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A Reinterpretation of the Milawata Letter in the Light of the New Join Piece*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

T. R. Bryce
T. R. Bryce
Affiliation:
University of New England (Australia)
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Extract

At the Rencontre Assyriologique held in Vienna in July, 1981, Dr. Harry Hoffner Jr. presented a paper in which he discussed a new join he had made to the Milawata letter, a document long recognized as being of considerable importance for Hittite historical studies, although one which is frustratingly fragmentary and incomplete.

Without doubt, the join provides important new information on historical and political developments in western Anatolia in the period when the letter was written, during the 13th century B.C.; more specifically, it throws interesting new light on the circumstances in which it was written, and may help indirectly to establish the identity of both its author, a Hittite king, and its recipient. Perhaps of most immediate interest is the fact that we now have the name of another king of Wilua—Walmu. Walmu was already known to us from the original text, but the two passages in which his name appeared were too fragmentary to provide any more specific information about him. The new join provides us not only with this information, but a good deal more besides.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 35 , December 1985 , pp. 13 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1985

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References

1 CTH 182, edited, with transliteration and translation by Sommer, F., Die Ahhijavā-Urkunden, Munich (1932) (hereafter cited as AU), 180–240Google Scholar; also translated by Gurney, in Garstang, J. and Gurney, O. R., The Geography of the Hittite Empire, London (1959), 114–15Google Scholar. Hoffner's, paper has now been published in AfO Beiheft 19 (1982), 130 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 The lines cited in this article all belong to the reverse side of the tablet, unless otherwise stated.

3 kulawani is a hapax whose meaning is uncertain; see, e.g., Sommer, , AU 225Google Scholar.

4 This is a revised reading of the line, proposed by Hoffner (referred to below).

5 The text has been edited by Friedrich, J., Staatsverträge des Ḫatti-Reiches in hethitischer Sprache, MVAG 34/1 (1930), 42–102Google Scholar, and is translated in part in Garstang, and Gurney, , Geography, 102–3Google Scholar.

6 Edited by Sommer, , AU 2–194Google Scholar, and translated in part in Garstang, and Gurney, , Geography, 111–14Google Scholar.

7 See most recently Singer, , AS 33 (1983), 209Google Scholar.

8 See Forrer, E., Forschungen I/1, Berlin (1926), 90–1Google Scholar, and Garstang, and Gurney, , Geography, 95Google Scholar.

9 This is implied in the king's account of the events surrounding Piyamaradu's escape from Milawata (Taw. letter I 53–67).

10 Taw. letter IV 7.

11 See Garstang, and Gurney, , Geography, 81–2Google Scholar, and Bryce, , JNES 33 (1974), 398Google Scholar.

12 He first appears in the Hittite records in Murili's account of the events of the fourth year of his reign (See Goetze, A., Die Annalen des Murili, MVAG 38 (1933, repr. Darmstadt 1967), 66–75Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of the documents relating to his career, see Jewell, E., The Archaeology and History of Western Anatolia during the 2nd Millennium B.C., University Microfilms, Ann Arbor (etc.) (1974), 330–3Google Scholar.

13 Kupanta-Inara, ruler of Mira-Kuwaliya, appears in a fragmentary passage at the end of the Manapa-Tarhunda letter, and he also appears in the same context as Piyamaradu, in KBo XIX 78Google Scholar. Furthermore, Piyamaradu and Mira are mentioned in the same context in KBo XVI 35Google Scholar. These references might indicate either an alliance between Piyamaradu and Kupanta-Inara, or else a takeover of Mira by Piyamaradu along the same lines as his takeover of the eha River Land.

14 This differs from the sequence suggested by Heinhold-Krahmer, S., Arzawa (Texte der Hethiter 8), Heidelberg (1977), 177Google Scholar—a sequence with which I was originally inclined to agree in my review of Heinhold-Krahmer's book, Bi. Or. 36 (1979), 63Google Scholar.

15 See Bryce, , Orientalia 48, 1 (1979), 94–6Google Scholar.

16 This is indicated by the Hittite king's claim in the Taw. letter, III 12–13.

17 See Bryce, , Orientalia 48, 1, particularly 94Google Scholar.

18 In all other cases that I know of, the Hittite king insisted on the extradition of all his subjects who had fled from his authority.

19 In his commentary on the join piece of the Milawata letter.

20 Güterbock, , AJA 87 (1983), 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 E.g. Masson, E., Journal des Savants (1979), 37Google Scholar, Gurney, , The Hittites (1981), 53Google Scholar, Singer, , AS 33 (1983), 216Google Scholar.

22 See Masson, E., Journal des Savants (1979), 14–15, 36–8Google Scholar.

23 Singer, , AS 33 (1983), 215Google Scholar.

24 Left edge 3–5, translated by Gurney, in Geography, 115Google Scholar.

25 Taw. letter, I 35–8, translated by Gurney, in Geography, 112Google Scholar.

26 Geography, 112, n. 1.

27 Lower edge, lines 1–2.

28 Referred to in KUB XXIII 11 and 12 line 7Google Scholar. See Bryce, , JNES 33 (1974), 399–401Google Scholar.

29 We might ask whether there is any real distinction between a NAM.RA (a “booty-person”) and a lúLI (a “hostage”). A conqueror uses the term NAM.RAmeš; in reference to people he has conquered in battle and carried off to his own land. On the other hand, a king whose subjects have been taken from him in this way might not regard them as permanent acquisitions of the enemy, but simply as “hostages”, retrievable from the enemy either by exchange or negotiation, or by a further military operation.

30 Cf. Masson's, comments, Journal des Savants (1979), 37–8Google Scholar.

31 In the treaties which they drew up with their vassal rulers, Hittite kings regularly undertook to support, with material assistance if necessary, the succession of the vassal's legitimate heirs to the vassal throne.

32 This is Hoffner's translation. Hoffner points out that the present tense ending in -zi is the most likely reading here. He then comments that if this is the case, the verb must be construed as a historical present; in other words the verb refers to the past. In my view this need not necessarily follow. M's father may well have escaped after his displacement from the throne, and could still be working against Hittite interests (see below).

33 Two precedents for this immediately come to mind: (1) the escape of Uhhaziti's son to Ahhiyawa in the aftermath of Murili's Arzawan campaign (Goetze, , Annalen, 66–7)Google Scholar; (2) the escape of Piyamaradu from Milawata to Ahhiyawa, as recorded in the Taw. letter (I 61–2).

34 CTH 105. See Kühne, C. and Otten, H., Der augamuwa-Vertrag, SBoT 16 (1971), 16–17Google Scholar, rev. 23, where augamuwa, vassal ruler of Amurru, is forbidden to allow any traffic between Ahhiyawa and Assyria (a declared Hittite enemy) via the harbours of Amurru.