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Kizzuwatna (or Kizzuwadna; in Ancient Egyptian Kode or Qode) was an ancient Anatolian kingdom, attested in written sources from the end of the 16th century BC onwards, but though its origins are still obscure, the Middle Bronze Age in Cilicia (ca. 2000–1550 BC) can be seen as its possible formative period. Kisuwatna was situated mostly in the Cilician Plain of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun, in modern-day Turkey. The Central Taurus Mountains and the Amanus Mountains encircled it. The centre of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, in the highlands.

Etymology

The name is said to be a Luwic transliteration (kez-watni) of the nešili kez-udne, meaning "a country on this side (of the mountains)." Puhvel alternately translates it from the nešili kez wetenez with the stem meaning "sea." It has been suggested that kez was an exonym used by the Hittites for a yet to be determined ethnic group.

Geography

Kizzuwatna is associated with the Cilician plane in Hittite, Mittani, Egyptian and Alalakh sources, the borders of which were "defined by the Taurus Mountains to the northwest and north, the Amanus Range to the East and the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Iskenderun and the Gulf of Mersin to the South." It westward extent remains the subject of debate.

Land

The country possessed valuable resources, such as silver mines in the Taurus Mountains. The slopes of the mountain range are still partly covered by woods. Annual winter rains made agriculture possible in the area at a very early date (see Çatalhöyük). The plains at the lower course of the Ceyhan River provided rich cultivated fields.

People

Several ethnic groups coexisted in Kizzuwatna and their culture represents a fusion of Hurrian, Luwian, and Hittite elements. The pre-Indo-European Hurrians predate the Luwians in the area, Hittites probably arrived as part of the imperial expansion under Hattusili I and Mursili I. During the era of the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna, the primary local language was a distinctive Hurrian-influenced dialect of Luwian. However, its first king Išputahšu had a Hittite-derived name and the toponym "Kizzuwatna" itself has been suggested to be a Luwianization of Hittite *kez-udne meaning "land on this side" in relation to the mountains. Though Kizzuwatna Luwian differs from Empire Luwian spoken in the Hittite heartland, incantations written in Kizzuwatna Luwian appear untranslated in Hittite ritual texts. Hurrian culture became more prominent in Kizzuwatna once it entered the sphere of influence of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni.

Puduhepa, queen of the Hittite king Hattusili III, came from Kizzuwatna, where she had been a priestess. Their pantheon was also integrated into the Hittite one, and the goddess Hebat of Kizzuwatna became very important in Hittite religion towards the end of the 13th century BC.

History

Excavations of Sirkeli Höyük establish occupation as early as 2420 BC, with an extensive settlement of both a central mound and a lower town existing from at least the 1600s BC, abandoned in the 1400s BC and not resettled until after the Late Bronze Age collapse. This suggests the existence of a polity located at the southern end of both a "Great Caravan Route” that connected the Ciician plain with the Troad during the Early Bronze Age and an overland trade route from the Hittite Lower Land to Ebla, Alalakh and Carchemish during the Middle Bronze Age.

King Sargon of Akkad claimed to have reached the Taurus Mountains (the silver mountains) in the 23rd century BC. However, archaeology has yet to confirm any Akkadian influence in the area. The trade routes from Assyria to the karum in the Anatolian Highlands went through Kizzuwatna by the early 2nd millennium BC.

First mentions of the kingdom of Kizzuwatna with the name Adaniya appear at the end of 16th century BC in diplomatic documents of the Hittite kingdom, in the Edict of Telipinu, regarding to political problems in the region. One of the earliest direct sources mentioning the name Kizzuwatna is a cretula from Tarsus, stamped with the seal of king Išpudaḫšu. "The seal’s short inscription also mentions the name of his father, Pariyawatri, which raises the question of whether Pariyawatri was king or not."

