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The Contribution of the Hittite Documentation to the Historical Geography of the Middle Orontes Region

Jared L. Miller
p. 107-118

Abstracts

This paper presents the testimony of the Hittite documentation relating to the Middle Orontes Region. Generally rather vague, as composed from a distant, supraregional perspective, it can nonetheless be employed, in combination with complementary sources from other regions, to reconstruct an —admittedly still somewhat sketchy— historical and geographical framework for the region. The Hittite material for the Orontes in general is briefly discussed in order to place it in an historical context, within which those sources touching on Middle Orontes toponyms in particular —above all Tunip and Niya, but also the lesser known cities Zinzara and Zulapa— are then assessed more exhaustively.

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Introduction

  • 1 Nothing that can easily be connected with the later designation Arantu is found among the Hittite m (...)
  • 2 KUR (URU)Am-ga/ka. Attestations: Deeds of Suppiluliuma I (CTH 40: KBo 5.6 iii 3, 4, 5, iv 9; KBo 14 (...)

1In contrast to the evidence discussed in most of the other papers of this volume, the Hittite sources were as a rule written from a perspective far removed from the Orontes region (map 1), and their data are accordingly rather vague, relating to it for the most part from a regional or supraregional level rather than to local specifics. The name of the river is nowhere found in the Hittite texts; 1 only the valley, the Biqāʿ, through which its uppermost stretches flow, is referred to as the Amqa. 2

Map 1.

Map 1.

Region of Hittite interests in Syria

© J. Miller, M. Sauvage

  • 3 Klengel 1965; 1969; 1970. To avoid overburdening this paper with superfluous footnotes, references (...)
  • 4 See also Klengel 1999.
  • 5 Frayne 2006.

2This paper will very briefly sketch the view from the Hittite texts of the Orontes in general and focus more precisely on what little data can be eked from them concerning the toponymy of the Middle Orontes specifically, which, though still vague, are important in placing the Orontes Valley in its regional and Middle to Late Bronze Age setting, especially with regard to its political history. That said, little substantive new evidence has become available since Klengel’s exhaustive and thoroughly indexed study 3 from the 1960s and his more recent summary from 1992, 4 which therefore still represent the standard reference works on the topic. To these works Frayne 5 has recently added a valuable overview of the textual sources relating to the Orontes Valley Region.

3The presentation will be arranged for the most part chronologically, though the discussion of any given toponym will necessarily range from one period to another. Somewhat surprisingly, more evidence is available regarding the earlier periods of Hittite relations with the Orontes region, since up until and during the reigns of Suppiluliuma I (ca 1355-1330) and Mursili II (ca 1330-1300) the cities of the region are mentioned in connection with the conquests of the Hittite kings. Thereafter, since military intervention in Syria was apparently no longer necessary, little further information from the great quantity of 13th-cent. documentation can be gleaned.

The Early Old Kingdom Period

  • 6 The question of the location of the several cities bearing the name Zalpaḫ, Zalpa, Zalpuwa and Zal (...)
  • 7 Miller 2001, p. 85f.
  • 8 Miller 2001, p. 85-93.
  • 9 Wilhelm 2006b.

4No evidence from the Old Kingdom Period (Labarna I / Ḫattusili I to Telipinu, i.e. ca 1600-1460) touches directly on the Middle Orontes. From the reign of the king commonly regarded as the founder of the Hittite Old Kingdom, Ḫattusili I (early 16th cent.), are preserved a number of texts that report on his Syrian campaigns, which mention Alalaḫ (Al-ḫa-al-ḫa in the Akkadian [KBo 10.1 obv. 6] and A-la-al-ḫa in the Hittite version [KBo 10.2 i 15]) on the northernmost Orontes knee, but no other Orontes toponyms. Other nearby locales attested include Zalpa/Zalpar, perhaps on the Karasu River, 6 while the documentation focusses primarily on the kingdom Ḫalab, as well as Ḫaḫḫu, Ḫaššu and Uršu, all in north-eastern Syria west of (or on) the Euphrates. Further towns mentioned are Zarunti or Zaruna, perhaps to be located on the west bank of the ʿAfrīn River, possibly somewhere between the modern Turkish border and the river’s turn westward; 7 Mount Adalur, likely be sought in the southern Kurt Dağ, just to the west of the ʿAfrīn or perhaps to the west of the Karasu River in the southern Amanus range; 8 the Puran/Puruna River, probably the ʿAfrīn, 9 though others have suggested the Ceyhan; Taunaga/Tawannaga; and Zip(p)aš(ša)na. Again, these toponyms can be only approximately located, and that only in connection with other sources.

  • 10 For recent overviews of Hittite administration of its vassal territories, based overwhelmingly on (...)
  • 11 CTH 75; Devecchi 2010; Beckman 1999, p. 93-95, No. 14.
  • 12 Recent studies arguing for two Ḫattusilis in this passage include Taracha 2009, p. vii, 4, 33 and (...)

5For how long the Hittites may have been able to hold this area of Syria, if at all, once conquered, and if their holdings might have included the Middle Orontes despite the dearth of attestations of its toponyms, remains largely a matter of speculation. While the attested city-states of north-eastern Syria west of the Euphrates were presumably under Hittite domination for at least some (short) length of time, the nature of any administrative apparatus that may have been erected is almost entirely unknown. 10 What little information might pertain to the question stems from §§7-10 of the historical prologue of (Muwattalli II’s replacement tablet of) the Mursili II —Talmi-Šarruma Treaty, 11 the dating of some portions of which to Ḫattusili I (ca 1600) or to a (late) MH Ḫattusili II (ca 1400) 12 has long been disputed. The passage recounts that this king Ḫattusili, as had a Mittanian king before him, had decided territorial disputes between Ḫalab and its subject kingdoms Aštata and Nuḫašše to the south and southeast, granting them sealed (treaty) tablets as documentation, suggesting that whichever Ḫattusili this king may have been, he had at least attempted to establish and administer a vassal system in Syria.

  • 13 Attestations for Nuḫašše published since RGTC 6/1-2 are KBo 35.170, 7 (CTH 716, Ritual for Ištar o (...)
  • 14 Neu 1996, p. 30; Wilhelm 2001.

6Of the remaining attestations (see below), 13 only one clearly refers to Nuḫašše before the 14th cent. The prooemium of the Hurrian Song of Liberation anticipates singing of several gods and then, in the third paragraph, singing ‘of Pizigarra, who they brought up to Ebla, Pizigarra, who … to/from Nuḫašše … Ebla’. 14 While still mysterious for the most part, the text clearly shows Nuḫašše to have been an important city in the 16th cent. or even earlier, the era to which the preserved copies and translations from the early 14th cent. point.

  • 15 See L. Turri in this volume.

7Be that as it may, the Hittite destruction of the Great Kingdom of Ḫalab, which for many decades would have ruled or at least held sway over the Orontes principalities, led first to a short period, at most, of Hittite rule, and thereafter, to Mittani filling the power vacuum that resulted. Syria would thus have succumbed to the hegemony of this northern Mesopotamian empire for some 250 years, 15 a period which is as equally poorly documented as the period of the Old Hittite Kingdom.

Prelude to Empire and Suppiluliuma I’s Conquest of Syria

Prelude

  • 16 CTH 483 and CTH 716, respectively. For a thorough discussion of the value of the lists for histori (...)
  • 17 Often emended to Iyaru-wa-tta (KUB 15.34+Bo 8027 i 54) in the Hittitological literature, despite t (...)
  • 18 Forlanini 1999.

