Assuwa

Assuwa (Hittite: 𒀸𒋗𒉿, romanized: aš-šu-wa; Mycenaean Greek: 𐀀𐀯𐀹𐀊, romanized: a-si-wi-ja)[1][2] 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.[3][4][5] The name was recorded in various centres in Mycenaean Greece as Asswia, which latter acquired the form Asia.[2]

Etymology

Assuwa is identified most conclusively in Hittite records as aš-šu-wa[6][7][8] and also as a-si-wi-ja, a-si-wi-jo, a-si-ja-ti-ja, a-𐁗-ja, and a-𐁗-jo in the Linear B script of Mycenaean Greece.[9][10][11] Less conclusive is the a-su-ja in the Linear A script of the Minoans, though it is considered as containing “Greek-like elements”[12] and possibly related to the Linear B form.[13] The Egyptian a-six-ja (transliterated as isy) has long been the subject of scholastic debate as to whether it refers to Assuwa or Alashiya.[14][15][16]

Location

The Annals of Tudhaliya I/II is the only source that documents the entirety of the Assuwa coalition, which erupted in rebellion “as Tudhaliya was returning from a military campaign against the west Anatolian polities of Arzawa, Hapalla and the Seha River Land:”[17]

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.[18]

— Annals, obv.13'-21', adapted from trans. by Garstang and Gurney (1959: 121-2).

There is no consensus on the identities or locations of the member states, and some do not appear to be mentioned in any other contemporary sources. Nevertheless, they have been variously identified as follows:


Name Location Information
[—]lugga Lukka lands;[19] Ardukka[20] partially obliterated
Kispuwa[lower-alpha 1] unknown shares the same root as Kizzuwatna and the same stem as the Kaskian land of Kappapuwa, the Hatti land of Zalpuwa and the Hittite Mt. Tippuwa
Unaliya[lower-alpha 1] Yunak[21] shares its name with several villages in Sri Lanka[22]
Dura Tarrha[23] shares its name with ancient Dura[24]
Halluwa[lower-alpha 1] Koloe[23] northwest of Sardis; related to the Greek koλόn
Huwallusiya somewhere west of the Konya region;[25] northwest of Gordion[26] on the road to Arzawa[27]
Karakisa Caria;[28] Mount Ida;[29]Gargara[23] linked with Masa in Hittite texts[30]
Dunda Adana;[27] Sibidounda[31] Sibidounda was located in southern Pisidia
Adadura[lower-alpha 1] Antandrus[20] Strabo located it in the Troad on the southern flank of Mount Ida; Aristotle claimed it was originally settled by Thracians and Cimmerians
Parista Perkote[23] Strabo claimed it was originally called Perkope, that it was part of the Troad and that the inhabitants were apparently neither Trojan or Dardanian; shares the same root as Parrhasia.
[-]waa unknown partially obliterated; possible Luwian stem
Warsiya Lukka lands[27] shares root with Wardak, Warsaw and Warmia
Kuruppiya unknown means “sparrow” in classical Tamil language[32]
[-]luissa Lystra[33] partially obliterated; often referred to as Lusa in scholarship
Alatra[lower-alpha 1] unknown associated with food production[34]
Mount Pahurina[lower-alpha 1] Pahhuwa[35][36] associated with silver and bronze
Pasuhalta Imbros;[37][38] Telmessos[39] associated with “lord of cattle”[40]
Wilusiya Wilusa/Troy/Hisarlik[41] possibly the drdny (Dardanoi) of Egyptian records[42]
Taruisa[lower-alpha 1] Troad/Troy/[43]Hisarlik;[23]”Taruwisa” or “Terussa” near Carchemish[44] shares root with Tauri and Tarḫuntašša

History

Luwian seals trace Assuwa to the late 15th century BCE.[45]Though said to have been formed to oppose the Hittite Empire,[3][46][47] in fact it appears that “the origins of the Assuwan confederation lay in a network of partners in trade”[48] Niemeier viewed it as an actual federated polity rather than a coalition.[49] It is subsequently mentioned in six surviving Hittite documents[13]

Circumstantial evidence raises the possibility that Ahhiyawans may have supported the rebellion. 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.[50][51][52][53][54] 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.[55]

Notes
  1. Not attested in any other source.

