Arzawa lands, must have had scribal establishments, because of
their rulers’frequent written communications with the Hittite king
- letters, treaties and the like. But these communications have
survived only in the archives of the Hittite capital. The sad fact is
that in western Anatolia none of the remaining Bronze Age sites,
like the one now called Beycesultan near the source of the
Maeander river, have produced any written records. In its Late
Bronze Age phase, Beycesultan may have been an important city of
the Arzawan complex, mentioned many times in the texts. But
without written information we cannot identify it.
In the far northwest, the site called Troy (Homer’s Ilios) has
been identified by many scholars as the centre of a kingdom called
Wilusa in Hittite texts. Probably a part of the Arzawa complex, it
must have had its own chancery, for we know that the Hittite and
Wilusan kings were in written diplomatic contact. But extensive
excavations at Troy have failed to reveal the slightest trace of
writing there in the Bronze Age. The veryfirst evidence of writing
at Troy, a bronze convex seal inscribed with its owner’s name and
his profession (he was a scribe), dates some time between 1050 and
- This is well after the Bronze Age ended. But despite lack of
hard evidence, most scholars accept the identification of Homeric
Troy with Hittite Wilusa–and the plaque at the entrance to the
site today, which reads ILIOS WILUSA, seeks to put the matter
beyond doubt.
As it happens, we do have one surviving though fragmentary
Bronze Age inscription in the west which could be very helpful in
piecing together some of the political geography of the region. This
is a rock-cut inscription accompanying a relief sculpture in a
mountain pass (called Karabel) some 28 km east of Izmir. The
sculpture depicts a male humanfigure armed with bow, spear and
sword. When the Greek historian Herodotus visited the site in the
fifth century BC, he claimed that thefigure was an Egyptian king
called Sesostris, and that the Egyptian inscription (sic) read thus:
‘With my own shoulders I won this land.’ Herodotus got it
completely wrong. The script is in fact the hieroglyphic script I
mentioned earlier, and which we still have to discuss. For the
moment, let us simply say that the Anatolian epigraphist David
50 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA