sons, Telipinu and Sharri-Kushuh, were fully engaged with the task
of maintaining Hittite authority in Syria, where they had been
appointed viceroys; any perceived slackening of Hittite control
in this region would almost certainly have led to uprisings on a
similar scale to those in the west. Perhaps even more seriously, a
resurgent Assyria was beginning to pose a major threat not only
to Hatti’s subjects and allies east of the Euphrates, but also to
Hittite territory west of the river. The conquest of Carchemish in
particular was nowfirmly in the sights of the Assyrian king, as a
first step to more extensive incursions into Hittite territory in Syria.
Telipinu and Sharri-Kushuh could not afford to abandon their
posts in the region.
That left only Suppiluliuma’s youngest son, Mursili, to adopt
the mantle of Great Kingship in Hattusa. As Mursili himself tells us,
news of his accession was met with widespread derision, and enemy
forces in ever greater numbers massed against the kingdom.
Suppiluliuma and Arnuwanda were great warrior-kings, they all
conceded. But what had they to fear now from a mere child with no
experience of the battlefield, or anything else? But they gravely
Figure 12.1 Seal of Mursili II.
108 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA