Tabal ( and ), later reorganised into Bīt-Burutaš () or Bīt-Paruta (), was a

Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

-speaking

Syro-Hittite The states called Neo-Hittite, Syro-Hittite (in older literature), or Luwian-Aramean (in modern scholarly works) were Luwian and Aramean regional polities of the Iron Age, situated in southeastern parts of modern Turkey and northwestern parts of m ...

state which existed in southeastern

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

in the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

Name

The name given to the kingdom by the Neo-Assyrian Empire was likely an Akkadian term meaning "bank" or "shore" of a body of water, in reference to the kingdom and region of Tabal being on the southern bank of the

Halys river Halys may refer to: * Health-adjusted life years (HALYs), a type of disability-adjusted life year which are used in attempts to quantify the burden of disease or disability in populations * Halys River, a western name for the Kızılırmak River ...

. Due to an absence of relevant Luwian inscriptions, the native name of the kingdom of Tabal is still unknown.

Usage

The kingdom of Tabal was located in a region bounded by the

, the

Taurus Mountains The Taurus Mountains (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar,'' Greek language, Greek'':'' Ταύρος) are a mountain range, mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal reg ...

, the

Konya Plain The Konya-Karaman Plain is a plain in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey, associated with the Konya and Karaman Provinces. It is a flat plain (a height of 900–1050 m) that covers the majority of Konya Basin and constitutes the main pa ...

and the

Anti-Taurus Mountains The Anti-Taurus Mountains (from ) or Aladaglar are a mountain range in southern and eastern Turkey, curving northeast from the Taurus Mountains. At , Mount Erciyes ( Turkish: Erciyes Dağı) is the highest peak not just in the range but in ce ...

, and which was occupied by a cluster of Syro-Hittite states. The

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

used the name of Tabal in a narrow sense to refer to the kingdom of Tabal and in a broader sense to designate both this larger region of which the kingdom was part of and to the other states within this region collectively. Modern scholarship therefore designates the kingdom as "Tabal proper" to distinguish it from the broader region of Tabal.

Geography

Location

The kingdom of Tabal was one of the several states located in the larger region of Tabal, and was the northernmost and largest of them: the territory of Tabal proper was bounded to the north by the Halys river and it covered the areas surrounding what is presently the city of

Kayseri Kayseri () is a large List of cities in Turkey, city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri Province, Kayseri province. Historically known as Caesarea (Mazaca), Caesarea, it has been the historical capital of Cappadocia since anc ...

in the modern Turkish provinces of

and

Niğde Niğde (; ; Hittite: Nahita, Naxita) is a city and is located in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the seat of Niğde Province and Niğde District.Sultanhan, itself in the western whereabouts of Kululu.

Neighbours

The most important neighbour of Tabal in the 8th century BCE was the kingdom of

Tuwana Tyana, earlier known as Tuwana during the Iron Age, and Tūwanuwa during the Bronze Age, was an ancient city in the Anatolian region of Cappadocia, in modern Kemerhisar, Niğde Province, Central Anatolia Region, Central Anatolia, Turkey. It wa ...

, which was located immediately to the north of the entrance to the Taurus mountains. The southern border of Tabal was formed by the Erdaş and Hodul mountains, which separated it from Tuwana.

History

Iron Age

Neo-Hittite period

=Kingdom of Tabal

= A possible but uncertain early reference to Tabal from the Late Bronze Age might have been the "Land of Tuali" () whose king was member of a coalition of 23 rulers whom the Middle Assyrian king

Tiglath-pileser I Tiglath-Pileser I (; from the Hebraic form of , "my trust is in the son of Ešarra") was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period (1114–1076 BC). According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was "one of the two or three great Assyri ...

defeated during his first campaign in

Nairi Nairi (, also ''Na-'i-ru''; ) was the Akkadian name for a region inhabited by a particular group (possibly a confederation or league) of tribal principalities in the Armenian Highlands, approximately spanning the area between modern Diyarbakır ...