8Two texts that date palaeographically to the poorly illuminated period preceding the rise of the empire, though the date of their composition is difficult to ascertain more precisely than pre-Suppiluliuma I, are a Ritual for the Evocation of the ‘Male Cedar Gods’ and a Ritual for Ištar of Nineveh, 16 which contain nearly identical lists of toponyms in which the evoked deities might be residing. The lists begin with Mittani and continue, with only minor graphic variants, with the Syrian cities of Kinza (Qadeš, likely Tell Nebi Mend), Tunip, Ugarit, Zinzara, Dunanapa, Iyaruqatta, 17 Gatanna (Qatna, Tell Mišrife), Alalaḫ, Kinaḫḫi (northern Canaan), Amurru, Zituna (Sidon), Zunzura/Zunzurḫa, Nuḫašše, Ugulzit (Kulzila in dupl. KUB 15.35+ i 31) and Arapḫa, after which they turn to international entities. They clearly are not placed in strictly geographical order, and what order they do follow, if any, remains a mystery; Forlanini discusses the possibility of a temporal sequence. 18 Neither do they seem to adhere to international boundaries, i.e. those between Mittani and Egypt. Conspicuously absent are, among others, Byblos, Ḫalab and Karkamiš.

  • 19 Richter 2007, p. 308; Richter & Lange 2012, p. 62, 165, accepting the reading -qàt- and in light o (...)
  • 20 KBo 22.39 iii 15’; KBo 9.96 i 11, both in connection with Amurru, and thus easily reconcilable wit (...)

9Of the toponyms from the evocation lists that at least come into question for a Middle Orontes localisation, i.e. Tunip, Zinzara, Dunanapa, Iyaruqatta, Zunzura/Zunzurḫa and Ugulzit, only Tunip (see below) and Iyaruqatta can be located with any degree of precision. The latter is probably to be disassociated from Iyaruwatta (see below) and equated with Irqata, 19 which in turn is likely to be identified with Tall ʿArqa in the north-westernmost corner of Lebanon. There is nothing in the Hittite documentation that would further support or militate against the identity or the location, unless one wishes to understand the occurrence of the spellings Ar/Ir-qá-ta 20 also found in the Hittite texts, as doing so.

10Zinzara appears only here in the Hittite documentation, but its long-assumed identification with Qalʿat Seǧar, based on the presumption of identity with Alalaḫ’s Zizzur, Ugarit’s Zinzari, el-Amarna’s Zinzar, Egyptian ṯnḏr, Greek Σιζαρα and Byzantine Zinzar, as well as the general vicinity suggested by the various sources, can surely be maintained, until and unless contrary evidence becomes available and if Bronze Age material is at some point found beneath the later layers.

  • 21 Richter & Lange 2012, p. 58-60, 165.

11Apart from broken and thus highly uncertain attestations in two fragments, Dunanapa is similarly found only here in the Hittite material. It can be located, with the additional aid of sources from Amarna, Ugarit, Emar and most recently Qatna, 21 generally within north-western Syria, nothing speaking either for or against a location along the Orontes. Still, identifications with tells Tanunija/Tennune, 12 km west of Homs, and Dnebe/Dunibe, 15 km northeast of Qatna, have been suggested, obviously based on little more than their similar consonants.

12Zunzura/Zunzurḫa, likewise found only in these lists among the Hittite sources, can only be vaguely localized in Syria within the broader sphere of interest of Alalaḫ, if, in fact, the tentative equation with the Zuzzura of Alalaḫ’s texts is to be maintained, again, as likely along the Orontes as anywhere else in the neighbourhood. The isolated occurrences of these towns in the evocation lists do little more than allow one to assume that they must have been sites enjoying significant cultic traditions during the decades or centuries before the lists’ composition, and thus roughly in the 15th and earlier 14th cent., during the sparsely documented Mittanian rule over Syria.

A Hittite Treaty with Tunip

  • 22 The most significant recently discovered evidence touching on the Orontes in general from this per (...)
  • 23 Attestations of Tunip in the Hittite texts: KBo 22.39 iii 15’ (CTH 62.II.A, Mursili II - Duppi-Teš (...)

13The only further Hittite material relating to the Orontes before the age of Suppiluliuma I (ca 2nd third of the 14th cent.), 22 though its precise date remains uncertain, yields one of around a dozen occurrences of Tunip in the Hittite archives. 23 It is a small portion of a treaty with a certain Labʾu and the city of Tunip; a unique combination among the Hittite treaties. It is possible that it is to be dated to the reign of Tudḫaliya I, thus to the late 15th cent., as the palaeography of the tablet would point to this general span of time, and since this king may have ruled parts of Syria for a short while, though the length and nature of any rule over the region remain nearly as foggy as that from the early Old Kingdom Period. If the Tudḫaliya mentioned in the historical prologue to the Mursili II – Talmi-Šarruma Treaty (see above) was the same king as the instigator of this treaty with Tunip, both texts might represent Tudḫaliya I’s attempts to erect a regional administration. The stipulations in the Tunip treaty, though only very fragmentarily preserved, resemble those known from other subjugation treaties with Hatti’s Syrian vassals beginning with Suppiluliuma I.

  • 24 RGTC 3, 96; Villard 1986, p. 390, 398.
  • 25 Frayne 2006, p. 34, places it at Zarzour. A certain Mušunipa is found in the context, inter alia, (...)

14The treaty mentions further Iripa and Ḫasasar, seemingly as border towns between Alalaḫ and Tunip, and thus potentially on or near the Middle Orontes. Ḫasasar is perhaps to be equated with Ḫazazar from the Mari texts, which is assumed to be located in the Ghab area of the Orontes, 24 though, it must be said, based partly upon the assumption that the Alalaḫ and Hittite texts place it there. 25 The treaty also refers to Ilim-ilimma in the context of Alalaḫ, and thus likely one of (at least two of) its kings of that name, as well as the cities Sirina, Isḫanigga, Ḫalab and the Land of Ḫurri (i.e. Mittani). Sirina and Isḫanigga are found only here in the Hittite texts, and can thus be placed only vaguely in relation to Tunip.

  • 26 In addition to Klengel 1995 and the RGTC volumes, see Goren, Finkelstein & Naʾaman 2004, p. 116-12 (...)
  • 27 Neither should the highly valuable petrographic studies of the Amarna letter from Tunip by Goren, (...)
  • 28 As recently as 2006, for example, Fortin 2006a2, p. 101 was forced to write, ‘Étrangement, aucun i (...)
  • 29 Fortin & Cooper 2013; Fortin 2011.
  • 30 Frayne’s (Frayne 2006, p. 27) assertion in his discussion of the textual evidence, according to wh (...)
  • 31 Frayne 2006.

