Urhi-Teshub, the legimitately installed king overthrown by
Suppiluliuma’s grandfather Hattusili. Were they still intent on
putting one of their own members on the throne? If so, did they
plot such action from the southern Anatolian kingdom of
Tarhuntassa where Urhi-Teshub’s brother Kurunta had been
installed as local ruler?
The last thing Suppiluliuma needed at this time was
increasing instability within the extended royal household, for
the empire’s subject-states were growing restive, and increasingly
defiant of Hittite authority. Uprisings in the southwest forced the
kingtoundertakeatleastonemajorcampaigntotheregion,as
referred to in the‘Südburg inscription’, where he conquered and
subjected a number of lands lying in or near Lukka territory.
Suppiluliuma then may have marched back eastwards, completing
his campaign by entering the land and city of Tarhuntassa.
ORDIDHE ENTERTARHUNTASSA?
There’s a bit of a problem here. Scholars are now saying we can’t
be sure that Tarhuntassaisreferred to in this inscription. The
problem lies in the fact that in the hieroglyphic text the place in
question is called‘(the city of) the Storm God’, whose name in
Luwian is Tarhunta. Hence the conclusion that the city so called
in the Südburg inscription is Tarhuntassa. But many cities where
the Storm God was the chief deity might be called‘(the city of) the
Storm God’, like Nerik in northern Anatolia. Even so, I still think it
most likely that the city referred to twice in this inscription as the
Storm God’s city is Tarhuntassa.
But that doesn’t completely solve our problem, since
Suppiluliuma’s relationship with Tarhuntassa at the time, and his
purpose in entering it, are not clear from the inscription. Was the
regime his father had established there now openly rebellious? Had
he entered Tarhuntassa to reassert his authority over the local
kingdom, and perhaps depose its current ruler? Reconstructing this
part of our story is again like trying to solve a puzzle when most of
the clues are missing. Let’s see what we can deduce from the few
that have survived. Here are some of them:
DEATH OF AN EMPIRE 255