. The name Tuali might have been an Akkadian form of a Luwian original name Tuwattīs which had experienced the Luwian sound shift from to . The name Tuali/Tuwattīs appears to have belonged to an ancestral king of the kingdom, whose name was then reused by the later kings of this state. Another possible but uncertain reference to Tabal might have been the prince Tuwattīs whose image was carved in the Lion Gate of Malatya.

Tabalian campaign of Shalmaneser III

The first certain mention of Tabal proper is from the records of the Neo-Assyrian king

Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 859 BC to 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campaigns against the eastern tribes, the Babylonians, the nations o ...

's () campaign of 837 BCE in the region of Tabal, which was then constituted of 24 states. During this campaign, Shalmaneser III crossed the Anti-Taurus Mountains, invaded the lands of the Tabalian king Tuwattīs I and destroyed the settlements in his kingdom, forcing the latter to flee to his capital of Artulu. Shalmaneser III then besieged Artulu, but Tuwattīs I immediately surrendered when the Neo-Assyrian army surrounded his city, and his son Kikki paid tribute to Shalmaneser III, as did the rulers of the 23 other states of the region without fighting, after which Kikki might have been installed by Shalmaneser III as the new king of Tabal. The position of Tuwattīs I in the dynastic history of Tabal is uncertain: he might have founded a new dynasty in Tabal in the 8th century BCE; or he might have alternatively been a member of an older dynasty founded by an ancestor of his. The kings of the region of Tabal offered tribute to Shalmaneser III again in 836 BCE, after he had conquered the fortress of Uetaš during campaign in

Melid Arslantepe, also known as Melid, was an ancient city on the Tohma River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates rising in the Taurus Mountains. It has been identified with the modern archaeological site of Arslantepe near Malatya, Turkey. It was na ...

. During the century following the campaign of Shalmaneser III, the kingdom of Tabal had absorbed several of the nearby small states in the Tabalian region, likely through aggressive expansionism, to grow into the largest, and northernmost, of its six main kingdoms, with the others being

Atuna Atuna may refer to: * Atuna (genus), a genus of flowering plants from the family Chrysobalanaceae. * Atuna (state) Atuna () or Tuna () was a Luwian language, Luwian-speaking Syro-Hittite states, Syro-Hittite state which existed in the Tabal (regi ...

Ištuanda Ištuanda () or Ištunda () was a Luwian-speaking Syro-Hittite state which existed in the region of Tabal in southeastern Anatolia in the Iron Age. Geography Ištuanda was located in northern Cappadocia, in the northwestern part of the Tabalian ...

Ḫubišna Cybistra or Kybistra, earlier known as Ḫubišna, was a town of ancient Cappadocia or Cilicia. The main city of Kybistra/Ḫubišna was located at the site corresponding to present-day , about 10 km northeast of the modern town of Ereğ ...

, and

Šinuḫtu Šinuḫtu ( and ) was a Luwian-speaking Syro-Hittite state which existed in the region of Tabal in southeastern Anatolia in the Iron Age. Geography Location Šinuḫtu was located on the site of what is now Aksaray in Turkey, immediately to th ...

Submission to Urartu

Around , Tabal had submitted to the Urartian king

Argišti I Argišti I, was the sixth known monarch, king of Urartu, reigning from 786 BC to 764 BC. He founded the citadel of Erebuni Fortress, Erebuni in 782 BC, which is the present capital of Armenia, Yerevan. Alternate transliterations of the name include ...

and paid tribute to him. Argišti I's annals recording this event referred to Tabal as , which has been variously interpreted as meaning: *"land of the sons (descendants) of Tuate (Tuwattīs)" (); *or "land belonging to Tuate (Tuwattīs)" (); *or "the one of Tuate, the land." This mention of Tabal in the Urartian records suggests that Tabal held some importance in Central Anatolia.

Submission to the Neo-Assyrian Empire

By , the Tabalian region, including Tabal proper, had become a tributary of the Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (), either after his conquest of Arpad over the course of 743 to 740 BC caused the states of the Tabalian region to submit to him, or possibly as a result of a campaign of Tiglath-pileser III in Tabal. In the middle of the 8th century BCE, Tabal was ruled by the king Tuwattīs II, who might have been a descendant of Kikki. Some time before 738 BC, Tuwattīs II, along with the kings

Warpalawas II Warpalawas II () was a Luwian king of the Syro-Hittite kingdom of Tuwana in the region of Tabal who reigned during the late 8th century BC, from around to . Name Etymology The Luwian name was pronounced and was derived by adding the adjecti ...

of Tuwana and Ašḫiti of Atuna, offered tribute to Tiglath-pileser III; Tabal's tribute to the Neo-Assyrian Empire at this time consisted of horses, oxen and sheep.

Regional hegemony

Several inscriptions by people referring to themselves as servants of Tuwattīs II found to the north-east of the region around Kululu and Sultanhan, and a lead strip mentioning a "Lord Tuwattīs" to the north of the Halys river, suggest that Tabal was during this time using one of these two locations as a base for consolidating its power in northwestern Cappadocia. Thus, Tuwattīs II, and possibly his son Wasusarmas after him, had interests in the region to the north of the Halys river, and the region to the north of the Halys river might itself have been ruled by either Tabal directly or by a vassal of Tuwattīs II named Muwatalis. One sub-kingdom within the territory of Tabal was ruled by a man named Ruwas who styled himself as the "servant of Tuwattīs" on several stelae erected in the Tabalian capital. This Ruwas described himself as the "lord-house" (, ) of his overlords and styled himself as "the sun-blessed one" (, ) which were titles used by caretaker rulers who were in the service of great rulers. Tuwattīs II was succeeded by his son,

Wasusarmas Wasusarmas () was a Luwians, Luwian king of the Syro-Hittite states, Syro-Hittite kingdom of Tabal (state), Tabal proper in the Tabal (region), broader Tabalian region who reigned during the mid-8th century BC, from around to . Name Pronunciat ...

, who was also a tribute-paying vassal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Wasusarmas regarded himself as the local hegemon of the Tabalian region, and he styled himself using the prestigious titles of "Great King" () and "Hero" (). Along with the revival of this title by the possibly contemporary king

Ḫartapus Ḫartapus or Kartapus was an Anatolian king who in the early 8th century BCE ruled a state in what is presently the region of Konya in modern Turkey. Name The name of this king was variously written as: *Ḫartapus: ** ** ** *and Kartapus: Et ...

who ruled a state further to the west, this was the first time that a Luwian ruler had adopted these imperial Hittite titles after the end of their use by the rulers of Karkamiš in the 10th century BC. Wasusarmas's use of these titles for himself and his father appears to have been significant enough that the various rulers of the Tabalian region either identified or rejected it, and some other Tabalian rulers, such as

of Tuwana and Kiyakiyas of

, might possibly have been his vassals. Thanks to the renewed interest of powers like the Neo-Assyrian into the Tabalian region at this time, Wasusarmas was able to build his kingdom into a powerful and influential state: Wasusarmas's expansionist ventures brought him into conflict with a coalition of eight enemy rulers attempting to encroach on the Tabalian region that was led by the king of

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

or by king Ḫartapus in the Konya-Karaman Plains, and which Wasusarmas claimed to have defeated with the help of the kings Warpalawas II of Tuwana, Kiyakiyas of Šinuḫtu, and the otherwise unknown king Ruwandas. This victory allowed Wasusarmas to expand his borders to the west.

Deposition of Wasusarmas

Despite being a Neo-Assyrian tributary, Wasusarmas continued using the titles of "Great King" and "Hero"; since the Neo-Assyrian Empire sought to prevent local rulers from becoming too powerful, Tiglath-pileser III accused Wasusarmas of acting as his equal, in consequence of which he deposed him around to and replaced him as king of Tabal with a man named Ḫulliyas. The deposition of Wasusarmas resulted in a power vacuum in the Tabalian region, and no subsequent ruler from the Tabalian region claimed the title of "Great King" again after him. The identity of Ḫulliyas is still uncertain: although Neo-Assyrian sources referred to him as a commoner, he might have instead been the same individual as Ḫulis the nephew of Ruwas, the vassal of Tuwattīs II, who had erected a stele in his uncle's honour in the Tabalian capital of Artulu, or alternatively he could have been of northern Syrian origin. The deposition of Wasusarmas and his replacement by Ḫulliyas did not solve the problems which Neo-Assyrian power was facing in Tabal, and Neo-Assyrian policy in the Tabalian region throughout the 8th century BCE would continue being characterised by an inability to find any compatible partners there. Thus, in 726 BCE Tiglath-pileser III's son and successor,

Shalmaneser V Shalmaneser V (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Salmānu is foremost"; Biblical Hebrew: ) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 727 BC to his deposition and death in 722 BC. Though Shalmaneser V's brief reign is poorly known from conte ...

(), deported Ḫulliyas along with his whole family to Assyria, possibly because Ḫulliyas had conspired with Phrygia. The situation of Tabal during the exile of Ḫulliyas is unknown, although the deportation of its king likely to have resulted in the leadership vacuum there. Alternatively, another Tuwattīs, possibly a son of Wasusarmas II, might have been installed on the throne of Tabal after the deportation of Ḫulliyas. Meanwhile, the kingdom of Atuna appears to have benefited from the deportation of Ḫulliyas, with the power vacuum in Tabal proper having allowed it to become a local power in the Tabalian region.

Between Phrygia and Assyria

Following the union of the

Phrygians The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term t ...

and the

Muški The Mushki (sometimes transliterated as Muški) were an Iron Age people of Anatolia who appear in sources from Assyria but not from the Hittites. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi (Μόσχοι) of Greek sources and the Geor ...

under the Phrygian king

Midas Midas (; ) was a king of Phrygia with whom many myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house. His father was Gordias, and his mother was Cybele. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek m ...

, his kingdom became a major rival to Neo-Assyrian power in eastern Anatolia, and the region of Tabal became contested between the Neo-Assyrian and Phrygian empires. Midas tried to convince the still independent local rulers of Tabal to switch their allegiances to Phrygia, and several of them accepted his offer. Shalmaneser V's successor,

Sargon II Sargon II (, meaning "the faithful king" or "the legitimate king") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 722 BC to his death in battle in 705. Probably the son of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727), Sargon is generally believed to have be ...

(), reacted by restoring Neo-Assyrian power in the Tabalian region, from where deported the rebellious rulers to Assyria and gave their cities to rulers who had remained loyal to him, and settled Assyrians and other foreigners in Tabal.

Kingdom of Bīt-Burutaš

Sargon II's main preoccupation regarding the region of Tabal was to secure the whole of it from Phrygian attacks from the north-west, and, fearing that the void left in the leadership of Tabal would worsen the threat posed by Phrygia and Urartu to Neo-Assyrian interests in Anatolia, in 721 BC he restored Ḫulliyas to Tabal's throne after returning him and his family back there. Thus, the Neo-Assyrian Empire had to navigate a situation where it sought to prevent local rulers from becoming too powerful while also preventing chaos which could allow other powers to become influential there or where Neo-Assyrian power would have no partners in the region. This restoration of Ḫulliyas on the throne of Tabal might itself have been linked to the power struggle within the Neo-Assyrian Empire which led to Sargon II seizing power from Shalmaneser V. It is possible that the tradition of Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions in the kingdom of Tabal might have ended with the appointment of Ḫulliyas, whose deportation to Assyria before his restoration as well as the re-education of his son at the Neo-Assyrian court might have distanced him from the Syro-Hittite cultural traditions. By this time, Tabal's western borders had expanded so as to reach the region of modern

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

and its southern borders extended to the northern border of the country of

Ḫilakku Ḫilakku (), later known as Pirindu ( and ), was a Luwian-speaking Syro-Hittite state which existed in southeastern Anatolia in the Iron Age. Name Ḫilakku The native name of this kingdom is still unknown due to a lack of Hieroglyphic Luwian i ...

. Sargon II soon appointed Ḫulliyas's son Ambaris as his successor to the kingship of Tabal: Ambaris had himself been re-educated in Assyria during his family's exile there, and his pledges of loyalty had convinced Sargon II that Ambaris could be trusted and be placed on the throne of Tabal. Additionally, Sargon II desperately tried to ensure the loyalty of Ambaris and augment his position above those of the other Tabalian kings by marrying him to his own daughter, Aḫat-abiša, and gave them Ḫilakku as dowry. However, since Ḫilakku itself had remained mostly independent of Neo-Assyrian authority, it is unlikely that Ambaris ever held any concrete power there. Sargon II's conferring of authority over Ḫilakku to him appears to have instead been due to the unavailabiliy of any other land that he could offer Ambaris after he had given the northwestern part of Wasusarmas's kingdom, corresponding to the region of present-day Suvasa, Topada and Göstesin, to Kurdis of Atuna when he had handed over the territory of Šinuḫtu to him in 718 BC after he had repressed the rebellion of its king Kiyakiyas. Sargon II himself claimed to have "widened the land" which he had given to Ambaris, and this new enlarged and reorganised kingdom of Tabal was given the new name of Bīt-Burutaš: this reorganisation was part of Sargon II's attempt to establish a centralised authority in the region of Tabal in the form of a single united kingdom incorporating most of the region under a ruler whom he could trust so as to more efficiently impose Neo-Assyrian authority there and better contain the threat posed by the Phrygian king Midas to Neo-Assyrian power in Anatolia. Thus, by reorganising Tabal as Bīt-Burutaš and appointing Ambaris as its king, Sargon II was trying to reinforce Neo-Assyrian authority in the Tabalian region against Phrygian expansionism and attempting to restore Neo-Assyrian control there. However, likely beginning in 714 BC, Ambaris came under pressure from Midas, who attempted to persuade him to renounce Neo-Assyrian allegiance and join him, initially through diplomatic means and later through military threats. Since Ambaris had been educated at the Assyrian court along with Neo-Assyrian princes, it is possible that his experience had instilled in him a significant sense of Assyrian identity, and he might therefore have possibly not have continued the local monumental traditions of the Tabalian region. Ambaris himself came under pressure from Midas, who attempted to persuade him to renounce Neo-Assyrian allegiance and join him, initially through diplomatic means and later through military threats. Because Phrygia directly bordered Bīt-Burutaš in the south-east, and Ambaris was not capable of efficiently defending his new kingdom against the Phrygian armies who were able to rapidly march to his cities, he therefore found himself forced to make the difficult decision of remaining loyal to Sargon II and lose his kingdom and throne to Phrygia and Urartu, or allying with these latter rivals of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and face a military response by Sargon II. With Sargon II occupied by his campaign in Urartu in 714 BC, Ambaris was left with no significant military support from the Neo-Assyrian Empire with which he could have defended Bīt-Burutaš, and therefore had little choice but to accept an alliance with Phrygia and renounce his allegiance to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Despite Sargon II having successfully attacked and defeated Urartu in 714 BC, the new Urartian king Argišti II continued the attempts to expand Urartian influence on the Neo-Assyrian vassals, especially those to the west of the Euphrates, on the Anatolian plateau and the south-east coast of Anatolia. Thus, both Phrygia and Urartu were trying to expand their power in these regions and challenge the sole supremacy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire there. Facing increased pressure from both of these powers, Ambaris communicated with them seeking guarantees that they would protect him should he break his ties with the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Annexation by the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Neo-Assyrian intelligence however intercepted Ambaris's messages to Phrygia and Urartu, causing him to lose favour with Sargon II, who accused him of conspiring with Phrygia and

Urartu Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom centered around the Armenian highlands between Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Lake Sevan. The territory of the ancient kingdom of Urartu extended over the modern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia.Kleiss, Wo ...

