Some Historical Problems of the Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions

Abstract

Two Neo-Hittite rulers occupied positions of authority, the proper understanding of which demands a detailed examination of the textual passages describing this authority. The rulers, Azatiwatas of Karatepe and Yariris of Carchemish, seem moreover to have enjoyed curiously analogous positions. Neither gives in his inscriptions any very exact information on his rank, nor do they record their fathers' names, yet both seem to have exercised a high degree of authority over their cities, Adana and Carchemish respectively, and both refer to their “lords” and their lords' families in ways which have in the past been somewhat misunderstood. Ever since the discovery of Karatepe in 1946, debate has continued concerning the dating of the monument and its inscriptions, and the position of Azatiwatas is to some extent bound up in this question. Azatiwatas does not directly claim any specific royal title but only the vague religious honorifics “the Sun-blessed(?) man, Tarhunzas's servant” (§ I), adding that he was promoted (“made great”) by Awarikus the king of Adana (§ II) and that Tarhunzas has made him mother and father to Adana (§ III). Although much of the inscription concerns the benefits which he conferred upon Adana (especially §§ IV–VI, XXIV, XXXI–XXXII, XXXVII), he does not claim to have sat on the throne himself — on the contrary, he explicitly, if rather imprecisely, states that he established his “lord's family” on it (§§ XIV–XVI, with the notes on these passages on p. 107). The lord in question must presumably be understood to be Awarikus, and the establishment of his family in Adana must refer to a time after his death or disappearance.

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