And Ura, probably the most important seaport from where goods
brought by sea were transported to the homeland, very likely lay
within its boundaries. Hostile occupation of the land could deprive
Hatti of at least one of its important supply-routes. Thismayhave
provided the reason for Suppiluliuma’s entry into Tarhuntassa,
whether to eliminate a rebellious regime there, or to ensure that it
did not fall into, or remain, in enemy hands.
AROYAL CITY ABANDONED
What was the outcome of all this? Let me suggest one possible
answer–but with the warning that what I’m going to say is again
based almost entirely on speculation. My suggestion is linked to
another question. What happened to the royal capital at the end of
the empire? A long-held assumption was that it eventually fell to
besieging enemy forces who captured, sacked and burned it, and
that the king himself perished along with his city. Rather like the
fate suffered by Constantinople and its last ruler nearly 2,700 years
later. That assumption has now been discarded.
When I was in Hattusa a few years ago to participate in Tolga
Örnek’s documentary about the Hittites, thefilm crew was invited
by Jürgen Seeher to have dinner with him one evening. Jürgen was
then Hattusa’s Director of Excavations. He told us of some
interesting results he was obtaining from his most recent
excavations on the acropolis and other parts of the city. These
showed that Hattusa did not go up inflames in afinal single
conflagration. On the contrary, there was clear evidence that the
last Hittite king Suppiluliuma systematically removed everything of
value from the palace quarters and other major buildings, including
important documents preserved on clay tablets (and perhaps metal
tablets as well?), and simply abandoned what was still an intact city,
even if already in decline. No doubt he took with him a large
retinue, including his family and advisers, his chief bureaucrats,
others who were an essential part of the city’s infrastructure, and
the royal militia. We have no idea of the size of the group leaving
the city, or how many of the sub-elite population were included–
or simply left to their fate.
DEATH OF AN EMPIRE 263