The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

more, he rearranged the western province into four Arzawa
lands, Mira-Kuwaliya, the Se®a River Land, Hapalla-
Appawiya, and Wilusa, each under a vassal king – an arrangement
which lasted to at least an advanced stage of the
reign of Tud®aliyas IV near the end of the 13th century
BC, its resilience being due largely to the fact that it was
cemented by dynastic marriages so that the vassal kings in
question became members of the royal family themselves.
Mursilis II was followed by his son and successor, Muwatallis
II (1295-1272 BC). By this time, the Egyptian throne
had come into the hands of a new and militant dynasty,
founded by a former general, Ramesses I (1295-1294 BC).
With the accession of his descendant Ramesses II (1279-
1223 BC), it became clear that Egypt wanted to regain its
former dependencies in North Syria by force. In anticipation
of the coming war with Egypt, Muwatallis II moved
the Hittite capital from the somewhat eccentric Hattusa to
Tar®untassa in the south. Furthermore, to gather allied
forces or mercenaries he launched a campaign in the west.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that at the inevitable
showdown of forces which eventually took place near
Kadesh in the fifth year of Ramesses II’s reign (1274 BC),
the Hittites according to the Egyptian records were, inter
alia, aided by troops from Arzawa ( later Lydia), Dardania
(= Troas), Masa (= Mysia), Karkisa (= Karia), and
Lukka (= Lycia). (Interesting for our purposes is that the
same records bear testimony of Sherden mercenaries on
the Egyptian side.) During his campaign in the west, however,
Muwatallis II wanted to avoid a conflict with the
A®®iyawans (= Akhaians or Mycenaean Greeks), who
were in control of Millawanda (= Miletos) at the time, and
for this reason settled his dispute in diplomatic terms, addressing
the king of A®®iyawa as his brother and hence including
him into the illustrious ranks of the great kings
(see further section 8). According to the Egyptian records,
again, the Hittite forces at the ensuing battle of Kadesh
numbered in total 3,500 chariotry and 37,000 infantry. The
propaganda of Ramesses II claimed the outcome as an outstanding
victory for the Egyptians, but at the end of the
day the bone of contention, Kadesh, remained within the
sphere of influence of the Hittites!
The eldest son of Muwatallis II, Ur®itesup, who on
his ascendance took the throne-name Mursilis III, occupied
the throne only for a brief period (1272-1267 BC), before
he was deposed by his uncle Hattusilis III (1267-1239 BC).
The latter distinguished himself particularly in international
diplomacy, as he was responsible for the peace
32
treaty with Egypt of 1259 BC – an entente between the two
great powers which lasted till the end of the Bronze Age.
Furthermore, his wife Pudu®epa played a vital role in cementing
the relationship by dynastic marriages, which
boiled down to a one-sided affair in which Hatti dispatched
princesses to the harem of the pharaoh, but the latter did
not return the favor as no princesses of Egypt were allowed
to be betrothed to a foreigner – with all possible consequences
for foreign claims on the throne (the request by
the widow of Tutankhamun for a Hittite prince to remarry
with mentioned above was quite exceptional, indeed, and,
as we have seen, doomed to fail). In the reign of Hattusilis
III mention was first made of shipments of grain from
Egypt to Hatti, which later under Merneptah became so
important that they were claimed “to keep Hatti alive”.
Evidently, the Hittite Empire suffered from food shortage,
but it is a longstanding problem which cannot be hold responsible,
as it often is, for its final downfall.
The son and successor of Hattusilis III, Tud®aliyas IV
(1239-1209 BC) exercized an active military policy in the
west. In the text of a bronze tablet found during the late
80s of the last century in the capital Boazköy/Hattusa,
which meticulously describes the borders of the viceregal
province of Tar®untassa under his uncle Kuruntas, a campaign
against Par®a (= Perge) along the Kastaraya (=
Kestros) in Pamphylia to the west of Tar®untassa was anticipated,
the spoils of which would fall to Kuruntas. Next,
a Luwian hieroglyphic text from Yalburt commemorizes a
campaign in the Xanthos river valley of Lycia, where the
towns Talawa (= Tls), Pinata (= Pinara), and Awarna (=
Arinna) were subdued, as Tud®aliyas IV proudly claims,
for the first time in Hittite history. After this, the so-called
Milawata-letter informs us that the governor of Millawanda
(= Miletos), which formerly resided under the king
of A®®iyawa (= Akhaia or Mycenaean Greece), turned
sides and joined the Hittites. 71 In this manner, then, a longstanding
source of troubles in the west was eventually
eliminated. Tud®aliyas IV’s next move was in the east: in a
71 In the Milawata Letter mention is made of an exchange of hostages
from Pina(ta) and Awarna with those from Atria and Utima,
which can only be situated after Tud®aliyas IV’s Lycian campaign.
Also prior to, and as a kind of conditio sine qua non for, the
change of sides by Millawanda is Tud®aliyas IV’s campaign
against Tar®undaradus of the Se®a River Land (= the Meander valley)
as reported in his Chronicle, when A®®iyawa is specified to
have withdrawn, see Garstang & Gurney 1959: 120-1 (note that
according to Güterbock’s (1992) improved translation of this text,
Tar®undaradus is stated to have relied on the king of A®®iyawa.)