, and consequently deported Ambaris, his family and his chief courtiers to Assyria in 713 BCE. Following the deportation of Ambaris, Bīt-Burutaš was annexed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire and made into a province, and Sargon II appointed the eunuch Aššur-šarru-uṣur as governor of Que based in

Ḫiyawa Ḫiyawa () or Adanawa () was a Luwian-speaking Syro-Hittite state which existed in southeastern Anatolia in the Iron Age. Name The native Luwian name of the kingdom was (), which bears a strong similarity to the name () used to refer to the ...

who also held authority on Hilakku and Bīt-Burutaš and had general oversight on Tuwana. Thus, Bīt-Burutaš and Ḫilakku were placed under the administration of a Neo-Assyrian governor and were settled by people deported from other regions newly conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, putting Tabal under direct Assyrian rule. Sargon II also handed over part of the territory of Bīt-Burutaš to Warpalawas II of Tuwana, who had remained a loyal subject of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and had now become a token ruler under the authority of Aššur-šarru-uṣur. Some fortifications in Tabal, along the tops of the Kulmaç hills and over a hill to the north-west of what is presently Topada might have been built in connection to the annexation of Bīt-Burutaš. The annexation of Bīt-Burutaš and the deportation of Ambaris was impactful enough that it was able to convince the king Kurdis of Atuna, who had abandoned his allegiance to the Neo-Assyrian Empire and become a vassal of Midas, to submit to Sargon II again. However, around , Atuna and Ištuanda launched a joint attack on the cities of Bīt-Burutaš, although it is unknown whether Kurdis was still the king of Atuna by then. The hostilities between the Neo-Assyrian and Phrygian empires soon came to and end by 710-709 BC, which in turn provided to Sargon II the opportunity to consolidate Neo-Assyrian rule over Anatolia, and especially the kingdoms of Tabal.

End

In 705 BCE, Sargon II campaigned against the

Cimmerians The Cimmerians were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, equestrian nomadic people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into W ...

in Tabal but he died in battle against one Gurdî of Kulummu, ending Neo-Assyrian direct rule there, with the Tabalian region consequently becoming independent again while also becoming destabilised and vulnerable to the attacks of the Cimmerians. With Sargon II's death, Bīt-Burutaš suddenly disappeared from Neo-Assyrian sources. And, after this, the Neo-Assyrian Empire stopped intervening in Anatolia while direct presence of Neo-Assyrian officials and military in Central Anatolia ceased being attested. And after Sargon II's son and successor, Sennacherib, had attacked Gurdî at Til-Garimmu but failed to capture him, the Neo-Assyrian Empire instead became limited to protecting its newly reduced borders running from Que to Melid to Ḫarran.

Aftermath

The subsequent fate of Tabal/Bīt-Burutaš is unclear, although, by the time that Sennacherib had been succeeded by his son Esarhaddon, the whole Tabalian region reappeared as a single kingdom under the reign of rulers such as Iškallû and Mugallu who were independent of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, suggesting that Tabal had been reconstituted after the end of Neo-Assyrian rule over Anatolia. Some Georgian linguists see a connection between the

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages ( ; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian or Kartvelic languages Boeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primarily in Geor ...

and the land of Tabal, citing the name of the mentioned living on the Black Sea shores of Anatolia in the 5th century BCE by

Herodotus of Halicarnassus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histories ...

and

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; ; 355/354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian. At the age of 30, he was elected as one of the leaders of the retreating Ancient Greek mercenaries, Greek mercenaries, the Ten Thousand, who had been ...

List of rulers

* Tuwattīs I ( ;), * (

Hieroglyphic Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya ...

: or ; ), * Tuwattīs II (), * Wasusarmas (; ), * Ḫulliyas (; ), * (),

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{Ancient kingdoms in Anatolia Anatolia Ancient history of Georgia (country) Syro-Hittite states States and territories disestablished in the 8th century BC