Assuwa () was a region of Bronze Age Anatolia located west of the Kızılırmak River. It was mentioned in Aegean, Anatolian and Egyptian inscriptions but is best known from Hittite records describing a league of 22 towns or states that rebelled against Hittite authority. It disappears from history during the fifteenth century BC.

Etymology

The name appears in different scripts over the course of a few hundred years. The individual etymologies are unknown,

but scholarship has come to accept that the is cognate to the ).<br>

  • Luwic: a-šu-wi-ya
  • Linear A: a-su-ja
  • Egyptian hieroglyphs: i-s-y<sup>w</sup>
  • Hittite cuneiform: aš-šu-wa

Geography

Assuwa was located somewhere in Anatolia. Linear B texts from Mycenaean Greece identified it as a region within reach of Pylos associated with levies of rowers, suggesting a location separated by water from the Peloponnese. While the extent of its geography is a matter of debate, recent scholarship has argued that much of its territory was located in the western part of classical Phrygia. This same region was designated by the Hittite laws as part of the land of Luwiya, according to modern researchers.

History

The earliest mention of a-šu-wi(ya) contemporary to the first and only mention of the land of Luwiya of the Hittite texts. The name a-su-ja though with no clear understanding of the context.

Egyptian records mention a region called isy with all texts either dated to or referring to events occurring during the reign of Tudhaliya I/II.

Cline dates this rebellion to circa 1430 BC The annals further detail the capture of an Assuwan king named Piyama-<sup>d</sup>KAL, the establishment of a client state under his son Kukkuli and a second rebellion after which "the coalition of Assuwa was destroyed". 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. The region was dominated by the kingdom of Purushanda, and a kingdom made up of an eclectic mix of Luwian-speaking Luwians, Hattic-speaking Luwians, Luwian-speaking Hattians and Hattic-speaking Hattians. Archaeology at Acemhöyük has confirmed the remains of central Anatolian, Mesopotamian and north Syrian pottery - as well as traces of monumental structures - dated 2659 to 2157 BC, providing a plausible terminus a quo for the Luwian takeover of the region.

In the eighteenth century BC the Hittites conquered the Assyrian karum at Kanesh establishing Hittite rule over ikkuwaniya - the Lower land. By 1650 BC everything west of Purushanda was regarded as the unconquered (and not worth conquering) land of Luwiya, "an Old Hittite ethno-linguistic term referring to the area where Luwian was spoken." While it is still an open question whether the border between the Hittites and the Luwians ever extended as far west as the Sangarious,

Arzawa

Within a generation "Arzawiya" is first mentioned in the Hittite records, located somewhere beyond the Hittite sphere of influence in the Lower land. and Cline implies Ahhiyawan There are historical traces of this migration - the Leleges and the Lukka whose strongholds in the Argolis lay directly across the Aegean Sea from modern İzmir and who seem to have at first called the Luwian territory ru-wa-ni-jo ("land where Luwian is spoken"). With time bred by familiarity the Luwian name a-šu-wi-ya was transliterated into Mycenaean as a-si-wi-ja. "Extension of the Lower land further to the southwest would have brought Hittite territory in close proximity to the region which came to be called Arzawa, thus creating the potential for border disputes and cross border raids of the kind allied to in a number of treaties which Hittite kings subsequently drew up with their immediate neighbors." in the land of Luwiya and launched a preemptive strike. south of Lake Beyşehir.

Towns of the Assuwa League

The confederacy appears to have been a rather short-lived affair, and there is thus far no consensus as to identification of the towns of the Assuwa league listed in the Annals of Tudḫaliya:

‣"Now, the Assuwan League consisted of a coalition of forces running from Lukka in the southwest to Wilusiya in the northwest, and hence comprised western Anatolia in its entirety."

  • Kispuwa

‣"...not attested anywhere else."

  • Halluwa

‣"...not attested anywhere else."<br>‣"Many of the towns mentioned alongside [it] have convincingly been localized in western Phrygia by M. Forlanini."<br>

‣Woudhuizen associated it with the town of Honaz near the ancient Lycus river in Phrygia.

  • Dunda

‣"is to be localized in Kizzuwatna..." far removed from traditional locations of Assuwa.<br>

‣Woudhuizen associated it with a mountain near İzmir.<br>

  • Pasuhalta

‣"...not attested anywhere else."

  • Taruisa

‣"The possibility that [it] might be identified with Greek Troia, i.e. the city of Troy, was observed in 1924 by E. Forrer, and after much controversy philologists have agreed that the equation is possible by way of the hypothetical form Tauriya."

See also

  • Ancient regions of Anatolia
  • Arzawa
  • Hapalla
  • Mira (kingdom)
  • Seha River Land
  • Wilusa

References