15Tunip, together with Niya, is of course the best documented of the Middle Orontes sites from the second millennium, known also from sources from Ebla, Kültepe, Mari, Babylon, Alalaḫ, Amarna, Ugarit and Egypt, 26 and the recent excavations have brought renewed attention to the possibility that Tunip could be identified with Tell ʿAcharneh. Though no decisive textual or archaeological evidence that would unequivocally confirm or refute the suggestion has yet to surface, 27 the question of why this important tell had not yielded any significant Late Bronze Age remains 28 has very recently been at least partially answered. In the 2010 excavation season significant early Late Bronze Age structural remains and storage facilities were indeed exposed in Area WO 1, 29 which naturally raises further questions while at least partially answering earlier ones. 30 The sequence in the squares in question skips from this early Late Bronze stratum to the Iron Age II, thus leaving the later Late Bronze Age still unaccounted for. Similarly, the strata in the squares adjacent to WO 1 excavated in 2009 skip from the Middle Bronze to the Iron I. 31

  • 32 Bartl & Al-Maqdissi 2005 and Lehmann 2002 have mentioned Late Bronze Age remains at an-Nāsriya. Ac (...)
  • 33 E.g. Fortin 2001, p. 98f.
  • 34 For the 3rd millennium see most recently Archi 2010a.

16One should therefore perhaps not yet entirely exclude other possibilities. One thinks, e.g., of Tall al-Ġassālāt, Tall Ayū/Bsīrīn and Tall sīkīn as-Sārūt, all of which may have significant Late Bronze occupation levels according to Bartl and al-Maqdissi, 32 not to mention the fact that a secure second millennium identification of Hama, which also shows Late Bronze Age occupation, 33 is not yet possible. 34

  • 35 See n. 26 and Klengel 1995, p. 133f.

17Thus the question of the Late Bronze Age at Tell ʿAcharneh does not quite disappear, though it does become less acute and more specific. If ʿAcharneh does turn out to be Tunip, these early Late Bronze remains would obviously match well the city attested in the Egyptian, Amarna and Hittite sources up through the reign of Suppiluliuma I. Are the remains of the later Late Bronze Age still lurking beneath the surface of Tell ʿAcharneh? Or did Tunip become more of a provincial backwater during the period of the pax hethitica (ca 1350-1200), since it apparently did not serve as the capital of any of the major vassal states of the Hittites, so that no substantial remains should be expected? It did not, in any case, vanish from the textual record from Ḫattusa entirely, 35 so that one still expects some significant, though not necessarily prominant, Late Bronze II remains from Tell ʿAcharneh if the identification is to be upheld.

Suppiluliuma’s Conquest of Syria

18The Deeds of Suppiluliuma I, whose campaigns deeply and lastingly affected Syria in general and the Orontes in particular, yield remarkably little useful information about the Orontes Valley, let alone the Middle Orontes specifically. In a small fragment of the Deeds in which Suppiluliuma’s father, Tudḫaliya II (‘III’), is still alive a conflict at Mount Nanni is mentioned (KUB 19.12 iii 6, 11), which, if indeed to be identified with the Mount Nanni associated with Mount Ḫazzi, ǧabal al-Aqraʿ, would place the battle within the northern bend of the Orontes. It seems not unlikely, though hardly demonstrable at present, that this foray can be connected with that detailed in the new text from Kayalıpınar (see n. 22), so that a campaign through Kizzuwatna, along the coast down to Mount Nanni / Ḫazzi and presumably up the Orontes at least as far as Alalaḫ can be reconstructed, before the campaign continued toward Mittani, whereby ‘Mittani’ could just as well refer to this empire’s Syrian territories as to its northern Mesopotamian core.

  • 36 Miller 2013, p. 116f.
  • 37 Tablet 7, ii 21-23; Del Monte 2008, p. 108-109.

19The next reference to the region in the Deeds of Suppiluliuma presupposes that he had already conquered Qadeš (Kinza), so that one must suppose that any narrative of the Deeds relating to the Middle Orontes area would have been in one of the composition’s large gaps, presumably in that between Tablets 3/4 and 7. 36 This text of Tablet 7 relates that only the city of Karkamiš remained to be conquered and that the Hurrians had besieged Murmurik(a). It continues with the lapidary statement, ‘Because my father (i.e. Suppiluliuma) had conquered the land of Qadeš, too, the troops and chariots of Egypt came and attacked the land of Qadeš’, 37 whereupon the narrative immediately returns to the situation in Karkamiš and Murmurik(a). Thus, by this point in the Deeds, Suppiluliuma apparently had already conquered all of north-western Syria and the remainder of Syria west of the Euphrates, the only holdouts being Karkamiš and nearby Murmurika.

  • 38 RGTC 6, 13.
  • 39 CTH 378, §4.
  • 40 Beal 2010.

20Subsequently, while narrating the siege of Karkamiš, the text relates that Suppiluliuma sent his generals Lupakki and Tarḫunta-zalma to attack the land of Amqa (KUR URUAm-ka). While the Amqa is known to correlate with the Biqāʿ Valley of Lebanon, 38 the precise extent of the area designated by the name Amqa in the Hittite documentation is not known, whether it referred strictly to the Biqāʿ or, for instance, to the upper Orontes Valley as well. It is this attack on the Amqa that Suppiluliuma’s son and second successor, Mursili II, believed to have discovered through oracle inquiries to have been one of two causes of the gods’ anger, which had manifested itself in a devastating plague, as related in his so-called Plague Prayers. 39 The Hittites believed, further, that this plague, which is said to have raged for 20 long years in Anatolia, had been carried to Hatti by captives brought from this campaign to Amqa. 40 Otherwise Amqa is found only in a small historical fragment (KBo 8.38, rev.? 7’) also mentioning Aba, i.e. (rev. 5’ and 11’) the area of Damascus, in military context.

  • 41 Miller 2013, p. 127-130.

21The only other occurrence of Qadeš in the Deeds of Suppiluliuma, found alongside its sole mention of Nuḫašše, has traditionally been placed before the Amqa attack and correlated with Suppiluliuma’s conquest of Qadeš, now missing in the large gap, but which he mentions to the Egyptian ambassador in retrospect. The unfortunately rather small and unrewarding fragment on which Qadeš and Nuḫašše are found, however, may perhaps join the equally small fragment whose colophon reveals that it is the 12th tablet of the composition. 41 This episode involving Qadeš and Nuḫašše would therefore belong to the very latest period in Suppiluliuma’s reign, and his earlier initial conquest of Qadeš would remain entirely lost in the large gaps in the composition.

  • 42 Cf. e.g. the seemingly contradictory assertions in Klengel 1992, p. 114, 132-134 and Houwink ten C (...)

22Defining the exact borders of Nuḫašše and suggesting a location for the city of Nuḫašše remain difficult. This land has been described as the area between Aleppo and Alalaḫ in the north, Qadeš in the south, and between the Orontes and the Euphrates in the east and west. Nuḫašše and its kings are occasionally referred to with a plural ‘lands of Nuḫašše’ and ‘kings of Nuḫašše’ in texts from Ḫattusa and several other places, e.g. Amarna, so that it is clear that it sometimes referred to a collection of smaller kingdoms. At the same time, some of the lands constituting it could be referred to individually, adding a further acute difficulty to the already challenging task of locating and defining these Late Bronze Age polities. For instance, while Niya seems quite clearly to have been the city-state most closely associated with, or even to be defined by, the Ghab region of the Middle Orontes, it appears that Niya could also at times be subsumed within the designation ‘Lands of Nuḫašše’. 42 It is for this reason that Nuḫašše is also discussed rather thoroughly in this paper, though not as exhaustively as those toponyms that can likely be directly related to the Middle Orontes.

  • 43 Frayne 2006, p. 34. This fact was emphasised above all by Lewy 1952, whose study is based solidly (...)
  • 44 For the postulated further connection with Neo-Assyrian Luḫuti and Aramaic Lʿš, the vocalisation o (...)

