade and three in the tang (Sandars, 27).
15 Ibid. 17, 22.
16 Ibid. 17; Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 722, 723. Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 220 with figs. 3 a-b cite additional parallels from both Mycenae and Dendra which have ribbing in relief on the spine. A sword found in Tomb 4 at Ialysos on Crete, which Sandars, 28, identified as Type B and which would seem to be a good parallel for the Hattusas sword, particularly in its length, has been reidentified as a Type C sword; cf. J. Driessen and C. Macdonald, 'Some military aspects of the Aegean in the late fifteenth and early fourteenth centuries b.c.', BSA 79 (1984), 69 (no. 18).
17 I. Kilian-Dirlmeier (pers. comm., 12 May 1994); cf. now ead., Die Schwerter in Griechenland (außerhalb der Peloponnes), Bulgarien und Albanien (Stuttgart, 1993).
18 Sandars, 28.
19 Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 219-25. On the other hand,
Buchholz (n. 6), 22, has now identified the Hattusas sword as definitely Aegean in origin, but as a variant of Type E. Unfortunately, he presents no proof for this assertion, and a brief investigation by the present author revealed as many, if not more, problems with a Type E identification as with the previous Type B identification. Principal among these would be the objections that the Hattusas sword is more than twice as long as the longest of the Type E weapons, which are usually referred to as daggers or dirks because of their short length, and that Type E weapons have rounded shoulders, while the Hattusas sword has square flanged shoulders; cf. Sandars (n. 10), 132-3, 149-50; Driessen and Macdonald (n. 16), 58-61, 71; St. Foltiny, 'Schwert, Dolch und Messer', in H.-G. Buchholz (ed.), Archaeologica Homerka, iE: Kriegswesm, pt. 2 (Gottingen, 1980), 257-8.
20 Sandars, 28, suggested that the 'slightly aberrant swords of the Dodecanese and opposite coasts of Anatolia are what might be expected from colonial or trading stations, where Cretan and Mainland weapons were copied by local workshops, though confused with weapons of succeeding types . .. with which the makers seem also to have been acquainted.'
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Miletus, Izmir, and Panaztepe are among the obvious sites where such an 'imitation Type B' sword workshop could have existed on the western coast of Anatolia during the fifteenth century bc.21
In his recent article Hansen suggested that the Hattusas sword may be 'evidence of Ahhiyawan-Mycenaean Greek warfare in western Asia Minor in the Late Bronze Age, and/or of a historical background for the Trojan war'.22 Certainly, the Hittite records which speak of Ahhiyawans (Achaeans: cf. below) in western Anatolia during the mid-second millennium bc frequently mention them in the context of various military events, possibly including the uprising by a coalition of north-west Anatolian states known as Assuwa. The Hittite texts documenting the Assuwa rebellion are well known; it is to this rebellion that the inscription on the above sword refers. The rebellion was long thought to date to the time of the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV, during the thirteenth century bc—that is, about the time of the Trojan war. In fact, scholars such as George Huxley and Denys Page consistently cited these specific texts as indications of Mycenaean involvement in the Trojan war and for Hittite knowledge of that involvement.23 Indeed, in his article Hansen concluded that 'thanks to the discovery of the present sword ... we now have evidence that the Hittites may well have assisted the Trojans in the war'.24 However, many of these texts have since been redated and the Assuwa rebellion is now generally accepted as having taken place at a much earlier time, during the reign of Tudhaliya II, c.1430 bc.25 Thus, Assuwa was defeated by the Hittites in the late fifteenth century, not the thirteenth century bc, and the sword was dedicated some 200 years before the traditional date for the Trojan war.26
Assuwa and the Assuwa Rebellion
The coalition of 22 north-west Anatolian city-states that was known as Assuwa is mentioned in only six relevant Hittite texts, all dating from, or referring to events during, the reign of
21 See now Neve (n. 3), 651, who also suggests a west Anatolian-Aegean workshop as the origin for the sword discovered at Hattusas. It should be noted that finds of Mycenaean or Minoan weapons, or even imitations thereof, are quite rare in the eastern Mediterranean. In addition to the new discovery at Hattusas, there are only six others known: at Izmir, Panaztepe, and Fraktin in Anatolia; Gezer in Israel; and on the Ulu Burun (Kas) shipwreck. See references given in Cline (n. 6), 272. As Sandars (n. 10), 128, has noted, 'Minoans and Mycenaeans seldom made presents of their swords'; thus, a role as arms dealers for the eastern Mediterranean seems unlikely. Mycenaean warriors or mercenaries travelling or fighting outside the Aegean may better account for the few finds which do exist.
22 Hansen, Abstract (p. xiii); cf. also Cline (n. 6), 270-3.
23 D. Page, History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley, 1959), 102-12; G. L. Huxley, Achaeans and Hittites (Oxford, i960), 32-45; cf. also discussions in J. D. Muhly, 'Hittites and Achaeans: Ahhiyawa redomitus', Historia, 23 (1974), 137-8;
T. R. Bryce, Ahhiyawa and Troy: a case of mistaken identity?', Historia, 26 (1977), 30-2; D. F. Easton, 'Hittite history and the Trojan war', in L. Foxhall and J. K. Davies (eds), The Trojan War: Its Historicity and Context (Bristol, 1984),
23-5-
24 Hansen, 214.
25 On the redating cf. the summary by Easton (n. 23). 30-4; id., 'Has the Trojan war been found?', Antiquity, 59 (1985). 189.
26 Hansen acknowledges that the sword was dedicated c.1430 bc (cf. Hansen, Abstract, p. xiii), but offers neither an era for the Trojan war nor an explanation of how a sword dedicated c.1430 bc could relate in any way to that conflict. It is, in fact, not at all clear in Hansen's discussions whether he wishes to retain a traditional 13th cent. bc date for the Trojan war or move the entire event back to the 15th cent. bc, as Vermeule has suggested; cf. E. T. Vermeule,' "Priam's castle blazing": a thousand years of Trojan memories', in M. J. Mellink (ed.), Troy and the Trojan war (Bryn Mawr, 1986), 87-92.
