and the following excerpts from Hattusili’s letter to Kadashman-Enlil are translated
by Beckman 1999 : 138 – 43 .)
The claims that Hattusili makes about Kadashman-Turgu in his letter seem
extraordinary. On the face of it, there is absolutely no reason why Babylon, which
had a long history of good relations with Egypt, should now terminate these because
the pharaoh had allegedly refused to give up the legitimate king of Hatti to the man
who had illegally seized his throne. Also, the promise of sending Babylonian troops
across the Euphrates would have been, to the best of our knowledge, totally without
precedent in the history of Kassite Babylon’s dealings with any of its Late Bronze
Age contemporaries. Yet Hattusili could hardly have invented or even exaggerated
what he reports Kadashman-Turgu as saying. We cannot check the truth for ourselves
since the letter in which Kadashman-Turgu purportedly made the statements attributed
to him is now lost to us. But a copy of the letter would certainly have been filed in
the royal archives in Babylon, and preserved during at least the early part of Kadashman-
Enlil’s reign. Its contents could easily have been checked against Hattusili’s claims,
as Hattusili well knew. In referring to a letter which he wrote to Kadashman-Turgu,
Hattusili says to his son: ‘Now are none of those scribes still living? Are the tablets
not filed? Let them read those tablets to you now.’ There was undoubtedly a dossier
of Hittite–Babylonian correspondence in the Babylonian as well as in the Hittite
capital which could readily be consulted to verify Hattusili’s statements.
Almost certainly Kadashman-Turgu did give the undertakings Hattusili attributes
to him – within the terms of a treaty drawn up between the two kings. The treaty is
referred to early in Hattusili’s letter to Kadashman-Enlil. Kadashman-Turgu’s willing-
ness to conclude such a treaty may well have been prompted, at least in part, by what
we might call the Assyrian factor. Already in the mid-fourteenth century, Burnaburiash
II had written to Akhenaten expressing concern about the resurgence of Assyria, under
its king Ashur-uballit, in the wake of the destruction of the Mitannian empire. Hence-
forth, sporadic conflict interspersed with periods of uneasy peace marked the relationship
between Babylon and Assyria. In the first half of the thirteenth century, tensions may
have abated for a time when the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (c. 1295 – 1264 ) reached
agreement with his Babylonian counterpart over the boundaries separating the two
kingdoms. But the peace remained tenuous. And Kadashman-Turgu may well have
seen a new alliance with Hatti, whose eastern frontiers abutted Assyrian subject territory
across the Euphrates, as a means of keeping Assyria in check. Hattusili had acquired
a formidable military reputation, both in Syria as well as in his own homeland,
and had most recently triumphed in the field of battle over his nephew Urhi-Teshub.
A calculated decision by Kadashman-Turgu to support his claim to the throne, and
to conclude a treaty of alliance with him, could prove to be in Babylon’s best interests,
particularly in view of the Assyrian factor. Termination of Babylon’s friendly relations
with Egypt may have been the price that Kadashman-Turgu had to pay for his alliance
with Hattusili. But that was part of the calculation. Egypt was nowhere near as well
placed as Hatti for providing Babylon with support against Assyrian aggression.
Pragmatic considerations favoured giving priority to an alliance with Hatti over ongoing
peaceful relations with Egypt – at least in the short term.
But within a year or so of his agreement with Hattusili, Kadashman-Turgu died,
and was succeeded by his son Kadashman-Enlil II, who quickly restored diplomatic
relations with Egypt. Hattusili was angered and frustrated by the news. There was
— A view from Hattusa —