The kings of Kizzuwatna at the end of 16th century BC onwards had frequent contact with the Hittites to the north. The earliest Hittite records seem to refer to Kizzuwatna (as Adaniya) along with Arzawa in Western Anatolia, as Luwia.

In the power struggle that arose between the Anatolian Hittite kingdom and the northern Mesopotamian Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, in the 15th and early 14th centuries BC, Kizzuwatna became a strategic partner because of its location. Isputahsu made a treaty with Hittite King Telepinu. Later, Kizzuwatna shifted its allegiance, perhaps because of a new ruling dynasty. The city-state of Alalakh, to the south, expanded under its new vigorous leader, Idrimi, himself a subject of the Mitannian king Barattarna. King Pilliya of Kizzuwatna had to sign a treaty with Idrimi. The treaty was for fugitives exchanges between Idrimi and Pilliya.

Pilliya also made peace with the Hittite king Zidanta II, signing a parity treaty between the two.

On Kizzuwatna's north-eastern border, there also existed the state of Ishuwa during this period, that played a political role in the rivalry between Hittites and the Mitanni.

At the time of Kizzuwatna king Shunashura I (Sunassura), the Hittite king Tudhaliya I became more powerful. He concluded a treaty with Sunassura, and took it away from the domination of Mitanni.

His adopted son king Arnuwanda I likely continued the policy of his father. The exceedingly rough and unfavourable terrain of the Tarsus Mountains made it likely that to remain in a position of prominence among their Hurrian- and Luwian- speaking neighbours, the Kizzuwatna requested favourable terms for the treaties, and that they were subsequently granted.

Kizzuwatna rebelled during the reign of Suppiluliuma I but remained in the Hittite Empire for 200 years. In the famous Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BC), Kizzuwatna supplied troops to the Hittite king. As master equestrians, some of the first in the areas south of the Caucasus region, they provided the horses, which were later favoured by King Solomon and allowed the more aggressive use of the Hittite chariot than their Egyptian and Assyrian rivals were able.

The Kizzuwatna were master craftsman, mining experts and blacksmiths. Being the first to work "black iron", which is understood to have been iron of meteoric origin, into weapons such as maces, swords and warheads for spears. Their location in the mineral-rich Tarsus Range gave them ample materials from which to work.

Around 1200 BC, an invasion by the Sea Peoples is believed to have temporarily displaced the people of the Cilician plain, but many among the entourage of the Sea peoples were likely to have been composed of Luwian and Hurrians, possibly to ensure that they had a stake in how the invasions ended for their people, rather than being simple victims of them.

After the fall of the Hittite Empire, the Neo-Hittite kingdom Quwe, or Hiyawa, emerged in the area of former Kizzuwatna.

Kings and kingdoms

Chronology of kings and kigdoms as per Trameri (2020).

Notes

1. Trameri, Andrea, (15 October 2024). Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BC), Brill, p. 2: "The kingdom of Kizzuwatna is attested in written sources from the end of the 16th c. on. Since the origins of the kingdom itself are obscure, this work also provides an overview of the Middle Bronze Age in Cilicia (ca. 2000–1550 BC) as this can be seen – potentially – as a formative period for Kizzuwatna."
2. Trameri, Andrea, (May 2020). The Land of Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Second Millennium BCE until the Hittite Conquest (ca. 2000-1350), in: NYU, Faculty Digital Archive, p. vii: "Kizzuwatna was a kingdom located in south-eastern Anatolia – roughly corresponding to modern Cilicia "
3. Yakubovich, Ilya. (2010). Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Division of the Humanities In Candidacy For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. Academia.edu
4. Puhvel, J. (1984). Hittite Etymological Dictionary. Germany: Mouton.
5. Trameri, A. (2024). Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BC). Netherlands: Brill.
6. Mirko, Novak and Rutishauser, Susanne. (2022). "Kizzuwatna: Archaeology." Hittite Landscape and Geography. (2022). Netherlands: Brill. Google Books
7. Orientalia. (1986). Italy: Pontificium institutum biblicum..
8. Oriental studies. (1960). Georgia: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Gruzinskoĭ SSR.
9. Miller, J. L. (2004). Studies in the Origins, Development and Interpretation of the Kizzuwatna Rituals. Germany: Harrassowitz.
10. Shelestin, Vladimir, (August 2019). "The ethnical history of Kizzuwatna: an onomastic approach", in: BAF-Online Proceedings of the Berner Altorientalisches Forum 3: "The mixed nature of Kizzuwatna’s population is widely accepted by the scholars, considering the Hurrians and the Luwians its main components. Which of these peoples came to the Cilician plain earlier istribution by language and period gives us the picture of the Hurrian domination in the Middle Hittite period . By the Late New Hittite period the Luwian names became prevailing. This trend supports the scenario of the Hurrian earlier arrival."
11. Yakubovich, Ilya (2011). "Luwian and the Luwians". In Steadman, Sharon; McMahon, Gregory (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia. Oxford University Press. pp. 536–537, 539. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195376142.013.0023.
12. Mirko Novák, Deniz Yaşin, Mirco Brunner, Sinem Hacıosmanoğlu, Ekin Kozal, Sabina Kulemann-Ossen, Hannah Mönninghoff, Susanne Rutishauser, Alexander E. Sollee, and Sönke Szidat (2020). "Sirkeli Höyük: Insights into the Archaeology of Bronze and Iron Age Cilicia." The Archaeology of Anatolia, Vol. IV: Recent Discoveries (2018-2020). Sharon R. Steadman and Gregory McMahon (eds). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
13. Blasweiler, Joost. (2019). The kingdom of Purušhanda and its relations with the kings of Mari and Kanesh in the 18th century BCE: Part 3 The trade of the land Purušḫanda. Arnhem (NL) Bronze Age.
14. Blasweiler, Joost. (2019). The kingdom of Purušhanda and its relations with the kings of Mari and Kanesh in the 18th century BCE: Part 2 The location of the land Purušḫanda. Arnhem (NL) Bronze Age.
15. Blasweiler, Joost, (2016). "Into the Taurus and the KUR.KUR.KUG (the mountains of precious metals)", in: Arnhem (nl) – 2 Anatolia in the bronze age, p. 6: "It is almost certain that the control of the 'Land of Silver Mountains' was a fundamental element of the power of the king of Purušhanda. The Akkadian myth 'The battle of the King' narrates the struggle between the king of Purušhanda and Mesopotamian merchants, who were active in Anatolia. The merchants asked in the palace of Sargon of Akkade for his support "
16. Trameri, Andrea, (15 October 2024). Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BC), Brill, p. 205: "As one of the few mentions of historical events among the scanty information on the origins of this kingdom, historians often quote the content of the Edict of Telipinu, namely the passage referring to the upheavals in Adaniya at the time of Ammuna (late 16th c.) "
17. Trameri, Andrea, (15 October 2024). Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BC), Brill, p. 205.
18. Trameri, Andrea, (15 October 2024). Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BC), Brill, p. 205: "Edict of Telipinu The land(s) became hostile towards him/ became his enemy: the cities of -agga, ila, Galmiya, (the land of) Adaniya, the land of Arzawiya, Šalapa, Parduwata and Aḫḫulla. Wherever the troops went on campaign, however, they did not come back successfully."
19. Trameri, Andrea, (May 2020). The Land of Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Second Millennium BCE until the Hittite Conquest (ca. 2000-1350), in: NYU, Faculty Digital Archive, p. vii: "From a historical-political point of view, Kizzuwatna played a strategic role between the 15th and the early 14th c. in the clash between the Anatolian Hittite kingdom and the northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Mittani – the hegemonic power in northern Syria and the principal rival of the Hittites in the macro-area at the time. As a ‘buffer’-state between the two neighbors’ territories, it was involved in their diplomatic altercations and military conflicts."
20. "Tablet/Seal Impression #131447". The British Museum. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
21. Treaty between Idrimi and Pilliya (Alalakh Tab. 3) etana.org
22. Kingdoms of Anatolia historyfiles.co.uk
23. Archi, Alfonso (2003-07-21). "Middle Hittite—"Middle Kingdom"". Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. Penn State University Press. pp. 1–12. doi:10.1515/9781575065434-004. ISBN 9781575065434.
24. Trameri, Andrea, (May 2020). The Land of Kizzuwatna. History of Cilicia in the Second Millennium BCE until the Hittite Conquest (ca. 2000-1350), in: NYU, Faculty Digital Archive, p. 22.