ASSUWA AND THE ACHAEANS
141
Tudhaliya II.27 Tudhaliya II himself, who ruled c.1450-1420 BC,28 was 'an active, highly successful monarch, warrior and hunter . . . who apparently exercised supreme suzerainty over a very large territory stretching from the west coast of Asia Minor to Aleppo and to the mountainous regions of Malatya, Isuwa and Suhma in the east. . . there can be no doubt that he was one of the greatest Hittite kings'.29
Assuwa proved to be a great thorn in the side of the Hittites during the Middle Hittite period. The Annals of Tudhaliya II (KUB XXIII11 ii. 13-39, m- 9-10) record that the Assuwa coalition began hostilities against the Hittite kingdom during his reign, c.1430 BC. The rebellion apparently began as Tudhaliya was returning from a military campaign against the west Anatolian polities of Arzawa, Hapalla, and the Seha River Land (KUB XXIII 11 ii. 2-12). Tudhaliya personally led his army against the coalition and inflicted a severe defeat. The annals state that 10,000 Assuwan soldiers, 600 teams of horses and their Assuwan charioteers, and 'the conquered population, oxen, sheep, [and] the possessions of the land' were taken back to Hattusas as prisoners and booty; included among these were the Assuwan king (?) Piyama-dKAL, his son Kukkuli, and a few other royal personages and their families. Tudhaliya then apparently appointed Kukkuli as king of Assuwa, which was set up once again, this time as a vassal state to the Hittite kingdom, but Kukkuli himself then rebelled. This second attempt at revolt also failed, Kukkuli was put to death, and the coalition of Assuwa was destroyed.30 Thus, the coalition was apparently rather short-lived, thanks primarily to Tudhaliya II. As a separate political entity, Assuwa really existed only during the mid-fifteenth century BC—approximately the LH II period in conventional Aegean terms.31
The exact location of Assuwa has proved hard to define, although it clearly lay somewhere within north-west Anatolia. It is now fairly certain that the name Assuwa' gave rise to the Greek name Asia', which refers to Lydia in its earliest attestations by Greek authors and was later extended to include most of west Anatolia (Assuwa = Hittite A-as-su-wa < Aswia = Linear B A-si-wi-ja and other variations < Greek 'AoiOt = Asia).32 Suggestions for the specific location of Assuwa vary. They include: inland below the Troad and above Arzawa; on the coast below
27 KUB XXIII 11; KUB XXVI 91; KUB XL 62 i + XIII 9; KUB XXIII 14 ii. 9; KUB XXXIV 43 10; and the text on the sword at Hattusas. Cf. previously the compilation in G. F. Del Monte and J. Tischler, Die Orts- und Gewassernamen der hethitischen Texte (Wiesbaden, 1978), 52-3. A seventh text, KBo XII 53 rev. 7', is mentioned by Del Monte and Tischler, but appears to have little, if any, direct relevance.
28 J. Mellaart, 'Western Anatolia, Beycesultan and the Hittites', in Melanges Mansel (Ankara, 1974), 501; M. C. Astour, Hittite History and Absolute Chronology of the Bronze Age (Partille, 1989), 28, 50-2, 68-9, table iv; G. Roux, Ancient Iraq (New York, 1992), 256, table v. Note that although O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (New York, 1990), 181, has recently dated Tudhaliya II to c. 1390-1370 BC, this seems a bit too low, particularly if there are links between Assuwa and Thutmose III as well as between Assuwa and Tudhaliya II (see n. 44 below), which would be a possible indication that the reigns of Tudhaliya II and Thutmose III may have overlapped to some extent. Following Kitchen's dates for Thutmose III c.1479-1425 (K. A. Kitchen, 'The Basics of Egyptian Chronology in Relation to the Bronze Age', in P. Aström (ed.), High, Middle or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology Held at the University of Gothenburg 20th-22nd
August ig8y, pt. 1 (Goteborg, 1987), 52), the dates for Tudhaliya II would lie in the 15th rather than the 14th cent. BC.
29 P. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, The Records of the Early Hittite Empire (Istanbul, 1970), 62.
30 Full transliteration and translation in O. Carruba, 'Beitrage zur mittelhethitischen Geschichte, I: Die Tuthalijas und die Arnuwandas', SMEA 18 (1977), 158-61. The secondary literature concerning this inscription is growing rapidly, particularly since the discovery of the sword at Hattusas; see e.g. Unal et al. 51-2; Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 229-30; E. Zangger, Ein neuer Kampf urn Troia: Archdologie in der Krise (Munich, 1994), 59—60.
31 P. M. Warren and V Hankey, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989), 169; E. H. Cline, Sailing the Wine-dark Sea: International Trade and the Late Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford, 1994), 7. It is conceivable that Ass'uwa may have had a longer lifespan, if the coalition were formed sometime prior to the reign of Tudhaliya II; but there are no data currently available, for there are no known documents which deal with this area of Anatolia from the time of Ammuna (c.1550 Be) until that of Tudhaliya II, a period of nearly 100 years (R. H. Beal, Email communication, 14 Mar. 1994).
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the Troad and above Arzawa; both along the coast and inland below the Troad, in the region of Izmir and Panaztepe; along the entire coastline of north-west Anatolia, including Troy; and merely within the Troad.33
The most helpful evidence comes from the Annals of Tudhaliya II (KUB XXIII n ii. 13-19), wherein is found the list of 22 towns and districts which seem to have made up the coalition of Assuwa. A few are known from other Hittite texts and can be tentatively located. The names on the list are:
(1) [. .]uqqa (9) [. .]unta (16) Lusa (?)
(2) Kispuwa (10) Adadura (17) Alatra
(3) Unaliya (11) Parista (18) Pahurina
(4) [......] (12) [......] (19) Pasuhalta
(5) Dura (13) [. . . .]iwa (20) [......]
(6) Halluwa (14) Warsiya (21) Wilusiya
(7) Huwallusiya (15) Kuruppiya (22) Taruisa.3i
(8) Karakisa
As can be seen, the list includes Taruisa, which appears only here and has been proposed as Troy, and Wilusiya, which may be an even better candidate for Troy (Ilios) and which is known from other Hittite texts (U-i-lu-sa = 'Wilusa').35 The most likely position for Assuwa, to judge from the locations of the identifiable towns from the list, now appears to be on the coast immediately south of, and perhaps encompassing part of, the Troad—in other words, in the approximate region of classical Teuthrania and the coastline/inland area to its north (see FIG. i).36 The site of Panaztepe, whose cemetery of the mid-second millennium BC yielded an Aegean Type D i sword, along with a mix of international goods including Mycenaean LH III A 1-2 pottery and two Egyptian scarabs, lies within this area, on the coast just north of Izmir. Future excavations will undoubtedly indicate further the importance of this site, which appears to have been a coastal settlement during two distinct periods of the second millennium BC, and which may well have had an important role in the history of Assuwa.37
32 See e.g. D. J. Georgacas, 'The name Asia for the continent: its history and origin', Names, 17 (1969), 1-90. For specific Linear B tablets and references see n. 43 below.
33 Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 53; J. Garstang and O. R. Gurney, The Geography of the Hittite Empire (London, 1959), 106-7, map 1; E. R. Jewell, The Archaeology and History of Western Anatolia during the Second Millennium B.C. (Ann Arbor, 1974), 296, 367, 370 (map 20), 384-5; M. Wood, In Search of the Trojan war (New York, 1985), 179,182; J. G. Macqueen, The Hittites and their Contemporaries in Asia Minor (London, 1986), 38-9 and fig. 21; D. W. Smit, 'Backgrounds to Hittite history: some historical remarks on the proposed Luwian translations of the Phaistos Disc', Talanta, 18-19 ('988), 60-1 and figs. 1-2; Gurney (n. 28), xiv fig. 1; Ünal et al. 52; Zangger (n. 30), 58-9; Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 232-6.
34 Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 105, 121-2; cf. Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 52.
35 Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 105-7, I20~3; Page (n- 23)> 102-3, IQ6; Huxley (n. 23), 33-4; Houwink ten Cate (n. 29), 62, 72, 77, 80; Jewell (n. 33), 273, 287-8, 291-6; Bryce (n. 23), 28-30; H. G. Güterbock, 'Troy in Hittite Texts? Wilusa, Ahhiyawa, and Hittite History', in M. J. Mellink (ed.), Troy and the Trojan War
(Bryn Mawr, 1986), 35,39-40; O. Hansen, 'Reflexions on Bronze-Age Topography of NW Anatolia', AnatoHca, 20 (1994), 227-31.
36 RE, s.v. 'Teuthrania'; G. B. Grundy, Murray's Small Classical Atlas (New York, 1904), maps 11-12; Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 96-7; N. G. L. Hammond, Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity (Park Ridge, NJ, 1981), map 13.
37 See e.g. A Erkanal, 'Panaztepe Kazisiniu 1985 Yili Sonuclari', VIII. Kazi Sonuclari Tophnhi I (26-30 May ig86) (Ankara, 1986), 258; A. Erkanal and H. Erkanal, 'A new archaeological excavation in western Anatolia', Turkish Review Quarterly Digest, 1.3 (1986), 67-^6; M.J. Mellink, Archaeology in Anatolia', AJA 91 (1987), 13; Y Ersoy, 'Finds from Menemen/Panaztepe in the Manisa Museum', BSA 83 (1988), 55-82; B. Jaeger and R. Krauss, 'Zwei Skarabäen aus der mykotischen Fundstelle Panaztepe', Mitteilungen der Deutschen OrientgeseUschafl zu Berlin, 122 (1990), 153-6. Cf. Buchholz (n. 6), 28-30, for a discussion of the site of Panaztepe in the context of Assuwa; Neve (n. 3), 651, discusses the possibility of locating Izmir on the southern edge of the territories belonging to Assuwa; Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 235-6, similarly argue that Assuwa must have been located in an area of western Anatolia influenced by Mycenaean Greece.
ASSUWA AND THE ACHAEANS
143
kaSka
Fig. i. Map of Anatolia in the 15th—13th centuries bc.
Apart from the several instances of Assuwa in the Annals of Tudhaliya II (KUB XXIII 11 ii. l3~39> iii- 9_io), as discussed above, there are five other occurrences in the Hittite texts. The second appearance of Assuwa is in a royal edict or law text dating from the time of Tudhaliya II (KUB XL 62 i. 1-3 + XIII 9). The text, which is concerned with some legal reforms, begins:
um-ma Ta-ba-ar-na lTu-ut-fja-li-ya lugal gal ma-a-an vmA-as-su-wa l}ar-ni-in-k[u-u]n a-ap-pa-ma VBiJHa-at-tu-si [ti-wa?-]nu-un . . .
Thus speaks the Tabarna, Tudhaliya, the Great King: When i had destroyed Assuwa and returned to Hattusas. . ,38
This obviously refers to the above events, but little more can be inferred from the context. However, the third mention of Assuwa sheds further light on the aftermath of the unsuccessful
38 Translation and transliteration following Houwink ten Tischler (n. 27), 53; R. H. Beal, The Organization of the Hittite Cate (n. 29), 62 (cf. also 72 n. 99, 81); Del Monte and        Military (Heidelberg, 1992), 302.
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rebellion, for this is the text inscribed on the bronze sword discovered in 1991 at Hattusas, discussed above. As stated, the sword was apparently among a number inscribed and dedicated at Hattusas by Tudhaliya II after his victory over Assuwa c.1430 BC.
The fourth occurrence of Assuwa is in the Annals of Arnuwanda I, son of Tudhaliya II (KUB XXIII 14 ii. 9). Assuwa is referred to only once in passing: 'SA KUR VKVA-as-su-wa-ma [\39 Although the reference is probably to be connected with the above events, little else can be inferred. The fifth appearance of Assuwa is in a fragmentary text (KUB XXXIV 43 10) which is difficult to date, but may be from the reign of Tudhaliya II or Arnuwanda I. Again, As suwa is mentioned only in passing: '. . . z]i nu VMA-as-su-wa an-da-an.i0 Finally, Assuwa is mentioned in a letter (KUB XXVI 91) sent by either Mursili II or Muwataili to an unknown king. The text makes a veiled reference to a victory by a Tudhaliya three generations earlier, presumably Tudhaliya II. Interestingly, the letter also mentions Ahhiyawa and the king of Ahhiyawa, probably to be identified with bronze age mainland Greece, as will be discussed further below.41
Assuwa seems in fact to have been known in the bronze age Aegean, as attested by possible references in both Linear A and Linear B texts. The Linear A term a-su-ja found in Minoan texts might be related to Assuwa; if so, it may well be a contemporary reference.42 In the Linear B texts of the Mycenaeans, dated slightly later, there are numerous possible references to Assuwa in tablets found at Mycenae, Pylos, and Knossos: a-si-wi-jo, a-si-wi-ja, a-si-ja-ti-ja, a-*64~ja, a-*64~jo = 'men/women/toponym of Asia (Assuwa)' and variations of the above.43 Although Assuwa had ceased to exist well before the time of most of these Linear B tablets, it may have already bequeathed its name to that particular area of Anatolia and beyond, for use by future generations. Moreover, the references in some of the tablets may reflect the earlier LH II—III A contacts between the Aegean and Assuwa. In particular, Pylos tablet PY Fr 1206 mentions the deity po-ti-ni-ya a-si-wi-ya, which may imply earlier bronze age contact between Mycenaeans and Assuwa.44
39 Transliteration following Carruba (n. 30), 172, and R. H. Beal (pers. comm., 1 Feb. 1994); cf. also Houwink ten Cate (n. 29), 62, 72 n. 99, 80; Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 53-
40 Transliteration following Ünal (pers. comm., 13 Jan. 1994); cf. also Houwink ten Cate (n. 29), 72 n. 99; Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 53.
41 See references given in nn. 47 and 48 below. «Jewell (n. 33), 290.
43 These are listed on Mycenae tablets MY Au 653 +, MY Au 657; Pylos tablets PY Aa 701, PY Ab 315, PY Ab 326, PY Ab 515, PY Ae 134, PY Cn 4, PY Cn 254, PY Cn 285 +, PY Cn 1197, PY Cn 1287, PY Eq 146, PY Fn 324 +, PY Fr 1206, PY Jn 750, PY Jn 829, PY Jn 832, PY On 300, PY Vn 1191, PY Xa 639; and Knossos tablets KN Sc 261, KN Df 1469 + 1584 + fr. Note J. Chadwick, 'The Group sw in Mycenaean', Minos, 9 (1968), 62-5, in which he suggested that the value sun be assigned to the group "64.
44 Jewell (n. 33), 289; A. Morpurgo, Mycenaeae Graecitatis Lexicon (Rome, 1963), 39; G. Maddoli, 'Potinija asiwija, Asia e le relazioni micenee con l'Anatolia settentrionale', SMEA 4 (1967), 11-22. Assuwa was apparently also known in
contemporary New Kingdom Egypt. There it appears to have been recorded, particularly during the reign of Thutmose III, as J-s-jj, better known as Isy, or even as A-si -ja. The last rendition, argued most recently by Helck, bears a remarkable similarity to Linear A a-su-ja, Linear B a-*64~ja, and the later term Asia'. An identification of Isy with Assuwa seems more likely than with Cyprus (which is most likely Egyptian 'irsg, Alasia). The most strident of the previous objections previously raised against the identification of Isy with Assuwa, e.g. by Stevenson Smith, were nullified by the redating of the above Hittite texts to the 15th cent. bc. Cf. J. Vercoutter, L'Egypte et le monde egeen prehellenique (Cairo, 1956), 86-95, l39~4I> :79-82; W. Stevenson Smith, Interconnections in the Ancient Near East (New Haven, 1965), 10; W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Ägyptens und Vorderasiens zur Ägäis bis ins 7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Darmstadt, 1979), 28-9, 34-5; J. D. Muhly, 'The land of Alashiya: references to Alashiya in the texts of the second millennium B.C. and the history of Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age', in V. Karageorghis (ed.), Acts of the ist International Congress of Cypriot Studies, i (Nicosia, 1972), 208-9; Cline (n. 31), 60, with references.
assuwa and the achaeans
145
Ahhiyawa and Assuwa
In addition to the six Hittite texts which mention Assuwa, there are approximately 25 Hittite texts, ranging from the time of Tudhaliya II and Arnuwanda I in the fifteenth century BC to Tudhaliya IV in the thirteenth century, which mention Ahhiyawa or Ahhiyawans in a variety of contexts ranging from hostile to peaceful.45 In the opinion of the present author, it seems clear that Ahhiyawa must be a reference to the Mycenaeans, if only by default. The controversy surrounding these texts revolves around a well-known problem which appears deceptively easy to solve, but is not. Simply stated, if the Mycenaeans (Achaeans) can be equated with the Ahhiyawans (Achaia = Gk. *'Axctf let, 'Axcuoi > Hittite Ah -hi-ia-ua-a, A-ah -hi-ia-a - Ahhiyawa, Ahhiya), then there is substantial textual evidence for contact between the Hittites and the Mycenaeans throughout the course of the Late Bronze Age. If the Mycenaeans are not the Ahhiyawans, then they are never mentioned by the Hittites. The seventy-year-long debate, which continues today, is far from resolved.
However, we should not forget that there is, on the one hand, an important late bronze age culture otherwise unmentioned in the Hittite texts (Mycenaeans) and, on the other hand, an important textually attested late bronze age 'state' without archaeological remains (Ahhiyawa). It seems reasonable simply to equate the two. While locations for Ahhiyawa have been sought in Thrace, on Rhodes, in north-west Anatolia, and on the Greek mainland, it seems most plausible that the Ahhiyawa of the Hittite texts is the Mycenaean homeland, which at the time of the Assuwa rebellion was on the Greek mainland. Such is the belief of the present author and it will be assumed to be correct in the discussion below.46
The Hittite texts first mention Ahhiyawa during the time of Tudhaliya II, and document distinct, and often close, relations between Ahhiyawa and the native residents of Assuwa, Arzawa, the Seha River Land, and other regions in western Anatolia. Perhaps the most important example of the complex interrelations between Assuwa, the Aegean and the Hittites during the late fifteenth century BC can be seen in a letter (KUB XXVI 91) from a Hittite king to an unknown king (possibly the king of Ahhiyawa). This is the sixth of the six Hittite texts which mention Assuwa (as discussed above). Whatever the absolute date of the letter itself, the events to which it refers occurred three generations earlier and fit best within
45 See most recently, with bibliography, T. R. Bryce, 'The nature of Mycenaean involvement in western Anatolia', Historia, 38 (1989), 1-21; id., 'Ahhiyawans and Mycenaeans: an Anatolian viewpoint', OJA 8 (1989), 297-310; A. Unal, 'Two peoples on both sides of the Aegean sea: did the Achaeans and the Hittites know each other?', in HIH Prince Takahito Mikasa (ed.), Essays on Ancient Anatolian and Syrian Studies in the 2nd and 1st Millennium B.C.. (Wiesbaden, 1991), 16-44; Cline (n. 31), 121—5 (nos. C2-26).
46 An alternative proposal (g. M. Beckman, pers. comm.; Huxley (n. 23), 17), that Ahhiyawa, as understood by the Hittites, referred to different parts of the Mycenaean world at different times, changing location
over the course of several centuries (mainland Greece in the I5th-i3th cents. bc but Rhodes or the Dodecanese in the 12th cent.), might also account for the available textual and archaeological evidence. An instance of such 'geographic relocation' over time may be seen, for example, in Mesopotamian texts which discuss trade and contact with 'Magan' and 'Meluhha': these two areas were to be found in the Persian Gulf/Indus Valley region according to Mesopotamian texts of the third millennium bc, but were located in the region of Ethiopia according to Mesopotamian texts of the first millennium; cf. A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (Chicago, 1977), 63-4, 350, 408, with detailed additional bibliography.
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the historical context of Tudhaliya II, particularly since a Tudhaliya and the king of Assuwa are both mentioned.47
In this fragmentary letter the land of Ahhiyawa is mentioned in the first line ('. . . E]N? [k]ur Ah-hi-ia-u[a' or '. . . [luga]l! KUR Ah-hi-ia-u\a!). The king of Assuwa is first possibly mentioned in line 7 ('. . . lugal? KUR? A?-as[-su-ud). A Tudhaliya is probably mentioned in line 9 ('. . . lTu-ut!-h [a-li-ia-as') and allusion is made in line 10 to a military campaign i^na-an-za-an iR-na-ah-ta'). This is perhaps a reference to the campaign of Tudhaliya II in north-west Anatolia, against the aforementioned Assuwa. The king of Ahhiyawa is first mentioned just afterwards, in line 12 ('. . . lugal KUR Ah-h i-i[a-ua') and the king of Assuwa is mentioned again in line 14 ('lugal KUR A-as-su-u[a?').48 The writer also refers to islands belonging to the king of Ahhiyawa (obverse, lines 5-7'); these are most likely islands in the eastern Aegean, off the western coast of Anatolia. The letter is so damaged and incomplete that it would be dangerous to read too much into the occurrence of both Assuwa and Ahhiyawa within the same text, but it is extremely likely that we have here a textual indication that Assuwa and Ahhiyawa were associated in some manner during the reign of Tudhaliya II. Unal, in fact, states that the text at lines 9-10 'strongly suggests that the king of Ahhiyawa was involved in some way with the Assuwan campaign of Tudhaliya. Tudhaliya seems to have subdued him'.49
ACHAEANS IN THE ASSUWA REBELLION?
In his BSA article Hansen cited and discussed at length a Hittite text (KUB XXIII 13) as evidence for Mycenaean military activity in north-west Anatolia during the reign of Tudhaliya II.50 Unfortunately, this document cannot be used as confidently as Hansen suggested, for its translation and dating are far more controversial than he indicates. The text is concerned with an attack by a Hittite king on the Seha River Land; the king of Ahhiyawa is mentioned in line 5, possibly implying his presence on the Anatolian mainland. However, the translation of the line in question is much debated: '[x +]x ku-u-ru-ri-ia-ah-ta nu-za-kdn LUGAL kur Ah-hi-ia-u-ua EGlR-j&a e-ip-ta[ ]'. The most likely rendition is either 'the king of Ahhiyawa withdrew/retreated' or someone 'took refuge with/relied upon the king of Ahhiyawa'. The former is based upon Sommer's original translation and would intimate that the king of Ahhiyawa had himself been present on the Anatolian mainland; the latter is a new translation
47 Cf. detailed arguments for dating this letter to the reigns of Arnuwanda I, Mursiii II, Muwatalli, or Arnuwanda IV, in E. Forrer, Ahhijava', in E. Ebeling and B. Meissner (eds), Reallexikon der Assyriologie, i (Berlin, 1932), 56-7; F. Sommer, Die Ah h ijam-Urkunden (Munich, 1932); 268-74, pi. 6.1; H. T. Bossert, Asia (Istanbul, 1946), 24; Page (n. 23), 108; Huxley (n. 23), 4-5 (no. 9), 37-8; Houwink ten Cate (n. 29), 72 n. 99; id., 'Contact between the Aegean region and Anatolia in the second millennium b.c.', in R. A. Crossland and A. Birchall (eds), Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean (London, 1973), 151; O. Carruba, 'Über historiographische und philologische Methoden in der Hethitologie', Orientalia, 40 (1971), 214; E. Laroche, Catalogue des textes hittites (Paris, 1971), 25 (no. 183); Jewell (n. 33), 286, 338; J. T. Hooker, Mycenaean Greece (Boston, 1976), 125 (no. 6); S. Kosak, 'The Hittites and the Greeks', Linguistica, 20 (1980), 41; Easton (n. 25), 192; M. Marazzi, 'Gli "Achei" in Anatolia: un problema di metodologia', in M.
Marazzi, S. Tusa, and L. Vagnetti (eds), Traffici micenei nel Mediterraneo: problemi storici e documentazione archeologica (Taranto, !986). 397. 398; Smit (n- 33)> 53» 59; Bryce, OJA 8 (n. 45), 299-300; Ünal (n. 45), 20 (no. 12), 30; Ünal (pers. comm., 13 Jan. 1994). I am grateful to O. R. Gurney, J. Klinger, and A. Ünal for their thoughts on the dating of this text.
48 The above transliterations and translations follow Sommer (n. 47), 268; A. Hagenbüchner, Die Korrespondenz der Hethiter (Heidelberg, 1989), 319-20 (no. 219); Ünal (n. 45), 20 (no. 12), 30; cf. also Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 53.
49 Ünal (n. 45), 20. See also Huxley (n. 23), 5, 38, for a similar, yet opposite, conclusion reached thirty years previously, in which he argued for the Mycenaean king following in the footsteps of the Hittites and destroying the remnants of the Assuwan alliance; cf. also outdated comments by Page (n. 23), 108.
50 Hansen, 214.
ASSUWA AND THE ACHAEANS
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by Easton (repeated by Guterbock) and is simply consistent with Bryce's picture of a king of Ahhiyawa supporting 'anti-Hittite activities conducted in western Anatolia by local agents or deputies'.51 Moreover, while the text has indeed been redated to the Annals of Tudhaliya II by a few scholars, most continue to see it as a much later text (e.g. the reign of Muwatalli, Hattusili III or Tudhaliya IV). It therefore cannot be conclusively cited as an example of Mycenaean involvement in western Anatolia during the fifteenth century BC.
Nevertheless, there are other Hittite texts which seem to describe the activities of Achaeans (Ahhiyawans) on the west coast of Anatolia during the late fifteenth century BC and their possible contacts with Assuwa. One is the Hittite letter (KUB XXVI 91) mentioned above, which may imply that a king of Ahhiyawa was somehow involved with Assuwa, possibly militarily, during the reign of Tudhaliya II. Another is the well-known Hittite text called the Indictment of Madduwatta (KUB XIV 1 + KBo XIX 38 § 12), written during the reign of Arnuwanda I, c.1400 BC. The document discusses the fact that, also during the reign of Tudhaliya II, a renegade Hittite vassal named Madduwatta ruling in western Anatolia had been attacked by Attarissiya, 'a man of Ahhiya' (Ahhiya being the older form of the name Ahhiyawa).52 This text is frequently cited as evidence for Mycenaean warriors or mercenaries actively fighting in western Anatolia during the fifteenth century BC—in fact, specifically during the reign of Tudhaliya II.53
New and accumulating archaeological data from excavations at Troy, Panaztepe, Besiktepe, and Hattusas provide further support for such hypotheses. Apart from the 'Mycenaean' sword inscribed and dedicated by Tudhaliya II at Hattusas,54 most important is a fragmentary Hittite bowl, also found at Hattusas in a fifteenth-fourteenth century BC context, which is incised with a drawing of what appears to be a Mycenaean warrior in full battle array, complete with plumed and horned helmet very reminiscent of the 'zoned' helmets worn by Aegean warriors depicted in a variety of media at a number of sites around the late bronze age Aegean.55 Other items of interest include the Aegean Type B sword at Izmir, the Aegean Type D i sword
51 Cf. Sommer (n. 47), 314-19, pi. 8.1; H. G. Güterbock, 'The Hittites and the Aegean World, 1: the Ahhiyawa problem reconsidered', AJA 87 (1983), 138; Easton (n. 25), 189, 194; Bryce, Historia, 38 (n. 45), 10; id., OJA 8 (n. 45), 303.
52 A. Goetze, Madduwattas (Leipzig, 1928); Sommer (n. 47), 329-49, pi. 9; H. Otten, Sprachliche Stellung und Datierung des Madduwatta-Textes (Wiesbaden, 1969); S. Heinhold-Krahmer, Arzawa: Untersuchungen zu seiner Geschichte nach den hethitischen Quellen (Heidelberg, 1977), 255-75; T. R. Bryce, 'Madduwatta and Hittite policy in western Anatolia', Historia, 35 (1986), 1-12.
53 Compare especially M. J. Mellink, 'Postscript', in M. J. Mellink (ed.), Troy and the Trojan War (Bryn Mawr, 1986), 95-6; Vermeule (n. 26), 85; cf. also T. B. L. Webster, From Mycenae to Homer (London, 1958), 121-2. Note that Güterbock and Bryce, in addition to Vermeule and Mellink, have previously proposed hypotheses regarding Mycenaean involvement in western Anatolia during the 15th and early 14th cents. bc; in addition to the references above, cf. H. G. Güterbock, 'Hittites and Akhaeans: a new look', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 128 (1984), 114-22; id. (n. 51), 133-8; Bryce, Historia, 38 (n. 45), 12; id., OJA 8 (n. 45), 307; M.J. Mellink, 'The Hittites and the Aegean world, 2: archaeological comments on Ahhiyawa-Achaians in western Anatolia', AJA 87 (1983), 139; E. T. Vermeule, 'The Hittites and the Aegean world, 3: response to Hans Güterbock', AJA 87 (1983), 142-3.
54 See now Buchholz (n. 6), 28-30, 32, who briefly reiterates the evidence for Hittite-Mycenaean interactions on the western coast of Anatolia, concluding that the new sword lends credence to the hypothesis of a Mycenaean presence, probably in the form of Mycenaean warriors in this area, most probably in the region of Panaztepe.
55 The two joining sherds from this bowl were found in a late I5th-early 14th cent. bc level at Hattusas—a context which may well correlate with the reign of Tudhaliya II; cf. K. Bittel, 'Tonschale mit Ritzzeichnung von Bogazköy', RA (1976), 9-14 and figs. 1-3; Güterbock (n. 53), 115 and fig. 6. For the Aegean parallels, found e.g. on the Miniature Fresco at Akrotiri on Thera, on a marble slab depicting the head of a warrior at Ayia Irini on Kea, and on various additional objects in sundry materials, cf. J. L. Caskey, 'Excavations in Keos, 1964-1965', Hesperia, 35 (1966), 375, pi. go b; J. Borchhardt, Homerische Helme (Mainz, ig72), passim; L. Morgan, The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean Culture and Iconography (Cambridge, 1988), 109-15 and fig. 64, pis 151-8 and 173-7. Conversely, a locally made Mycenaean sherd at Miletus is decorated with a drawing of what might be a Hittite cap/helmet, showing that the Mycenaeans may well have been aware of Hittite military or ceremonial regalia; cf. C. Weickert, 'Die Ausgrabung beim Athena-Tempel in Milet 1957, III: der Westabschnitt', Ist. Mitt. 9-10 (i960), 65 and pi. 72.1; Güterbock (n. 53), 115 and fig. 5.
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and LH III A 1 pottery at Panaztepe, and Mycenaean LH II and III A vessels and other objects found in or near Houses VI F and G at Troy—houses which were burnt and destroyed, perhaps by invaders. There is also, further down the coast, a Mycenaean grave at Ephesos with LH III A 1 pottery.56
We might also remember that the first, ill-fated, Achaean expedition sent to rescue Helen at Troy, as recounted in the Cypria, reportedly resulted in Achilles and other Achaean warriors lighting in Teuthrania, an area in north-west Anatolia south of Troy, at some time immediately prior to the Trojan war (ancient and modern estimates for the elapsed time between the expeditions usually range from a few weeks to eight years).57 The account of this expedition is seen by Neoanalysts as an excellent example of a pre-Homeric episode,58 and indeed the area of north-west Anatolia which the Cypria calls Teuthrania sounds suspiciously similar to the area which the Hittites knew as Assuwa, for the battle in Teuthrania is thought to have taken place on a plain at the mouth of the River Caicus;59 this is the same river which seems to have served as the southern boundary of Assuwa (see FIG. i).60 Greek tradition, as recorded by Homer in the Iliad, also held that in the time of Priam's father Laomedon Herakles sacked Troy, using only six ships (//. v. 638-42).61 Leaving aside all speculation, the
56 Cf. C. W. Blegen, J. L. Caskey, and M. Rawson, Troy III (Princeton, 1953), 256, 278-9, 297-8, 301-2; Jewell (n. 33), 170, 172; C. Mee, Aegean trade and settlement in Anatolia in the second millennium bc', Anat. St. 28 (1978), 127, 130; Vermeule (n. 53), 142-3; ead. (n. 26), 85, 87-8; Mellink, 'Postscript' (n. 53), 94; ead. (n. 37), 13; Ersoy (n. 37), 55-82, pi. 5; Ertekin and Ediz (n. 3), 722; Buchholz (n. 6), 28-32; Salvini and Vagnetti (n. 6), 220, 225, and fig. 4 a.
57 Recorded in Proclus, Chrest. i; cf. discussion in Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 97; W. Kullmann, Die Quellen der Ilias (Wiesbaden, i960), 189-203. Achilles—and Ajax too—later went raiding in this area again, during the Trojan war.
58 Kullmann (n. 57), 189-203; M. E. Clark, 'Neoanalysis: a bibliographical review', Classical World, 79.6 (1986), 379, 382—3. It is well known that a few elements in Homer's Iliad predate the traditional setting of the Trojan war, perhaps by as much as several centuries. Examples usually cited include the warrior Ajax and his use of a tower shield (cf. vii. 219-20; xi. 485; xvii. 128), which had been replaced long before the 13th cent. bc; the use of 'silver-studded' swords (^doyavov dpyupor|kw or ii(j>og dpYupof|X,ov; cf. //. ii. 45; iii. 361; vii. 303-4); and perhaps even the figures of Idomeneus, Meriones, and Odysseus. Yet another example may be the story of Bellerophon (//. vi. 178-240), a Greek hero possibly dating from before the Trojan war, who was sent to Lycia by Proteus, king of Tiryns, and eventually awarded a kingdom in Anatolia by Iobates, father-in-law of Proteus. However, according to the 'Neoanalysis School', which goes a step further, a number of the stories, details, and entire episodes found within the Iliad may actually be taken from, or be imitations of, other epic cycles which originally dealt with events from an era before the Trojan war. Cf. full references given by Clark (above) in an extensive review of relevant 'NeoanalyticaP bibliography up to 1986. Note that E. T. Vermeule, 'Baby Aigisthos and the Bronze Age', PCPS 213 (1987), 122, 131 has also suggested that there might be 'a body of Bronze Age poetry partly embodied in major Greek epic'. S. P. Morris, A tale of two cities: the miniature frescoes
from Thera and the origins of Greek poetry', AJA 93 (1989), 534 (cf. also 515-22, 531-3, and fig. 4), has also recently intimated that the LM I a Thera frescoes might provide evidence that small, ship-borne Achaean expeditions to the Anatolian coast were taking place even earlier, perhaps as far back as the I7th-i6th cents. bc. While one may disagree with Morris's identification of the coastline in question as that of Anatolia, it is clear that there were tales of epic adventure circulating in the Aegean already during the 17th—16th cents. bc, and that such tales found expression in art as well as literature.
