‘No-one had ever crossed the Purattu river (Euphrates). The great king, Tabarna, crossed it with his feet and his troops crossed it behind him with their own feet. (Only) Sargon (of Akkad) had crossed it before! He had defeated the troops of Hahhum, but he had not damaged the city of Hahhum, had not burnt it down, and he had not shown its smoke to the Storm-god. But the great king, Tabarna, after having destroyed the king of Hashshum and (the king) of Hahhum, burnt (the city) down, showing its smoke to the Sun-god of heaven and the Storm-god, and yoked the king of Hahhum to his chariot!’
Enthronement. Therefore, in order to present the hostilities within his kingdom as degenerative phenomena that needed to be taken care of, Telipinu had to present a model of a stable and peaceful reign. This model was placed in the ancestral past of the Hittite kingdom.
Both the existence of a mythical Labarna and the idea that the Hittite state was thoroughly united from its beginning are part of an ideal model and an unreliable memory of the origins of the Hittite state. In reality, the situation was completely the opposite. The history of the Old Hittite kingdom is not the history of the breakdown of a formerly united state through rivalries and betrayals. It is the history of a difficult rise towards the unification of Anatolia, which began with local city-states competing with each other (Figure 15.2). The evidence provided by Hattusili’s texts regarding the formative process of his kingdom recount the many conflicts fought by him and his predecessors against the Anatolian city-states, and the constant rivalries within the Hittite court. Hattusili, the ‘man from Kushshara’ who became king of Hattusa, alluded to his predecessors (the kings of Kushshara) being involved in a number of difficult situations. Therefore, the conquest of Anatolia began before his reign. Unfortunately, we do not know how long before then, or whether or not it was a continuation of the hegemonic role that Kushshara had under Anitta a century earlier. Hattusili’s reign and the move of the capital to Hattusa marked the realisation of this long process. During his reign, then, the Hittite state was already harbouring expansionistic ambitions. However, this phase still saw numerous conflicts with the cities in Central and northern Anatolia (Shanahuitta and Zalpa).
We do not have enough data to reconstruct the role of each city during the formation of the Hittite state. We can only catch a glimpse of the role of Kushshara, Hattusa and Nesha and the opposing roles of Shanahuitta and Zalpa. The Edict of Telipinu also attests the conquest of Hupishna, Tuwanuwa, Nenasha, Landa, Zallara, Purushhanda and Lushna. Following Hattusili’s conquest, the kingdom of Hatti found its centre around the Halys bend. It then reached the coast of the Black Sea (at Zalpa) in the north, the Konya plain in the south-west and the northern side of the Taurus Mountains in the south-east. These territories were part of the regional state known as the ‘land of Hatti’, while all other territories would continue to be considered conquered territories.
Apart from some historical and political information found in the available evidence, the phase of unification of the Hittite state can also be traced in Hittite myths. A legend recounts the wedding of thirty sons of the Queen of Kanesh, who placed them in a basket and threw them in the Halys until they reached Zalpa. Once these princes unknowingly returned to their homeland, they ended up marrying their thirty
Figure 15.2 The formation of the Old Hittite state.
Sisters. The ending of the text has not survived, but it dealt with the problems of kingship and the inheritance system (between the Hittite endogamy and the Indo-European exogamy). It also dealt with the role of Zalpa and Kanesh in the tradition developed by the new dynasty of Hattusa. Even the passage through the Taurus Mountain, which had already inspired several legends in Mesopotamia, became for the Hittites the epitome of a divine deed. Similarly, the crossing of the Euphrates would eventually have the same effect.
The role of some rival cities of Kushshara and Hattusa in the unification of Anatolia also survived in both the mythical tradition and in the ritual texts linked to kingship and enthronement, which indicates that the unification of Anatolia did not just require a sequence of wars and victories, or even destructions. It also had a strong political component, made of kinship ties and a common symbolic and ideological heritage. On a kinship level, two parallel processes were taking place. On the one hand, sons of the Hittite king were sent to the conquered cities as governors. What according to Telipinu took place in a peaceful and idyllic environment, according to the contemporary evidence caused local revolts and tendencies towards independence. On the other hand, the Hittite king married princesses from the cities he conquered and had members of the conquered royal families living in his court. The aim of these measures was clearly to create a more unified environment. However, even in this case serious problems arose, with factions within the Hittite court and its royal family fighting over power and succession. As the political unification of the land was taking place, the Hittite court began to be marked by competition and a multitude of potential candidates to the throne.
This seems to have been the actual way in which the Hittite state was formed both geographically and politically. At the peak of the Old Hittite period, old Hattusili left the throne in favour of young Mursili. In this regard, an important document, the Testament of Hattusili, shows us the dangerous degree of internal conflicts in Hatti. The old king, who unified the land and won over powerful kingdoms in the southeast of Anatolia and in northern Syria, complains that no one, from his wife to the other members of his family, ever listened to his words. Consequently, he had to adopt a stranger, the young Mursili, to cope with the betrayals and assassinations plotted by his relatives. It is a dreadful picture, but the reality could have been even worse. In fact, we have to imagine that the young usurper Mursili was the one directing the words of the old and sickly king lying on his deathbed. This was in order to legitimise his coup, which, unlike the others stated in Hattusili’s testament, was actually successful.
World History