23The city of Nuḫašše can only be sought very generally within the area assumed to constitute its territory. It is sometimes assumed that Nuḫašše is to be equated with Old Babylonian Layašum, but despite the fact that an l/n-shift is indeed attested, 43 considerable phonetic distance remains between them. Mari scribes can of course represent a ḫ with the IA-sign, but they more often represent it with one of the signs of the ḫ-series. Further, that Nuḫašše/Layašum is to be equated with modern Šalaḫ, assuming metathesis, is naturally not impossible, but is surely somewhat convenient and can hardly be said to place the location of Nuḫašše on a sure footing. 44

Suppiluliuma’s Treaty with Šattiwaza of Mittani

  • 45 Beckman 1999, §1, §5, §10.
  • 46 Beckman 1999, 6A, §4.
  • 47 E.g. Klengel 1992, p. 109.
  • 48 See Luigi Turri in this volume.

24In the historical prologue to Suppiluliuma’s Treaty with the exiled pretender to the throne of Mittani, Šattiwaza, the Hittite king recounts his campaign to the heart of the kingdom of Mittani, Waššukkanni, and the Mittanian king Tušratta’s abandonment of his capital. Suppiluliuma then claims to have captured all of Syria from Mount Lebanon to the Euphrates, 45 which naturally would have included the Orontes region. Suppiluliuma crossed the Euphrates into Syria from northern Mesopotamia, first conquering Aleppo and Mukiš, 46 i.e., the land of Alalaḫ. While Suppiluliuma was in Mukiš, the king of Niya, a certain Takuwa, came to him and submitted without a fight. Behind Takuwa’s back, however —or perhaps more likely, ‘after Takuwa’, depending on how one understands Akk. warki—, Takuwa’s brother, Aki-Teššub, led the land of Niya, allied with one Akiya, king of Araḫati, and a group of chariot warriors (mariyannu) in a battle against the Hittites. Suppiluliuma defeated the coalition, capturing Araḫati and Akiya, Aki-Teššub of Niya along with the chariot warriors, but also Qatna, which had not been mentioned up to this point. Araḫati is mentioned only here and is assumed to be a city of greater Nuḫašše, located somewhere ‘between Niya and Qatna’ on the testimony of this passage alone. 47 The Hittite archives reveal remarkably little about Qatna, which in any case seems to lose all importance after the campaigns of Suppiluliuma. Fortunately, other sources help to fill this gap to some degree. 48

  • 49 Cf. e.g. Frayne’s (Frayne 2006, p. 28) recent suggestion of identifying it with et-Tountone.
  • 50 Attestations for Niya in the Hittite texts: Suppiluliuma’s Edict to Niqmaddu II of Ugarit (CTH 46: (...)
  • 51 Beckman 1999, No. 4, §1; Devecchi 2013.

25Niya is to be located somewhere along the (Middle) Orontes, and is of course commonly identified with Qalʿat el-Mudīq, 49 though the Hittite texts alone hardly allow one to place it with any precision. 50 In Suppiluliuma’s Edict to Niqmaddu II of Ugarit he speaks of a time ‘when Itūr-Addu, king of the land of Mukiš, Addu-nīrārī, king of the land of Nuḫašše, and Aki-Teššub, king of Niya, rebelled against My Majesty, the Great King, their lord’ and attacked Ugarit. 51 In a subsequent passage of the same Edict (§3), Suppiluliuma allows Niqmaddu to retain ‘fugitives of the land of Nuḫašše or of the land of Mukiš’, without mentioning Niya, which is thus perhaps subsumed within Nuḫašše.

  • 52 Beckman 1999, No. 5, §8.
  • 53 Similarly Beckman 1999, No. 7, §7, but perhaps with a different sequence; Beckman 1999, No. 8, §11 (...)

26Suppiluliuma also refers in retrospect to the capture of these cities in his treaty with Aziru of Amurru. In the passage regarding fugitives 52 Suppiluliuma refers to civilian captives that he had previously carried off from the land of Ḫurri, the land of Kinza (Qadeš), the land of Niya and the land of Nuḫašše. Since this treaty was concluded rather late in Suppiluliuma’s career, it could potentially relate to his initial conquest of Kinza, to the campaign of his generals Lupakki and Tarḫunta-zalma to the Amqa or to a still later campaign towards the end of his reign, or to all of them grouped together. 53

  • 54 Beckman 1999, No. 5, §2.
  • 55 Beckman 1999, No. 8, §§2 and 3.

27In this same treaty between Suppiluliuma and Aziru is found a further passage that recalls the rebellion of Mukiš, Nuḫašše and Niya related in Suppiluliuma’s Edict for Niqmaddu mentioned just above. Here it is said that ‘previously, all of a sudden, [all the kings, (i.e.)] the king of Egypt, the king of Ḫurri (dupl. Amurri), the king of [Qatna?/Aštata?], the king of Nuḫašše, the king of Niya, the king of [Kinza?], the king of Mukiš, the king of Ḫalab, the king of Karkamiš, all these kings suddenly became hostile [toward My Majes]ty’. 54 A similar reference is found in Mursili II’s still later treaty with Tuppi-Teššub of Amurru, 55 where, however, only the hostility of the kings of Nuḫašše and one lost toponym is mentioned. The discrepancies in the lands listed have led some to question whether only one or perhaps more than one rebellion is being referred to in these passages; maybe no less likely would be the convenient ‘updating’ of political history in order to match current circumstances.

  • 56 Hagenbuchner 1989, p. 304; Houwink ten Cate 1995, p. 3-8; Van den Hout 1998, p. 223; Bányai 2010, (...)
  • 57 Singer 1983, p. 12.

28The city of Niya is attested in a fragmentary but intriguing letter concerning a dispute among Syrian vassals, 56 in which the writer informs his addressee of the tribulations of a certain vassal, perhaps the Kurabu mentioned in obv. 10’ and 21’ (as well as in KBo 50.85, 9’, which surely belongs to it); neither the name of the sender nor that of the addressee is preserved. Kurabu had written to the author of this letter about unspecified matters of some unnamed cities as well as about ‘Niya’s tribute’ and had expressed his worries about losing his life in the affair and concerning a divine oath. A tablet (Kurabu’s letter?) concerning these scandalous affairs is said to have made its way into the hands of Bentešina, the king of Amurru, and the tablet is said to have been with a certain Taku[ḫli?] 57 of Ariyanta. Bentešina apparently sought to have the tablet brought to the Hittite king, but Tattamaru, whom he had commissioned with the task, had smashed it. This absorbing episode, unfortunately all too fragmentarily preserved, shows at least that Niya was part of the Syrian vassal system of the Hittites, and that its treaty terms involved yielding tribute to its overlord, which would have had significant repercussions for the economy and agricultural regimen of the Middle Orontes region of the 13th cent.

  • 58 Hagenbuchner 1989, p. 438f.
  • 59 Bányai 2010.

29The remaining attestations for Niya offer intriguing glimpses, but too little context for robust reconstructions. What seems to be a letter fragment (KUB 21.39) 58 mentions a king of the land of Zulapa and Bentešina (of Amurru), as well as some matter of the king of Egypt, and finally, the sending of troops and chariotry and something that was in Niya. As Bányai has recently argued (see below), 59 this episode may well have to do with Urḫi-Teššub, i.e. the deposed Hittite king Mursili III, who seems to have been given the realm of Zulapa as his kingdom in exile.

  • 60 Dardano 2006, p. 257.
  • 61 Miller 2004, p. 506-511, and 2005. For the suggestion that the diviner named Kuzzi in several text (...)

30Finally, a tablet catalogue 60 books a one-tablet incantation ascribed to a ‘woman of the city of Niya’, which can be compared with the rituals of Allaituraḫḫi, said to come from Mukiš, that of Giziya from Alalaḫ and of Eḫal-Teššub, a haruspice from Aleppo. 61 The presence of these compositions in the archives of Ḫattusa shows that particularly the religious traditions of north-western Syria —the Middle and Northern Orontes even more so than the great centre of Aleppo, judging from this very limited sample— were imported into Ḫatti to serve the elite of Ḫattusa. With such means the royal family in its attempted to protect itself and maintain its well-being, and this beginning during the latter part of the 15th cent., when Kizzuwatna fell into the hands of the Hittites during the reign of Tudḫaliya I and presumably accelerating when Syria experienced the same fate at the hands of Suppiluliuma I. These texts reflect the strong Mittanian, and thus Hurrian, influence under which Syria had been during the preceding ca two centuries of Mittanian sovereignty. For the sake of completeness, a Storm God of Niya receives offerings in the lists of the ḫišuwa-Festival (VBoT 89 iv 8’) before the (mountain) gods Nanni and Ḫazzi as well as in an otherwise uncategorized festival fragment following Tašmišu (KUB 54.84, 9').

  • 62 Similarly Beckman 1999, No. 14, §11.

31From the historical prologue of Suppiluliuma’s treaty with Šattiwaza (see above) it was seen that after reaching Waššukkanni, the Hittite king crossed the Euphrates and took first Aleppo and then Mukiš. While in Mukiš, Aki-Teššub of Niya led a campaign against him. Once he had put down this resistance, Suppiluliuma continues by relating that he went to Nuḫašše and captured all of its territory. 62 Its king, Šarrupše, escaped, however, so that Suppiluliuma took his family back to Ḫattusa as hostages and placed a certain Takip-šarri, described as a subject of Šarrupše, on the throne of the city of Ukulzat. This town was apparently one leading city of the ‘Lands of Nuḫašše’, perhaps even the capital of Niya, and surely the same city as found in the list from the evocation ritual (see above). It seems from this context alone that Suppiluliuma intended for Ukulzat to become a sort of capital of Nuḫašše, but the city never again appears in Hittite historical texts, nor does Takip-šarri, whom Suppiluliuma had placed on its throne.

  • 63 Beckman 1999, No. 7, §4; similarly No. 5, §3, No. 9, §2.

32From a slightly later period, the transition to which remains opaque, comes a treaty between Suppiluliuma and a certain Tette, the/a king of Nuḫašše. Suppiluliuma claims in its historical prologue that Mittani had invaded Nuḫašše seeking to kill its king, Šarrupše, who then pleaded to the Hittite king for protection, which Suppiluliuma supplies by sending troops and chariotry and driving Mittani out of Nuḫašše. After a break the text picks up again with the imposition of tribute and a duty to visit the Great King annually in Ḫattusa. Tette is required to support the Hittite king if he campaigns against potential enemies, listed as Ḫurri, Egypt, Babylonia, Aštata and Alši, or if he campaigns against countries that border Nuḫašše and that are currently at peace but might turn hostile, named as Mukiš, Aleppo and Kinza. 63 Tette is to return to Ḫatti any civilian captives from Niya and some four other toponyms —lost in the break but presumably including Mukiš and perhaps Qadeš— who might seek refuge with him (§7), and this would seem to indicate that these cities, including Niya, were at this juncture considered autonomous rather than part of Nuḫašše.

33The last of the Hittite treaties to mention Nuḫašše, though harking back to the beginning of the Old Kingdom or, as some would have it, back to the late Middle Hittite Period, is that between Muwattalli II and Talmi-Šarrumma of Aleppo, discussed above.

  • 64 Bányai 2010.
  • 65 Van den Hout 1996, p. 296; 1991, p. 180f.
  • 66 Bányai 2010; Singer 2006.

34In the Apology of Ḫattusili III from about the middle third of the 13th cent., Ḫattusili is seen to have sent the freshly deposed Urḫi-Teššub into exile in Nuḫašše, where he received fortified cities (§11). As noted, a recent paper by Bányai 64 seeks to establish the city of Zulapa as Urḫi-Teššub’s capital in Syria. In the same context can be placed an oracle inquiry report concerning in part Arma-Tarḫunta and Šaušgatti from the time of Tudḫaliya IV (ca 1235-1210), in which it is related that the oath that Tudḫaliya’s father, Ḫattusili III, had sworn to Urḫi-Teššub before deposing him was a matter that had angered the gods. The oracular inquiry then seeks to determine if giving the sons of Urḫi-Teššub a town in Niya might compensate for the breaking of the oath. 65 Thus, at this time Niya with one of its principal cities, Zulapa, seems to have functioned as a small kingdom for the exiled king Mursili III, from which it is known that he sought for years, if not decades, to regain his throne. 66

The Empire Period and Hittite Domination of Syria

  • 67 For studies on Hittite administration of Syria during this late period, see the literature in n. 1 (...)
  • 68 E.g. Klengel 1992, p. 152. Richter (Richter 2007, p. 307) is certainly correct in noting that ther (...)
  • 69 Frayne 2006, p. 38, e.g., accepts the equation unreservedly, referring to Lehmann 2002, p. 81, whe (...)

35Qadeš and Nuḫašše are the primary protagonists of a Syrian rebellion which took place in Mursili II’s 7th and 9th years, thus around 1320. It is seen from a text known as Mursili’s Arbitration Concerning Syrian Affairs (CTH 63) 67 that this insurrection of Tette of Nuḫašše and an otherwise unattested EN-urta of uncertain affiliation consisted above all of attempts to expand their spheres of influence at the expense of neighbouring Hittite vassals. In contrast, a certain Abiradda, the king of a city called Barga, remained loyal to Ḫatti and drove EN-urta from his land. Mursili hopes at this stage that internal struggles in Nuḫašše would solve the problem with Tette, while Abiradda is said to have expelled EN-urta, even if Mursili subsequently claims to have crushed EN-urta himself and to have rewarded the loyalty of Abiradda, who thereupon installed his son Ari-Teššub on the throne. The exact location of Barga is not known; some have placed it, based on the Hittite, Amarna, Ugarit, Egyptian and Neo-Assyrian attestations, which relate it to Qatna, Tunip and Nuḫašše, near Idlib 68 or at modern Barqum 25 km southwest of Aleppo, 69 and even this would be a maximalist interpretation of the data available.

36It is in this context in Mursili’s Arbitration that a city Iyaruwatta is mentioned (cf. above and n. 17, 19). This town, according to Mursili’s account, once belonged to Barga, but was then taken from Barga’s king, the grandfather of Abiradda, and given to Nuḫašše, to Tette’s father, who is labelled, presumably demeaningly, a ḫabiru. Since Abiradda had remained loyal to Hatti during the Syrian rebellion of Mursili’s 7th and 9th years, he petitioned Mursili to return this city to him, and Mursili agrees to the request, stipulating only that if he himself has to conquer the town, he would keep the captives and plunder, but leave the town to Abiradda. Iyaruwatta thus appears to have been a town on the border between Nuḫašše and Barga, which implies in turn that they were regarded at this juncture as two at least nominally independent entities. Assuming that the localizations of Barga and Nuḫašše presupposed thus far are generally correct, this would place Iyaruwatta somewhere to the east of the Middle Orontes.

