Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T23:41:01.779Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Hieroglyphic Hittite Inscriptions of Commagene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The state of Commagene, a hilly country of the upper Euphrates, bounded to the southeast by the river and to the northwest by high mountain ranges, was known earlier to the Assyrians by its name in the unhellenized form of Kummuh. It appears in their records as one of the Late Hittite states which resisted their westward expansion and were ultimately annexed by them. Due to its position as the Euphrates state between Meliddu (Malatya) and Carchemish, it must naturally have occupied an important position in any anti-Assyrian coalition. The Assyrians, however, seem to have been shy of launching a frontal assault upon it, preferring no doubt the easier terrain and river-crossings to the south, where at Carchemish the Euphrates emerges from the hills into the plain.

Assyrian records have left us the names of four kings of the land, Qatazilu ( = Shalmaneser III, years 1 and 2), Kundašpi ( = Shalmaneser III, year 6), Kuštašpi ( = Tiglath-pileser III, years 3, 6, 8, 14), and Mutallu ( = Sargon II, years 10 and 14). Of these, only one, Mutallu, is indisputably Hittite, while another is possibly so (Qatazilu; see below, p. 78 f.). The other two have a distinctly Iranian look about them, and are usually accepted as such.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 AJA. 69 (1965), p. 143Google Scholar; 72 (1968), p. 146.

2 CIH. pp. 14 f., Tafel XVII.

3 Photographs are also published there of fragments of two other pieces (Plate 12, Figs. 7–8), one an inscription, and the other a fragment of a relief of a seated Kupapa figure. The whereabouts of these pieces is unknown to me.

4 HHM. pp. 23–25.

5 von der Osten, H. H., OIC. 14 (1933), p. 140 with Figs. 127 and 128Google Scholar.

6 IHH. III, p. 318Google Scholar.

7 Acme, loc. cit.

8 See C.-G. von Brandenstein, Hethitische Götter nach Bildbeschreibungen in Keilschrifttexten, passim.

9 Ibid., p. 30.

10 HH. no. 264.

11 e.g. KUB. XXXV, 133 i 1430Google Scholar.

12 E. Akurgal, The Art of the Hittites, Plate 101.

13 HHM. no. 18, Plate XXXIV.

14 carchemish B 19a.

15 M. Vieyra, Hittite Art, Plate 65.

16 Noms p. 322.

17 Ibid., no. 927.

18 Ibid., nos. 1050, 1051.

19 Onom. pp. 137 f.

20 Noms p. 332.

21 e.g. Huwamiti: perhaps to be analysed Huwa-miti, rather than Huwami-ti. Cf. mArmati with Αρματις (f) (Zgusta § 97/9).

22 Zgusta, L., Kleinasiatische Personennamen pp. 670 fGoogle Scholar. (reverse index).

23 Noms no. 1355.

24 Glossar pp. 132 f.

25 Ibid., p. 15.

26 Noms nos. 49, 51–53.

27 Zgusta § 57.

28 Noms no. 547.

29 Ibid., no. 255.

30 Heth. El. I, §§ 27, 28Google Scholar.

31 HH. no. 339; Glossar no. 288c. These entries may now be deleted.

32 karatepe, 120, 120′, 172.

33 carchemish A 6, 4 and 6.

34 Noms no. 167.

35 Bbp III A1; IV B3.

36 Bbp I C.

37 Bbp III B1.

38 Bbp IV B2.

39 Bbp I B, C; IV B1.

40 Bbp IV C1; III C1; IV C2, 3.

41 Bbp I B; IV B1.

42 Bbp IV C1.

43 HH. loc. cit., notes. See now also Mittelberger, H., Die Sprache IX (1963), p. 105Google Scholar. hantis written in Hieroglyphic would surely appear as ha-ti-s(a), i.e. hantis.

44 The two passages cited in support of this are not convincing:—

babylon 1, 1: tarwanas man-tis is not “the man of the ruler”, but, as Laroche, “homme juge”. carchemish A 6, 1: Whatever the significance of the word preceding man-tis, it does not seem that it can be a personal name. Nor does it seem likely that so active a builder as Araras would admit to being vassal to anybody.

45 The uses of lú + pn in other contexts are listed in CAD. 1/2: amīlu 4 a 1′–-2′.

46 For a confusion between and woman, see Gelb's text, Bbp III D2: ! á-tì-n(a) for woman á-tì-n(a).

47 DLL. pp. 27, 124; Meriggi (Glossar, p. 176 f.) denies the distinction Hier. woman/mother. Were this acceptable it would much simplify the present argument. Cf. Kammenhuber, , Hb. Or. II, 2, p. 289Google Scholar.

48 BSL. 53 (19571958), p. 187Google Scholar: and see below p. 95, n. 26.

49 Acme IV (1951), pp. 200, 209Google Scholar.

50 cekke rev. 7; see Noms no. 1345.

51 HH. no. 390, 2.

52 Glossar p. 172.

53 i.e. carchemish, cekke, hamath.

54 Anatolian Studies XIX (1969), pp. 100 fGoogle Scholar.

55 Handbuch der Orientalistik II, 12/2Google Scholar, Altkleinasiatische Sprachen, § 14, pp. 167 ff.

56 See above, p. 71, and footnote 3.

57 Cf. the fragment of relief showing a seated Kupapa figure, also discovered at Ancoz (above, p. 71, footnote 3).

58 The left end of line 1 appears in the photograph in shadow, which partly covers the important reading (woman) á-tì (god) Ku + bird-pa-pa. For a photograph of a cast of the fragment which shows this up, see AJA. 64 (1960), Plate 12, Fig. 6Google Scholar.

59 Barnett, R. D., Iraq X (1948), Plate XIXGoogle Scholar.

60 L. Delaporte, Malatya I: La porte des lions, pl. XXIV.

61 F. Thureau-Dangin, Til-Barsip, Pl. VII, 1.

62 See Naster, P., L'Asie Mineure et l'Assyrie (Louvain, 1938)Google Scholar.

63 Andrae, W., WVDOG. 46 (1924), Plates I–VIIGoogle Scholar.

64 Kayseri Museum. Unpublished.