See also

• Ancient regions of Anatolia
• Cilicia
• Neo-Hittites

Sources

• Beckman, Garry M.: Hittite Diplomatic Texts, Scholars Press, Atlanta 1996.
• Götze, Albrecht: Kizzuwatna and the problem of Hittite geography, Yale university press, New Haven 1940.
• Haas, Volkert: Hurritische und luwische Riten aus Kizzuwatna, Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1974.
• Yakubovich, Ilya: Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language, Brill, Leiden 2010.
• Novák, Mirko: Kizzuwatna, Ḥiyawa, Quwe – Ein Abriss der Kulturgeschichte des Ebenen Kilikien, in J. Becker, R. Hempelmann, E. Rehm (ed.), Kulturlandschaft Syrien – Zentrum und Peripherie.Festschrift für Jan-Waalke Meyer, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 371, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2010, pp. 397–425
• Forlanini, Massimo: How to infer Ancient Roads and Intineraries from heterogenous Hittite Texts: The Case of the Cilician (Kizzuwatnean) Road System, KASKAL 10, 2013, pp. 1–34.
• Novák, Mirko and Rutishauser, Susanne: Tutḫaliya, Šunaššura und die Grenze zwischen Ḫatti und Kizzuwatna, in: C. Mittermayer, S. Ecklin (eds.), Altorientalische Studien zu Ehren von Pascal Attinger, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 256, Academic Press, Fribourg/Göttingen 2012, pp. 259–269.
• Kozal, Ekin and Novák, Mirko: Facing Muwattalli. Some Thoughts on the Visibility and Function of the Rock Reliefs at Sirkeli Höyük, Cilicia, in: E. Kozal, M. Akar, Y. Heffron, Ç. Çilingiroğlu, T.E. Şerifoğlu, C. Çakırlar, S. Ünlüsoy and E. Jean (eds.), Questions, Approaches, and Dialoguesin the Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology Studies in Honor of Marie-Henriette and Charles Gates, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 445, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2017, pp. 371–388.
• Novák, Mirko and Rutishauser, Susanne: Kizzuwatna: Archaeology. In: M. Weeden und L.Z. Ullmann (ed.), Hittite Landscape and Geography. Handbuch der Orientalistik I,121, Brill, Leiden 2017, pp. 134–145.
• Kozal, Ekin and Novák, Mirko: Alalakh and Kizzuwatna. Some Thoughts on the Synchronization, in: Ç. Maner, A. Gilbert, M. Horowitz (ed.), Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology, A Festschrift in Honor of K. Aslıhan Yener for her 40 years of Field Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean, Brill, Leiden 2017, pp. 296–317.

Further reading

• Trameri, Andrea (2024). "Aspects of Society, Culture and Religion in Kizzuwatna". Kizzuwatna. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 459–513. doi:10.1163/9789004704312_009. ISBN 978-90-04-70431-2.

38°N 36°E / 38°N 36°E / 38; 36

v t e History of Anatolia

• Kizzuwatna
• States and territories established in the 2nd millennium BC
• States and territories disestablished in the 12th century BC
• Ancient Cilicia
• States in Bronze Age Anatolia
• Former kingdoms
• Former countries in West Asia
• Hittite Empire
• Hurrians