Көне Анатолия Арзава патшалығы

Ancient Anatolian kingdom
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Arzawa was a region and political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. In Hittite texts, the term is used to refer both to a particular kingdom and to a loose confederation of states. The chief Arzawan state, whose capital was at Apasa, is often referred to as Arzawa Minor or Arzawa Proper, while the other Arzawa lands included Mira, Hapalla, Wilusa, and the Seha River Land. Arzawa is known from contemporary texts documenting its political and military relationships with Egypt and the Hittite Empire. The kingdom had a tumultuous relationship with the Hittites, sometimes allied with them but other times opposing them, in particular in concert with Mycenaean Greece which corresponds to Ahhiyawa of the Hittite sources. During the Amarna Period, Arzawa had achieved sufficient independence that Egypt opened direct diplomatic relations, addressing the Arzawan king Tarhuntaradu as "great king", a title reserved for peers. However, the kingdom was fully subjugated by Mursili II around 1300 BC.

The Kingdom of Arzawa was located in Western Anatolia. Its capital was a coastal city called Apasa, which is believed to have been Ayasuluk Hill at the site of later Ephesus. The hill appears to have been fortified during the Late Bronze Age and contemporary graves suggest that it was a locally important center, though much of the potential ruins are obscured by the later Basilica of St. John. In Hittite texts, the term "Arzawa" is also used more broadly to refer to a group of kingdoms including Arzawa itself. Thus, modern day scholars sometimes use the terms "Arzawa Minor" or "Arzawa Proper" to designate the main kingdom. A Hittite text known as the Indictment of Madduwatta discusses the exploits of an Anatolian warlord named Madduwatta in and around Arzawa during Tudhaliya's reign. The document recounts that Madduwatta launched multiple unsuccessful attacks on Arzawa before seeking a marriage alliance with the Arzawan king Kupanta Kurunta. Maduwatta then allied with a certain Attarsiya, the man of Ahhiyawa; the latter country being widely accepted as Mycenaean Greece or part of it. In general during the period 1400 1190 BC Hittite records mention that the populations of Arzawa and Ahhiyawa were in close contact.

The Arzawa Lands were unusual in Western Anatolia for having a state level society, being ruled by kings who conducted formal relations with one another and with foreign powers. By contrast, other nearby groups such as the Lukka, Karkiya, and Masa, were stateless societies ruled by councils of elders, and thus had more informal relations with outsiders. In its final century of independence, Arzawan culture was influenced by the culture of Mycenaean Greece, which was beginning to expand into Western Anatolia. For instance, Mycenaean style pottery and architecture are both evidenced at Apasa, which may have even had a Mycenaean cult center at the site of the later Temple of Artemis.

The Amarna letters include a pair of letters between the Arzawan ruler Tarhundaradu and the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III. One letter, known to modern scholars as EA 31, was sent from the pharaoh to Arzawa; the other, known as EA 32, contains the Arzawan king's reply. While most of the Amarna letters were written in the Akkadian language, these letters were written in Hittite. The Egyptian letter EA 31 was written by a scribe not fully proficient in Hittite, and contains significant grammatical errors. When these letters were excavated in the 1880s, they were the first Hittite texts to be discovered. Because they were written in the already deciphered Sumero Akkadian cuneiform script, scholars were able to pronounce the words, and could often make inferences about their meanings based on the letters' formulaic rhetorical style and use of sumerograms. Based on these inferences, the scholar Jorgen A. Knudtzon proposed that the language was from the Indo European family. This hypothesis proved correct after thousands more tablets were discovered at Hattusa.

Kupanta Kurunta c.1440s BC
Tarhundaradu c.1370s BC
Tarkasnawa, king of Mira, c.1320s BC
Uhha Ziti last ruler c. 1320 1300 BC