References
  1. 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
  2. Latacz, Joachim; Windle, Head of the School of Language Studies Kevin; Windle, Reader in the Department of Classical and Modern European Languages Kevin; Ireland, Visiting Fellow in the School of Language Studes Rosh (28 October 2004). Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery. OUP Oxford. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-19-926308-0. Aswiai ; recorded several times at Knossos , Pylos , and Mycenae ; evidently refers to women from the region called Assuwa
  3. Beckman, Gary; Bryce, Trevor; Cline, Eric (2012). The Ahhiyawa Texts. Brill. p. 6. ISBN 978-1589832688.
  4. 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. pp.366-367. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0015.
  5. Bryce, Trevor (2005). The Trojans and their Neighbours. Taylor & Francis. pp. 107–108. ISBN 978-0-415-34959-8.
  6. Fortune and Misfortune in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Warsaw, 21–25 July 2014, p. 130. Germany, Eisenbrauns, 2016.
  7. Hoffner, Harry A.. The Laws of the Hittites: A Critical Edition, p.19. Germany, Brill, 1997.
  8. Hahn, E. Adelaide, and Sturtevant, Edgar Howard. A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language, p 94. United Kingdom, Yale University Press, 1951.
  9. Bossert, Helmut T., "Asia", Istanbul, 1946.
  10. D.J. Georgacas, “The name “Asia” for the continent: its history and origin”, Names, 17(1) (1969).
  11. Olsen, Barbara A.. Women in Mycenaean Greece: The Linear B Tablets from Pylos and Knossos. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2014.
  12. Nagy, Gregory. “Greek-like Elements in Linear A.” Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 4 (1963): 181-211.
  13. Cline, Eric H. “Achilles in Anatolia: Myth, History, and the Assuwa Rebellion,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael Astour on His 80th Birthday, Gordon D. Young, Mark W. Chavalas, and Richard E. Averbeck, eds. (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1997), pp. 189–210.
  14. Bennet, John. “The Geography of the Mycenaean Kingdoms,” p. 159. A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and Their World. Belgium, Peeters, 2007.
  15. AEB. Netherlands, International Association of Egyptologists, 1996.
  16. Liverani (1990) 261; on Egyptian exaggeration and hyperbole concerning "domination" of foreign areas, cf. now Pritchett (1993) 111-12, 248-50.
  17. Cline, Eric H., ed. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-987360-9.
  18. Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 1999.
  19. The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule. N.p., University of Texas Press, 2013.
  20. Oreshko, Rostislav (2019). Geography of the Western Fringes: Gar(a)giša/Gargiya and the Lands of the Late Bronze Age Caria. Academia.edu.
  21. Sharon R. Steadman, Gregory McMahon. The Archaeology of Anatolia: Recent Discoveries (2011-2014) Volume I. United Kingdom, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.
  22. Modder, Frank. Gazetteer of the Puttalam District of the North-western Province of Ceylon. Sri Lanka, H. C. Cottle, 1908.
  23. Woudhuizen, Fred. The Luwians of Western Anatolia: Their Neighbours and Predecessors. United Kingdom, p. 134-135. Archaeopress Publishing Limited, 2018.
  24. American Journal of Archaeology: The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, p. 175. United States, Macmillan Company, 1924.
  25. Singer, Itamar. "Western Anatolia in the Thirteenth Century B.C. According to the Hittite Sources.” Anatolian Studies, Vol. 33, Special Number in Honour of the Seventy-Fifth Birthday of Dr. Richard Barnett (1983), pp. 205-217.
  26. 28. rencontre assyriologique internationale in Wien. Austria, F. Berger, 1982.
  27. Hittite Landscape and Geography. Netherlands, Brill, 2022.
  28. The Geography of the Hittite Empire, p. 106. United Kingdom, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1959.
