Hattusa after its reduction in status, just as Muwattalli had done.
But we have no proof of any of this, for the kingdom’s written
records now come to an end. Perhaps one day the remains of the
chief city of Tarhuntassa will come to light. And if so, perhaps an
archive will be found which may confirm my hypothesis– or
completely invalidate it.
If, however, my hypothesis is right, then there may have been a
number of reasons why Tarhuntassa once more became the
administrative centre of the empire. Not the least of these was that
as the empire crumbled, Tarhuntassa could provide a more secure
base than Hattusa for the royal administration, located as Hattusa
was near the periphery of an increasingly unmanageable empire.
And at a time when food shortages appear to have become ever
more critical, a royal capital which lay on or near the southern
Anatolian coast was far more accessible to grain imports from
Egypt and Syria. And far better located to organise and mount
naval operations against enemy forces which threatened its supply-
routes by sea.
Let me suggest another possibility for the shift. Amongst all the
other crises that threatened to engulf it, was Hattusa and the core
land of Hatti again subject to an outbreak of plague? If so, could
this have been linked to urgent attempts to meet the food shortages
in the region by the conveyance there of grain consignments which,
because of the exigencies of time, had not been carefully checked
for disease-carrying vermin? Examination of the grain silos in
Hattusa indicate that food-storage areas like these were kept
remarkably free of such vermin. But in the desperate times at the
end of the empire, unchecked cargoes which attracted disease-
bearing rodents and fleas might have precipitated a further
outbreak of plague of the kind that had so devastated the land of
Hatti in the reign of Mursili II. The evacuation of Hattusa, at least
by its elite elements and‘essential others’, as thefirst signs of plague
appeared might provide part of the explanation for the king’s
decision to relocate his capital elsewhere. So too in the seventeenth
century AD a major outbreak of bubonic plague in England during
the reign of Charles II led the king and his entourage to abandon
DEATH OF AN EMPIRE 265