  • 70 Miller 2007; 2008a; cf. Groddek 2007; Simon 2009; Wilhelm 2009; Devecchi & Miller 2011.

37At some point Tette of Nuḫašše appealed to the pharaoh for protection and asked to be taken to Egypt, as recounted in a historical report of Mursili II. A certain Armā (Ar-ma-a), likely Haremhab as commander of Egypt’s Asian territory before he became pharaoh, 70 complies by sending forces to accompany him. Tette flees with them, presumably indicating the end of his reign, and Mursili’s ensuing extradition requests are ignored. In parallel fashion, Zirtaya, an Egyptian vassal probably from the northernmost reaches of Egyptian territory, appeals to Mursili for protection, which he grants, bringing him to Ḫatti. Armā is quite unhappy with this turn of events and demands that Zirtaya be turned over to him, which Mursili refuses, pointing out that Armā had not even responded to his similar request for Tette’s extradition.

38The first preserved paragraph of the 7th year of Mursili’s Annals appears essentially to continue this narrative. Mursili recalls Egypt’s refusal to extradite a prisoner to Ḫattusa, perhaps Tette, though not named as such, which amounted to a casus belli for Mursili. In the following paragraph Mursili therefore sends his brother Šarri-Kušuḫ, king of Karkamiš, and his general Kantuzili to meet the threat, which is apparently banished for the remainder of year 7. Šarri-Kusuḫ’s request for the aid of Niqmaddu II, the king of Ugarit, in subduing Tette’s rebellion (RS 17.334) is likely to be associated with these events.

39Year 9 of Mursili’s Annals relates that Šarri-Kušuḫ died while consulting with Mursili in Kizzuwatna. This —along with the death of Telipinu, priest and governor of Aleppo, which must have occurred at roughly the same time— was likely the catalyst for a renewed Syrian rebellion. Mursili first sends his general Kurunta to Nuḫašše, which he subdues. Nuḫašše was supported by Aitakkama of Qadeš, but Kurunta’s success led Niqmaddu, Aitakkama’s son, to kill his father and attempt to reconcile his land to Ḫatti, a gesture which Mursili initially spurned, allowing Qadeš likewise to be captured. At some point the Egyptian Armā initiates hostilities against Amurru, and Mursili responds by personally campaigning against the Egyptians, though whether a full-fledged battle between the great powers was fought might be doubted. He does receive the submission of Niqmaddu of Qadeš at this point, which he had initially piously refused due to his having killed his father. Mursili installs new kings on the thrones of Karkamiš and Ḫalab, and all these efforts in his 7th and 9th years appear to have been quite successful, as no further troubles in Syria are known for the remainder of his rule, but of course, there are large gaps in his Annals, sometimes of many years.

  • 71 Miller 2007, p. 139 and n. 47.

40For the purposes of the historical geography of the Middle Orontes, this episode is above all of interest because it would appear to suggest that Tette’s land, Nuḫašše, might well have formed a border territory between Ḫatti and Egypt at this juncture, which is not generally assumed to be the case. Of course, it is conceivable that Tette of Nuḫašše sought Egyptian support —which can presumably only mean accepting the status of subject of Egypt— despite his land being separated from the Egyptian border by one or more further Hittite vassals. But a constellation in which Amurru, which as a rule is considered to have formed the buffer state between Ḫatti’s and Egypt’s Syrian possessions, formed a western buffer state between the two great powers, while Nuḫašše formed a more easterly buffer between them, should probably not be excluded. Naturally, this raises the question of the status of Qatna and Qadeš at this point. Were they considered (by whom?) part of Nuḫašše? Or was Egypt hoping to isolate these two long-standing objects of its imperial policy by gaining control of Nuḫašše to their north? Where Zirtaya would have been at home remains equally uncertain; probably he would have been one of the minor kings of northern Kinaḫḫi/Canaan. 71

41Concerning the Battle of Qadeš between Muwattalli II and Ramesses II little need be said, first because the episode is so well known, further because the Hittite documentation on it pales in comparison to that from Egypt, and also because none of it appears to touch on the Middle Orontes specifically, the battle having occurred a good distance to the south. In much of the Hittite documentation, in fact, Amurru appears as Ḫatti’s main adversary, while Egypt is mentioned only sparingly.

Conclusion

42As noted at the outset, the Hittite documentation contributes significantly to an historical political framework for the Orontes Region in general and to some degree for the Middle Orontes in particular. However, only when one examines the textual evidence from all regions and eras alongside the archaeological data can one hope to clarify any given toponym’s location, an obvious prerequisite for any further investigation of an historical entity’s history and development.

Top of page

Notes

1 Nothing that can easily be connected with the later designation Arantu is found among the Hittite material.

2 KUR (URU)Am-ga/ka. Attestations: Deeds of Suppiluliuma I (CTH 40: KBo 5.6 iii 3, 4, 5, iv 9; KBo 14.12++ iv 8) and in Mursili II’s Plague Prayer relating to the same events (CTH 378: KUB 14.8 Vs. 19’ and dupl. KUB 14.11+KBo 55.25 ii 8), as well as in the fragment KBo 8.38 rev.? 7’, also in military context.

3 Klengel 1965; 1969; 1970. To avoid overburdening this paper with superfluous footnotes, references to these four of Klengel’s studies and to RGTC 6/1-2, current up through 1992, or RGTC 12/2 (2001) will not be gratuitously repeated. Nor do the lists of attestations for those toponyms likely located on the Middle Orontes in ns. 13 and 26 repeat the bibliography available in the online Konkordanz at http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/hetkonk/. I must also thank Marco Marizza for providing me with his updated list of Hittite toponymy since the appearance of the RGTC volumes.

4 See also Klengel 1999.

5 Frayne 2006.

6 The question of the location of the several cities bearing the name Zalpaḫ, Zalpa, Zalpuwa and Zalb/war remains a difficult one. To summarize the latest research, it is agreed that Zalpaḫ is to be located on the Baliḫ and Zalp(uw)a on the Kızılırmak close to the Black Sea. Whether there were two cities in north-eastern and north-western Syria named Zalpa and Zalb/war, respectively, or only one, to which both names would apply, is still debated. It seems at the moment that the most likely solution is to assume the existence of two Syrian cities, Zalb/war located in westernmost Syria, perhaps at Tilmen Höyük, another to the north-east along the Old Assyrian trade routes, likely not too far north of Samsat (Forlanini 2004, p. 410, n. 27; 2006, p. 165-167; Barjamovic 2011, p. 107-122; Miller 2012, p. 351f. with n. 10). For recently discovered bulla from Tilmen with impressions of a seal of ‘Lagamal-gāmil, scribe, son of Ibbi-Sīn, servant of Sumu-la-el’, see Marchetti 2009, p. 388f.; 2010: p. 370. For other views on the identity of Tilmen, cf. Chambon 2009; Forlanini 2010, p. 188.

