Palistin (or Walistin), was an early
Syro-Hittite kingdom located in what is now northwestern
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and the southeastern
Turkish province of
Hatay
Hatay Province ( tr, Hatay ili, ) is the southernmost province of Turkey. It is situated almost entirely outside Anatolia, along the eastern coast of the Levantine Sea. The province borders Syria to its south and east, the Turkish province of ...
. Its existence was confirmed by the discovery of several inscriptions mentioning
Taita
Taita may refer to:
* Taita people, a Bantu ethnic group in Kenya
* Taita language, a Bantu language
*Taitā, New Zealand, a suburb of Lower Hutt City
* Taita Hills, a mountain range in Kenya
* Taita Cushitic languages, an extinct pair of Afro-Asi ...
, king of Palistin.
History
Palistin was one of the Syro-Hittite states that emerged in Syria after the
Late Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East ...
.
[ OUP Oxford, 2012]
It dates to at least the 11th century BC and is known primarily through the inscriptions of its king Taita and his wife.
The kingdom emerged some time soon after the collapse of the
Hittite Empire
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...
, of which it is one of the
successor state
Succession of states is a concept in international relations regarding a successor state that has become a sovereign state over a territory (and populace) that was previously under the sovereignty of another state. The theory has its roots in 19th- ...
s, and it encompassed a relatively extensive area, stretching at least from the
Amouq Valley in the west, to
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
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in the east, down to
Mhardeh
Maharda ( ar, محردة, Maḥarda, ), also spelled Mhardeh or Muhardah, is a city in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located about 23 kilometers northwest of Hama. It is situated along the Orontes River, near t ...
and
Shaizar
Shaizar or Shayzar ( ar, شيزر; in modern Arabic Saijar; Hellenistic name: Larissa in Syria, Λάρισα εν Συρία in Greek) is a town in northern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northwest of Hama. Nearby l ...
in the south.
Prof.
Itamar Singer
Itamar Singer (November 26, 1946 – September 19, 2012) was an Israeli author and historian of Jewish-Romanian origin. He is known for his research of the Ancient Near East and as a leading Hittitologist, pioneering the study of this ancie ...
proposes that it was the predecessor state that, once it disintegrated, gave birth to the kingdoms of
Hama
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, ar ...
th,
Bit Agusi
Bit Agusi or Bit Agushi (also written Bet Agus) was an ancient Aramaean Syro-Hittite state, established by Gusi of Yakhan at the beginning of the 9th century BC. It had included the cities of Arpad, Nampigi (Nampigu) and later on Aleppo Arpad was ...
and
Pattin
Pattin (also known as Pattina, Patina, Unqu and Unqi), was an ancient Luwian Syro-Hittite state at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. It was known to the Assyrians as Unqi and Aramaeans as Unqu.
It was located at the north-western coast of ...
(shortened form of Palistin).
[''Before and After the Storm: Crisis Years in Anatolia and Syria between the Fall of the Hittite Empire and the Beginning of a New Era (ca. 1220-1000 BC)'', A Symposium in Memory of Itamar Singer, University of Pavia, 2012, pp. 7–8.]
Archaeological evidence
The excavations at
Tell Tayinat
Tell Ta'yinat is a low-lying ancient tell on the east bank at the bend of the Orontes River where it flows through the Amuq valley, in the Hatay province of southeastern Turkey about 25 kilometers south east of Antakya (ancient Antioch), and lie ...
in the Turkish Hatay province which might have been the capital of Palistin,
revealed two settlements, the first being a Bronze Age Aegean farming community, and the second an Iron Age Syro-Hittite city built on top of the Aegean farming settlement.
Palistin is attested as ''Walistin'' in an inscription discovered in 1936 at the site.
Palistin ("Watasatina") is also attested in the
Sheizar Stele, which is the funerary monument of Queen
Kupapiya, the wife of Taita.
Another stele, discovered in
Meharde, might well be the funerary monument of King Taita. Both stelae mention the name of Taita, and invoke a "divine Queen of the Land", possibly the goddess
Kubaba
Kubaba (in the ''Weidner'' or ''Esagila Chronicle''), sux, , , is the only queen on the ''Sumerian King List'', which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period (ca. 2500–2330 BC) of Sumerian history. A co ...
.
Most importantly, in 2003 a statue of King Taita bearing his inscription in
Luwian
The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fa ...
was discovered during excavations conducted by German archeologist Kay Kohlmeyer in the
Citadel of Aleppo
The Citadel of Aleppo ( ar, قلعة حلب, Qalʿat Ḥalab) is a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city of Aleppo, northern Syria. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. Usage ...