  29. Schironi, Francesca. The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad. United States, University of Michigan Press, 2018.
  30. Bryce, Trevor Robert, and Bryce, Trevor. The Trojans and Their Neighbours. Kiribati, Routledge, 2006.
  31. Studies in the History and Topography of Lycia and Pisidia, p. 56. United Kingdom, British Institute at Ankara, 1994.
  32. Andronov, Mikhail Sergeevich. A standard grammar of modern and classical Tamil. India, New Century Book House, 1969.
  33. Gurney, O. R.. The Hittites. N.p., Hauraki Publishing, 2016.
  34. Hoffner, Harry A.. Alimenta Hethaeorum: Food Production in Hittite Asia Minor. United States, American Oriental Society, 1974.
  35. Petrosyan, Armen. The Indo-european and Ancient Near Eastern Sources of the Armenian Epic: Myth and History. United States, Institute for the Study of Man, 2002.
  36. Ghazaryan, Robert (1962). Institute of Oriental Studies of National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Associate Professor, Ph.D. in History, Department of Ancient Orient. “Some issues on the history and location of the land of Pahhuwa.” The American Historical Review, Volume 122. Issue 5 (2), December 2017.
  37. Nagar, Shanti Lal. Indian Gods and Goddesses: The early deities from chalcolithic to beginning of historical period, p.60. India, B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1998.
  38. Atici L, Pilaar Birch SE, Erdoğu B (2017) Spread of domestic animals across Neolithic western Anatolia: New zooarchaeological evidence from Uğurlu Höyük, the island of Gökçeada, Turkey. PLoS ONE 12(10): e0186519. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186519
  39. Gander, Max. Tlos, Oinoanda and the Hittite Invasion of the Lukka lands. Some Thoughts on the History of North-Western Lycia in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. Klio, December 2014.
  40. Asatrian, Garnik. The Lord of Cattle in Gilan. Iran & the Caucasus Vol. 6, No. 1/2 (2002), pp. 75-85.
  41. Bryce, Trevor. Robert, and Bryce, Trevor. The kingdom of the Hittites. United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2005.
  42. Matić, Uroš. (2015). Are Dardanians attested in Egyptian sources?. Cahiers Caribéens d'Egyptologie. 19-20. 215-238.
  43. Robbins, Manuel. Collapse of the Bronze Age: The Story of Greece, Troy, Israel, Egypt, and the Peoples of the Sea. United States, Authors Choice Press, 2001.
  44. Woudhuizen, Fred. The Ankara Silver Bowl. AWE 16 (2017) 271-290.
  45. Woudhuizen, Fred. The Luwians of Western Anatolia: Their Neighbours and Predecessors, p. 46-47. United Kingdom, Archaeopress Publishing Limited, 2018.
  46. 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. pp.366-367. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0015.
  47. Bryce, Trevor (2005). The Trojans and their Neighbours. Taylor & Francis. pp. 107–108. ISBN 978-0-415-34959-8.
  48. Rose, Charles Brian. The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Troy, p. 28. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
  49. Niemeier, W.-D. 1999: “Mycenaeans and Hittites in War in western Asia Minor,” p. 145 in: Laffineur, R. (ed.), Polemos, le contexte guerrier en Égée à l’âge du bronze, Liège, 141-156.
  50. 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.
  51. Bryce, Trevor (2005). The Trojans and their Neighbours. Taylor & Francis. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-415-34959-8.
  52. Cline, Eric (2014). 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton University Press. pp. 33–35. ISBN 978-0691168388.
  53. Beckman, Gary; Bryce, Trevor; Cline, Eric (2012). "Epilogue: Mycenaean-Hittite Interconnections in the Late Bronze Age Revisited". The Ahhiyawa Texts. Brill. ISBN 978-1589832688.
  54. 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.
  55. Cline, Eric H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. pp. 40–41.

See also
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