7 Miller 2001, p. 85f.

8 Miller 2001, p. 85-93.

9 Wilhelm 2006b.

10 For recent overviews of Hittite administration of its vassal territories, based overwhelmingly on the 13th-cent. material, see in general Imparati 1999; for Syria in particular, see Cohen 2005 and 2011; D’Alfonso 2000, 2005, 2007; Faist 2002; Klengel 2001; Singer 1999.

11 CTH 75; Devecchi 2010; Beckman 1999, p. 93-95, No. 14.

12 Recent studies arguing for two Ḫattusilis in this passage include Taracha 2009, p. vii, 4, 33 and passim; Carruba 2005: p. 246-271, esp. 249; Forlanini 2005, p. 230-245; Freu 2007, p. 18-32; for only one Ḫattusili see De Martino 2010, p. 186-197; Groddek 2009, p. 159-170; Hawkins 2011b, p. 86-91.

13 Attestations for Nuḫašše published since RGTC 6/1-2 are KBo 35.170, 7 (CTH 716, Ritual for Ištar of Nineveh); KBo 50.30++ ii 2’, 18’ (CTH 61, Annals of Mursili II); KBo 53.282 rev. 1 (perhaps CTH 61).

14 Neu 1996, p. 30; Wilhelm 2001.

15 See L. Turri in this volume.

16 CTH 483 and CTH 716, respectively. For a thorough discussion of the value of the lists for historical geography, see Forlanini 1999; for a recent edition of CTH 716, see Fuscagni 2011, from whom a new edition of CTH 483 should appear shortly as well.

17 Often emended to Iyaru-wa-tta (KUB 15.34+Bo 8027 i 54) in the Hittitological literature, despite the clear qàt (GAD); see below and n. 19.

18 Forlanini 1999.

19 Richter 2007, p. 308; Richter & Lange 2012, p. 62, 165, accepting the reading -qàt- and in light of the new attestations from Qatna. The question of whether Irqata is to be seen as a part of Nuḫašše during the time span of the Qatna archives, as Richter suggests, should probably be left open for the time being.

20 KBo 22.39 iii 15’; KBo 9.96 i 11, both in connection with Amurru, and thus easily reconcilable with the placement at Tall ʿArqa.

21 Richter & Lange 2012, p. 58-60, 165.

22 The most significant recently discovered evidence touching on the Orontes in general from this period is found in a unique Hurrian language annalistic or epistolary text discovered at Kayalıpınar (Samuḫa), and perhaps to be dated to the latter part of the reign of Tudḫaliya III and/or the early reign of Suppiluliuma I (Kp 05/226: Wilhelm 2006a; Rieken 2009). It speaks of a military campaign affecting Kizzuwatna, Alalaḫ, Zunnaḫara, the ‘path of the ... of the sea’, [Mount?] Zallurbi, Mukiš, Mittani, Winuwanda and Gazzuwatannitta. Gazzuwatannitta is presumably not to be equated with Kizzuwatna, pace Forlanini 2010, p. 188a, but rather with URUGaz-zu-wa-˻ta˼-a[n-ni-it-tain KUB 26.67 ii 6’; cf. RGTC 6, 206: URUGaz-zu-wa-x[; Košak 1982, p. 78: URUKiz(sic)-zu-wa-at[-na-aš. Alalaḫ, Kizzuwatna, Ismeriga, Ugarit and Niya are reportedly also mentioned in letters found at Ortaköy/Sapinuwa (Süel 2009, p. 197), but since these remain unpublished more than 25 years after their discovery, little can be said about them.

23 Attestations of Tunip in the Hittite texts: KBo 22.39 iii 15’ (CTH 62.II.A, Mursili II - Duppi-Teššub Treaty); KUB 3.21 rev. 4’ (cf. 10’, 13’, 16’; CTH 135, Treaty with Tunip); KBo 28.57+58, 4’, 8’; KBo 28.79 obv.? 7’ (CTH 208, Fragments of Akkadian Letters); KBo 8.38 obv. 7’, 12’ (CTH 215, Historical Fragment); KUB 15.34 i 53 (483.I.A, Evocation Ritual); KUB 18.46 obv. 9’ (CTH 582, Oracle fragment); Bo 8932 (CTH 670, Festival Ritual Fragment); KUB 25.45, 4 (CTH 705, List of Hurrian gods from a festival ritual); KUB 15.35+KBo 2.9 i 26; KBo 2.36 i 9’ (CTH 716, Ritual for Ištar of Nineveh); KBo 52.253 rev. 5’ (832, uncategorized fragment).

24 RGTC 3, 96; Villard 1986, p. 390, 398.

25 Frayne 2006, p. 34, places it at Zarzour. A certain Mušunipa is found in the context, inter alia, of Tunip in KBo 8.38 obv.? 7’, 12’ and Ḫalab in KUB 56.31 iv.? 20’, which would likely place it in north-western Syria as well. It has on occasion been connected with Mušunni from the Alalaḫ texts and Muzunnum from Mari, which would likely place it on the Middle Orontes north of Tunip, above all due to the ‘itinerary’ from Mari (Villard 1986). While certainly not to be excluded a priori, caution is perhaps called for, as one would not necessarily expect ellipses of the labial, something that Astour 1973, p. 73f. (cf. Richter 2007, p. 309), who first suggested the conflation, ignores in his discussion of the forms. The link with Hieroglyphic Luwian Musnapa is, at least phonetically, less suspicious. It is thus rather misleading to state that ‘Muzunnum ... also appears in later Hittite sources’, as Frayne 2006, p. 34 does, placing it at the modern village of Miznaz.

26 In addition to Klengel 1995 and the RGTC volumes, see Goren, Finkelstein & Naʾaman 2004, p. 116-121 and, especially for the 3rd millennium, Archi 2010a for recent overviews.

27 Neither should the highly valuable petrographic studies of the Amarna letter from Tunip by Goren, Finkelstein & Naʾaman 2003 and 2004, p. 120f. be seen as support for an identification with ʿAcharneh in particular, but rather for the placement of Tunip in its geological region, i.e. the eastern flanks of the Orontes in the greater Ghab, in which, however, any number of tells might afford further candidates.

28 As recently as 2006, for example, Fortin 2006a2, p. 101 was forced to write, ‘Étrangement, aucun indice matériel de l’âge du Bronze Récent ne fut retrouvé dans nos sondages. Il est difficile de croire que Tell ʿAcharneh n’ait pas été occupé durant toute cette époque sachant qu’il nous a livré des niveaux substantiels des époques postérieures et antérieures et que le site pourrait bien correspondre à la cité antique de Tunip maintes fois signalée dans des textes et des inscriptions de cette période.’ Cf. Cooper 2006 for the dearth of LB ceramics.

29 Fortin & Cooper 2013; Fortin 2011.

30 Frayne’s (Frayne 2006, p. 27) assertion in his discussion of the textual evidence, according to which the identification of Tunip with Tell ʿAcharneh ‘is fully supported by the evidence,’ was thus perhaps somewhat premature.

31 Frayne 2006.

32 Bartl & Al-Maqdissi 2005 and Lehmann 2002 have mentioned Late Bronze Age remains at an-Nāsriya. According to the most recent excavations (Parayre & Al-Maqdissi 2011), no levels of occupation dated from the Late Bronze Age have yet been found, but 14C analyses attribute funerary jars from area A to the Late Bronze Age, and a part of the pottery of the 2007 prospection may also date from this period. I wish to thank Dominique Parayre for bringing this paper and Fortin & Cooper 2013 to my attention.