.
Possible link to Philistines
While
Hittitologist
Hittitology is the study of the Hittites, an ancient Anatolian people that established an empire around Hattusa in the 2nd millennium BCE. It combines aspects of the archaeology, history, philology, and art history of the Hittite civilisation.
Li ...
John David Hawkins initially gave two transcriptions of the Aleppo inscriptions, ''Wadasatini'' and ''Padasatini'', a later reading suggests a third possible interpretation: ''Palistin''.
The similarity between ''Palistin'' and names for the
Philistines
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, when ...
,
such as the
Ancient Egyptian ''
Peleset
The Peleset ( Egyptian: ''pwrꜣsꜣtj'') or Pulasati were one of the several ethnic groups the Sea Peoples were said to be composed of, appearing in fragmentary historical and iconographic records in ancient Egyptian from the Eastern Mediterra ...
'' and the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
פְּלִשְׁתִּים
''Plištim'', have led archaeologists Benjamin Sass, and Kay Kohlmeyer to hypothesize a connection. It has even been suggested, for instance, that the area around
Kunulua (Calno; Tell Tayinat) may even have been part of a Philistine
urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
.
Gershon Galil suggests that King David halted the Arameans’ expansion into the Land of Israel on account of his alliance with the southern Philistine kings, as well as with
Toi, king of Ḥamath (mentioned in the Bible), who is identified with Taita II, king of Palistin (the northern Sea Peoples).
According to Galil, there are now eight inscriptions recently discovered at different sites indicating that a large kingdom named Palistin existed in this area, which included the cities of Hamath, Aleppo and Carchemish.
The proposed Palistin-Philistines link remains controversial.
According to Hittitologist
Trevor Bryce
Trevor Robert Bryce (; born 1940) is an Australian Hittitologist specializing in ancient and classical Near-eastern history. He is semi-retired and lives in Brisbane.
His book, ''The Kingdom of the Hittites'', is popular among English-speaking ...
, the connection between the biblical Philistines and the kingdom of Palistin remains a hypothesis and further excavations are needed to establish such a connection.
The Shaizar and Meharde inscriptions apparently preserve the
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
''Walistin'' and there is no clear explanation for the alternation between a character signifying ''Wa-'' in the Shaizar and Meharde inscriptions and one signifying ''Pa-'' in the Aleppo inscriptions.
If it was the case – as has been proposed by some theories concerning the Sea Peoples – that they originated in the
Aegean area, there is no evidence from the
Syro-Hittite artefacts at Tell Tayinat, either pictorial nor philological, to indicate a link to known
Aegean civilizations
Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland ...
.
On the contrary, most of the discoveries at Tell Tayinat indicate a typical Luwian state. To cite two examples: firstly, the Syro-Hittite inhabitants used predominantly
red slipped burnished ware, which is totally different from the Aegean-type pottery used by the early farming inhabitants.
And secondly, the names of the kings of ''Palistin'' and the kings of the successor state of
Pattin
Pattin (also known as Pattina, Patina, Unqu and Unqi), was an ancient Luwian Syro-Hittite state at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. It was known to the Assyrians as Unqi and Aramaeans as Unqu.
It was located at the north-western coast of ...
are also Hittite,
even though there is no evidence of a direct link between Taita and the old Hittite royal house. It has since been proposed, based on material evidence and epigraphical parallels, that some Philistines did in fact settle in Kinalua, living alongside the indigenous inhabitants before assimilating into the Luwian population of what became a typical Neo-Hittite state in all but its name, which was all that remained of the Early Iron Age Sea Peoples settlers.
[Emanuel, Jeffrey P. "King Taita and His Palistin: Philstine State or Neo-Hittite Kingdom?" ''Antiguo Oriente'' 13 (2015), 11–4]
(link)
[Mark Weeden, "After the Hittites: The Kingdoms of Karkamish and Palistin in Northern Syria," ''Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies'' 56(2), 2015, 1–20, esp. 19.]
See also
*
Ancient regions of Anatolia
The following is a list of regions of Ancient Anatolia, also known as "Asia Minor," in the present day Anatolia region of Turkey in Western Asia.
Late Bronze Age regions (circa 1200 BC)
* Alasiya / Alashiya (later Cyprus in the Classical Age, ...
Citations
External links
Upper part of the Mhardeh steleLower part of the Mhardeh stele
{{Syro-Hittite states
Aramean states
Syro-Hittite states
Former kingdoms