Anitta (king)

Anitta, son of Pitḫana, reigned ca. 1740–1725 BC (middle chronology), and was a king of Kuššara, a city that has yet to be identified. He is the earliest known ruler to compose a text in the Hittite language.[2]

Anitta
Bronze dagger of king Anitta
Born
Anitta
PredecessorPitḫana
ParentPitḫana[1]
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His high official, or rabi simmiltim, was named Peruwa.[3]

Biography

Anitta, according to the middle chronology, reigned c. 1740–1725 BC,[4] or alternatively c. 1730-1715 BC (low middle chronology), and is the author of the Anitta text (CTH 1.A, edited in StBoT 18, 1974),[5] the oldest known text in the Hittite language,[6] also classified as "cushion-shaped" tablet KBo 3.22,[7][8] being the oldest known text in an Indo-European language altogether. Also known as Deeds of Anitta, it is considered by Alfonso Archi as originally written in Akkadian language and Old Assyrian script, at the time Anitta ruled from Kanesh, when Assur colonies were still in Anatolia.[9] This text seems to represent a cuneiform record of Anitta's inscriptions at Kanesh too, perhaps compiled by Hattusili I, one of the earliest Hittite kings of Hattusa.

The Anitta text indicates that Anitta's father conquered Neša (Kanesh, Kültepe), which became an important city within the kingdom of Kuššara.[10] During his own reign, Anitta defeated Huzziya, the last recorded king of Zalpuwa, and the Hattic king Piyusti and then conquered his capital at the site of the future Hittite capital of Hattusa. He then destroyed the city, sowed the ground with weeds,[11] and laid a curse on the site.[12]

Anitta's name appears on an inscription on a dagger found in Kültepe and also, together with the name of his father, on various Kültepe texts, as well as in later Hittite tradition.

See also

Notes
  1. "Reign of Anitta", Hittites
  2. Gonnet-Bağana, Hatice, (2015). "Anitta, CTH 1-30 (Proclamation of Anitta of Kussar) - CTH 1", Koc Universitesi Digital Collections.
  3. Klaas R Veenhof (2008). Mesopotamia: The Old Assyrian Period. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 145.
  4. Kloekhorst, Alwin, (2020). "The Authorship of the Old Hittite Palace Chronicle (CTH 8): A Case for Anitta", in Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Volume 72 (2020).
  5. Didact, DE: Uni. Frankfurt.
  6. Gonnet-Bağana, Hatice, (2015). "Anitta, CTH 1-30 (Proclamation of Anitta of Kussar) - CTH 1", Koc Universitesi Digital Collections: "...Analytical commentary on the Anitta text (CTH 1.A, edited in StBoT 18, 1974), earliest genuinely historical text found at Boğazköy and oldest known text in the Hittite language. Its authorship is attributed to Anitta, son of Pithana and a king of Kussara...whose name appears on an inscription on a dagger found in Kültepe. Emmanuel Laroche classifies this tablet in the category of historical texts prior to the imperial period (Catalogue des textes Hittites, No. 1)..."
  7. Kloekhorst, Alwin, and Willemijn Waal, (2019). "A Hittite scribal tradition predating the tablet collections of Ḫattuša?: The origin of the ‘cushion-shaped’ tablets KBo 3.22, KBo 17.21+, KBo 22.1, and KBo 22.2.", in: Zeitschrift Für Assyriologie Und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, 109(2), p. 190: "...KBo 3.22 (the Anitta-text, CTH 1)..."
  8. Yakubovich, Ilya, (2017). "The Luwian Title of the Great King", in: Hittitology Today: "...Finally the Deeds of Anitta in the Hittite language also refer to him once as LUGAL.GAL (KBo 3.22 obv. 41)..."
  9. Rieken, Elisabeth, and Ilia Yakubovich, (2023). "Encounters between Scripts in Bronze Age Asia Minor", in: Seen Not Herad, Ilona Zsolnay (ed.), pp. 205-235, p. 207: "...Archi (2015) plausibly argues that this text [Deeds of Anitta] was originalllly composed in the Akkadian language and written down in the Old Assyrian script during the time when Anitta, a king of local Anatolian origin ruled Kanesh/Nesa while the Assurite trading colonies were still operating in Anatolia."
  10. Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Ancient Near East, Volume I. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 226–27. ISBN 0-415-16763-9.
  11. S. P. B. Durnford, J. R. Akeroyd: Anatolian marashanha and the many uses of Fennel. In: Anatolian Studies. London 55.2005, 1-13. ISSN 0066-1546
  12. William James Hamblin (2006). Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC. Routledge. p. 293..
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