33 E.g. Fortin 2001, p. 98f.

34 For the 3rd millennium see most recently Archi 2010a.

35 See n. 26 and Klengel 1995, p. 133f.

36 Miller 2013, p. 116f.

37 Tablet 7, ii 21-23; Del Monte 2008, p. 108-109.

38 RGTC 6, 13.

39 CTH 378, §4.

40 Beal 2010.

41 Miller 2013, p. 127-130.

42 Cf. e.g. the seemingly contradictory assertions in Klengel 1992, p. 114, 132-134 and Houwink ten Cate 1995, p. 4. Richter 2007, p. 37, and 2012, p. 160, has recently suggested, for instance, based on his understanding of the newly discovered Qatna texts, that Nuḫašše would have constituted a significantly larger entity than commonly assumed, Qatna and even Irqata having belonged to it during the period reflected in those texts.

43 Frayne 2006, p. 34. This fact was emphasised above all by Lewy 1952, whose study is based solidly on a number of assumptions now known to be false, such as the identity of Luḫuti (rel. sim.) with Eluḫut, the identity of Nairi and Niḫriya (see Miller 2012) as well as that of Uršu with Rhosus. Still, it is often accepted as paving the way for the equation, though rather suspect in that it points to l/n-variance within a given period while glossing over the not entirely irrelevant detail that the Layašum = Nuḫašše = Luḫuti = Lʿš equation (see n. 44) requires a shift from l to n and back to l.

44 For the postulated further connection with Neo-Assyrian Luḫuti and Aramaic Lʿš, the vocalisation of which as Luʿaš is based entirely on the equation with Nuḫašše —‘and Luḫuti’ according to Hawkins 1987, p. 159—, see RGTC 12, 214 and Hawkins 1987, who places the amalgamated toponym at Ǧisr al-Šuġūr(?).

45 Beckman 1999, §1, §5, §10.

46 Beckman 1999, 6A, §4.

47 E.g. Klengel 1992, p. 109.

48 See Luigi Turri in this volume.

49 Cf. e.g. Frayne’s (Frayne 2006, p. 28) recent suggestion of identifying it with et-Tountone.

50 Attestations for Niya in the Hittite texts: Suppiluliuma’s Edict to Niqmaddu II of Ugarit (CTH 46: RS 17.340); Treaty between Suppiluliuma I and Aziru of Amurru (CTH 49: KBo 10.12(++) i 16, iii 19’; often restored in ii 18’ and in KUB 3.19+48.71 obv. 12 as well); Treaty of Suppiluliuma with Šattiwaza of Mittani (CTH 51: KBo 1.1 obv. 30, 31; KBo 1.2 obv. 12’); perhaps in a letter fragment (CTH 98: KUB 21.39, 12’); in a more substantial letter fragment (or perhaps a court deposition) and its duplicate (CTH 209: KUB 26.92 obv. 5’ // KUB 8.79 rev. 20’); in a tablet catalogue (CTH 282; KBo 22.102 rev.? 5’); perhaps in a cult inventory fragment (CTH 530: Bo 3419 iv 5’); in an oracle report concerning Arma-Tarḫunta and Šaušgatti (CTH 569: KUB 16.32 ii 29); in a liver oracle (CTH 570: KBo 13.73, 8’); in one, perhaps two, fragments of the Ḫišuwa-festival (CTH 628: VBoT 89 iv 8’; perhaps also KUB 46.47 rev. 15’); in a festival fragment (CTH 670: KUB 54.84, 9’); and in a Hurrian fragment (CTH 791: KBo 57.217, 3’).

51 Beckman 1999, No. 4, §1; Devecchi 2013.

52 Beckman 1999, No. 5, §8.

53 Similarly Beckman 1999, No. 7, §7, but perhaps with a different sequence; Beckman 1999, No. 8, §11, mentioning only Nuḫašše and Kinza; and Beckman 1999, No. 9, §7.

54 Beckman 1999, No. 5, §2.

55 Beckman 1999, No. 8, §§2 and 3.

56 Hagenbuchner 1989, p. 304; Houwink ten Cate 1995, p. 3-8; Van den Hout 1998, p. 223; Bányai 2010, p. 6.

57 Singer 1983, p. 12.

58 Hagenbuchner 1989, p. 438f.

59 Bányai 2010.

60 Dardano 2006, p. 257.

61 Miller 2004, p. 506-511, and 2005. For the suggestion that the diviner named Kuzzi in several texts from Alalaḫ VII might be the same person now attested as the author of oracular texts from Tikunanni, see George 2013, p. 101-110.

62 Similarly Beckman 1999, No. 14, §11.

63 Beckman 1999, No. 7, §4; similarly No. 5, §3, No. 9, §2.

64 Bányai 2010.

65 Van den Hout 1996, p. 296; 1991, p. 180f.

66 Bányai 2010; Singer 2006.

67 For studies on Hittite administration of Syria during this late period, see the literature in n. 10.

68 E.g. Klengel 1992, p. 152. Richter (Richter 2007, p. 307) is certainly correct in noting that there is nothing to connect Barga with Barkum other than its phonetic similarity and vague geographical correlation. His attempt to locate Barga much further to the soutwest, however, is based primarily on his emendation of Iyaru-wa-tta in CTH 63 to Iyaru-kat-ta in order to align it with Iyarukatta of the evocation lists (see above, n. 17, 19), but this emendation is just as ill-advised as the emendation against which he argues, i.e. the opposite emendation of Iyaru-kat-ta to Iyaru-wa-tta. Richter’s emendation forces him to pull Iyaruwatta of CTH 63 down to the area of Irqata, which must be considered unlikely. Neither is it the case (Richter 2007, p. 307) that Tunanab and Ugulzat must be located farther to the south than Barga because of their association with Irqata in Qatna Text No. 4, since (1) in the same text they are likewise associated with Niya, not mentioned by Richter in his argumentation on this point and (2) a constellation in which Irqata constitutes the south-westernmost entity among these five toponyms is quite conceivable. Nor does EA 57’s association of Barga with Tunip and Qatna pull Barga southwards towards Irqata (Richter 2007, p. 307), as Tunip and Qatna lie significantly to the northeast of Irqata, easily allowing for a Barga in its traditionally assumed position.

69 Frayne 2006, p. 38, e.g., accepts the equation unreservedly, referring to Lehmann 2002, p. 81, where, however, it is indicated that only Byzantine remains are thus far known from the site.

70 Miller 2007; 2008a; cf. Groddek 2007; Simon 2009; Wilhelm 2009; Devecchi & Miller 2011.

71 Miller 2007, p. 139 and n. 47.

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List of illustrations

Title Map 1.
Caption Region of Hittite interests in Syria
Credits © J. Miller, M. Sauvage
URL http://journals.openedition.org/syria/docannexe/image/5237/img-1.jpg
File image/jpeg, 737k
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References

Bibliographical reference

Jared L. Miller, “The Contribution of the Hittite Documentation to the Historical Geography of the Middle Orontes Region”Syria, IV | 2016, 107-118.

Electronic reference

Jared L. Miller, “The Contribution of the Hittite Documentation to the Historical Geography of the Middle Orontes Region”Syria [Online], IV | 2016, Online since 01 December 2018, connection on 28 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/syria/5237; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/syria.5237

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About the author

Jared L. Miller

Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, München

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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