59 Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 97 and n. 1; cf. Wood (n. 33), 22, 206.
60 Cf. Gurney (n. 28), 107 and map 1; Macqueen (n. 33), 38-9 and fig. 21; Bryce, Historia, 38 (n. 45), 21 and map 1; also Del Monte and Tischler (n. 27), 53, and maps in Wood (n. 33), 179, 182; contra Garstang and Gurney (n. 33), 97 and map 1.
61 An alternative tradition, mentioned by both Apollodorus (ii. 6. 4) and Diodorus (iv. 32), held that Herakles had 18, rather than 6 ships under his command when he raided Troy, with 50 rowers in each—giving a total of 900 men, hardly a 'scanty' contingent. Note that Herakles' expedition against Troy is depicted on the east pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina; cf. S. Hiller, 'Two Trojan wars? On the destructions of Troy Vlh and Vila', Stadia Trowa, i (1991), 145; S. Woodford, The Trojan war in Ancient Art (London, 1993), 46-8 and figs. 1-2. Cf. also discussions in M. P Nilsson, The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley, 1932), 196-8; Webster (n. 53), 125-6; P B. S. Andrews, 'The falls of Troy in Greek tradition', Greece and Rome, 12 (1965), 28-32; E Schachermeyer, DiedgdischeFriihzeit,v.DieLevanteim^eitalterder Wanderungen vom 13. bis zum 11. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Vienna, 1982), 93-112; E. T. Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago, 1972), 275-6; ead. (n. 53), 142-3; ead. (n. 26), 87-8; E. Bloedow, 'The Trojan war and Late Helladic HI c', PZ 63 (1988), 48-51; Hiller (above), 145-8, 150-3. Vermeule has suggested that evidence for such an attack might be seen in the 'vigorous housecleaning' visible in House VI F at Troy, while Bloedow has hypothesized that this 'so-called First Trojan War' might rather be seen in the destruction of Troy Vlh.
ASSUWA AND THE AGHAEANS
149
one point which may be made without hesitation concerning such legendary 'data' is that there was obviously a tradition in later Greece, as seen in texts such as the Iliad and the Epic Cycle, that Achaean warriors had engaged in military activities in north-west Anatolia in eras prior to the Trojan war.62 Thus, these legendary tales may be cautiously added to the growing body of archaeological, literary, and textual evidence which suggests a Mycenaean involvement in western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age, first beginning during the LH II and LH III a 1 periods, and including specific links between Assuwa and the Aegean during the reign of Tudhaliya II.
Summation and Final Hypotheses
When the Hittite texts documenting the Assuwa rebellion were dated to the reigns of Arnuwanda III and Tudhaliya IV, scholars frequently discussed them in connection with the Trojan war c.1250 BC.63 Now that most of these texts have been redated to the reigns of Tudhaliya II and Arnuwanda I, it is clear that a link between the Assuwa rebellion and the traditional Trojan war can no longer be maintained. However, a connection with the legendary earlier Mycenaean raids in Anatolia may certainly lie within the realm of possibility.
As discussed above, there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence attesting to possible interactions between the Achaeans (Ahhiyawans), Assuwans, and Hittites during the late fifteenth century BC. The data presented above, including the 'Mycenaean' sword found at Hattusas, might be simply a series of unrelated phenomena. However, they may also suggest that warriors from the bronze age Aegean were involved in the Assuwa rebellion against the Hittites. If so, it might be proposed that it was this aid which was chronicled in contemporary Hittite records and remembered rather more indistinctly in the literary traditions of later archaic and classical Greece—not as the Trojan war, as Hansen has suggested,64 but as the pre-Trojan war battles and raids in Anatolia attributed to Achilles and other legendary Achaean heroes. If participation in this rebellion were the historical 'kernel of truth' underlying such Aegean legends, then it is conceivable that a number of these stories of Mycenaean involvement in the Assuwa Rebellion during the LH II period may have been circulating in early epic tales, as the Neoanalysts believe, some portions of which eventually found their way into the Epic Cycle and the Iliad.
But if such were the case, one must ask why Mycenaean warriors would have been helping Assuwa in their rebellion against the Hittites. If they were, Mycenaean motives would most likely have been political and economic in nature, concerned with access to the Black Sea and to areas rich in agricultural products and raw materials such as metals. Similar scenarios have been suggested concerning Mycenaean motives for the Trojan war c.1250 BC.65 On the other hand, according to the mythological traditions of the ancient Greeks, the bronze age dynasties at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Argos all traced at least part of their ancestry back to the same area
62 Cf. G. Grote, History of Greece, i (London, 1846), 388-9, 396-7; Andrews (n. 61), 28-37. M. I. Finley {The World of Odysseus (New York, 1956), 46), among others, has suggested that there were 'many "Trojan" wars'; cf. also the discussion in Webster (n. 53), 116-17, I20> I25~6.
63 Page (n. 23), 102-12; Huxley (n. 23), 32-45; Bryce (n. 23), 30-2; cf. summary of redating by Easton (n. 23), 30-4.
64 Hansen, 215. As noted above, in linking the Assuwa rebellion with the Trojan war, Hansen has erroneously revived a hypothesis held by scholars prior to the redating of the texts documenting the Assvuwa rebellion; such a hypothesis can no longer be held valid.
