Hieroglyphic Hittite Inscriptions of Commagene

Abstract

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.

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