65 Bloedow (n. 61).
150
ERIC H. CLINE
of western Anatolia wherein lay the coalition of states known as Assuwa.66 It is conceivable that Mycenaean aid to Assuwa in their rebellion against the Hittites was sent as a reaction to Tudhaliya IFs campaigns in the Achaean dynasts' ancestral homelands, much like the later reaction of Athens to the Persian conquest of their brethren in the Ionian cities on the western coast of Asia Minor at the beginning of the fifth century BC. At the very least, such tenuous, legendary, connections could have served as a convenient excuse while more economic and political motives remained concealed.67
It has been suggested that knowledge of the Assuwa Confederacy became a part of Mycenaean tradition, which was then handed down in a garbled version to the Ionian Greeks and survived as the 'Trojan Catalogue' in the Iliad (ii. 926-89), so that 'the Assuwan Confederacy became part of a Greek legendary tradition, according to which an alliance of Anatolian states was defeated—not by Hittites but by Greeks'.68 It is certainly plausible to suggest that the Mycenaeans and the Trojans were at one time allies, not foes, fighting together against the Hittites in the Assuwa rebellion.69 It might even be tentatively suggested that the 'housecleaning' visible in House VI F at Troy, which dates to the late LH II or early LH III A 1 period,70 was
66 Cf. Grote (n. 62), 120-5, 210-20; also discussions by Huxley (n. 23), 49; Bryce, Historia, 38 (n. 45), 13; M. Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation, ii: The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence (New Brunswick, NJ, I991)' 452-6, 459; Zangger (n. 30), 160. Perhaps most important is the legendary connection of the Atreid dynasty at Mycenae with Anatolia. According to Thucydides (i. 9. 2), Pelops, father of Atreus, came to Greece from Asia. We may also notice that Pindar (01. i. 24) refers to 'the Lydian Pelops', while Pausanias (v. 1. 7) refers to 'Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia'. As noted above, the name 'Asia', which refers to Lydia in its earliest attestations by Greek authors and was later extended to include most of west Anatolia, is thought to derive from the Hittite name 'Assuwa'. It may be of further interest to note that Pelops is specifically connected with chariotry and that the name of the charioteer in Pelops' famous race against Oenomaos, Myrtilos, is perhaps paralleled by the Hittite royal name Mursili; cf. Paus. v. 10. 6-7; vi. 20. 17; viii. 14. 10-12. In addition, according to the later Greeks (cf. Strabo viii. 6. 11; Apollod. ii. 1. 4; ii. 2. 1-2; ii. 4. 1; ii. 4. 4; Paus. ii. 16. 2-3; ii. 25. 7-8), bronze age Tiryns had legendary links to Anatolia through Proteus' Lycian wife Antia/Stheneboea and their hybrid son Megapenthes, but was then ruled by Perseus, who was of mixed Egyptian and Greek descent and who had also been the original founder of Mycenae. Bronze age Argos, which had been originally taken over by the Egyptian Danaos, was later ruled by this same Megapenthes, who was of mixed Lycian, Egyptian, and Greek descent. It is of interest to note that there were other, related traditions linking bronze age Tiryns and Lycia [Lukka?] in particular, such as the story of Bellerophon. (On Lycia and bronze age Lukka, which may be the first name on Tudhaliya IFs list of Assuwan towns and districts, cf. now M. J. Mellink, 'Homer, Lycia, and Lukka', in J. B. Carter and S. P. Morris (eds), The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule (Austin, 1995), 33-43, with earlier bibliography.)
67 Cf. Zangger (n. 30), 253-4, f°r a similar suggestion
concerning an alliance between Mycenaeans and Assuwa, but at a time prior to the Assuwa rebellion, and with the intended purpose (and successful result) of destroying the 'Minoan empire' some time between 1450 and 1400 BC. (It should be noted that data, references, and ideas concerning Assuwa and the Aegean were exchanged between Zangger and the present author via email communications in the autumn of 1993 during our simultaneous, yet independent and ultimately dissimilar, investigations into this topic.) Unfortunately, Zangger's hypothesis is not supported by the evidence provided and is further hindered by its dependence upon a dubious recent 'translation' of the Phaistos Disk; cf. J. Best and F. Woudhuizen, Ancient Scripts from Crete and Cyprus (Leiden, 1988), 57-8, 79, 82; F. Woudhuizen, The Language of the Sea Peoples (Amsterdam, 1992), ix, xi, 11—41 (esp. 36-7), 76-7; Smit (n. 33), 49-62; all cited and discussed by Zangger (n. 30), 57, 61-4, 253-4. Although there may indeed have been an alliance between Mycenaeans and Assuwa during the 15th cent. BC, as the present paper also argues, it seems unlikely that such an alliance originally came about for the express purpose of destroying the 'Minoan empire', as Zangger has hypothesized. It is a shame, for the existence of such an earlier alliance would have provided an additional explanation as to why Mycenaean mercenaries may have been willing to fight on behalf of Assuwa against the Hittite empire c.1430 BC.
68 Bryce (n. 23), 32 (cf. also 30-1 with earlier bibliography); also W. F. Albright, 'Some Oriental glosses on the Homeric Problem', AJA 54 (1950), 169; Huxley (n. 23), 31-6. Cf. also Bryce (n. 23), 31, in connection with Hansen's unlikely discussion (215 n. 14) of the Hittites as Amazons.
69 Contra Hansen, 214, who suggested that the Trojans were allied with the Hittites against the Mycenaeans.
70 Cf. Vermeule (n. 61), 275-6; ead. (n. 53), 142-3; ead. (n. 26), 87-8. On the date of Troy Vlf and the Mycenaean pottery found within cf. Blegen et al. (n. 56), 19 and passim; Mee (n. 56), 146-7; id., 'The Mycenaeans and Troy', in L. Foxhall and J. K. Davies (eds), The Trojan war: Its Historicity and Context (Bristol, 1984), 45; Hiller (n. 61), 152.
ASSUWA AND THE ACHAEANS
perhaps the result of a Hittite attack upon Troy and the rest of the Assuwa coalition late in the fifteenth century BC. Such a scenario would explain the presence of Aegean, and lack of Hittite, artefacts throughout Troy VI, a settlement which appears to have looked to the west and the south rather than immediately east.71 It would also provide a background to the tales of the friendly reciprocal visits of the Mycenaean Menelaos and the Trojan Paris to each others' domains prior to the kidnapping of Helen, and would clarify why Bellerophon's descendants Sarpedon and Glaukos are later found fighting on the side of the Trojans rather than with the Achaeans: these may be dim reflections of the days when Mycenaeans and Trojans were allies rather than enemies.72
If it did occur, such Mycenaean aid to Assuwa and its rebellion, both in the form of sage advice and through the supply of active troops or individual mercenaries, would help to explain why the Hittites apparently attempted to impose economic sanctions against the Mycenaeans throughout the Late Bronze Age.73 However, any such hypothesized assistance from the Achaeans was of little service in the end, as the captured sword dedicated at Hattusas shows—for Assuwa was ultimately destroyed by the Hittites and the victorious Tudhaliya II.
Xavier University E. H. cline
71 Blegen et al. (n. 56), 15-17 and passim; C. W. Blegen, Troy and the Trojans (London, 1963), 37; most recently S. H. Allen, 'Trojan Grey Ware at Tel Miqne-Ekron', BASOR 293 (1994), 39-51, with bibliography.
72 On Bellerophon's descendants as Trojan allies cf. II. ii.
876-7; vi. 152-211; on the various tales surrounding Paris' visit to Menelaos cf. the Cypria and Hdt. ii. 113-17, also R. Graves, The Greek Myths, ii (New York, i960), 268-78 with further references.
73 See Cline (n. 31), 68-74.