Tyana

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, Turkey.

It was the capital of a Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom in the 1st millennium BC.

Name

The name of the city was Tūwanuwa (𒌷𒌅𒌋𒉿𒉡𒉿) during the Hittite Empire, and Tuwana (𔑢𔗬𔐤𔔂‎) in the Luwian language during the Neo-Hittite period. From the Luwian name Tuwana were derived:

the Neo-Assyrian Akkadian name of the city, Tuḫana (𒆳𒌅𒄩𒈾, 𒌷𒌅𒄩𒈾, 𒆳𒌓𒄩𒈾),

the Phoenician name of the city, twn (𐤕𐤅𐤍‎),

and the Ancient Greek name of the city, Tuana (Ancient Greek: Τύανα; Latin: Tyana).

Location

The location of the Hittite Tūwanuwa/Neo-Hittite Tuwana/Classical Tyana corresponds to the modern-day town of Kemerhisar in Niğde Province, Turkey.

Surroundings

The region around Tyana, which corresponded to roughly the same area as the former Iron Age kingdom of Tuwana, was known in Classical Antiquity as Tyanitis. This region was surrounded to the south and southwest by the Taurus Mountains.

History

According to later Hittite sources, Tūwanuwa was an important cult centre, and its local pantheon was headed by the Storm-god Tarḫunzas of Tūwanuwa and his consort, the goddess Šaḫḫaššara of Tūwanuwa.

Bronze Age

The city of Tūwanuwa was first mentioned in the texts of the Hittite Empire, as a city located in southeastern Anatolia, in the northern regions of the Lower Land. According to the Telipinu Proclamation, Tūwanuwa was part of the territories that the 17th century BC founder-king of the Hittite Old Empire, Labarna I, had conquered and which his sons divided among each other and established their rule there.

During the reign of the Hittite Middle Empire's king Tudhaliya III, the cities of Tūwanuwa and Uda had become border towns of the forces of Arzawa after it had invaded the Lower Land. Tūwanuwa itself was attacked by Arzawa, and Hittite records of this development associated Tūwanuwa with the town of Tupazziya and Mount Ammuna. Hittite descriptions of the city suggest that Tūwanuwa itself might have been located on a hill or a mountain at this time.

The prince Suppiluliuma fought a battle against the Arzawan forces near Tūwanuwa and recaptured Tūwanuwa, which then became a base from which the Hittite forces reconquered the Lower Land from Arzawa.

Several Hittite texts associated Tūwanuwa with the cities of Nenašša and Ḫupišna, attesting that they were located close to each other. The city of Purušḫattum was also located close to Tūwanuwa.

Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Tuwana

After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, Tūwanuwa became the centre of the Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite state of Tuwana in the region of Tabal, in whose southernmost regions it was located.

Location

The kingdom of Tuwana was located in southern Cappadocia and covered the territory located in the present-day province of Niğde in Turkey, lying to the east of the Konya Plain and the Obruk Plateau across Lake Tuz and the Melendiz Mountains until the Hasandağ volcano to the north, where the Erdaş and Hodul mountains formed its northern boundary by separating it from the kingdom of Tabal, while to the south it extended to the south until the Cilician Gates so that Tuwana was the first area travellers would reach after leaving Ḫiyawa to the north by passing through the Cilician Gates to cross the Taurus Mountains, and a stele bearing Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician inscriptions from İvriz testifies that Tuwana entertained close connections with Ḫiyawa to its south.

Tuwana thus corresponded to the region which later in Classical Antiquity was called Tyanitis.

Tuwana was therefore located in the southern Tabalian region, of which it was the largest and most prominent kingdom, with its territory consisting of several settlements surrounding the royal capital at the city of Tuwana, although the city of Naḫitiya (modern Niğde; possibly Hittite period Naḫita) might have temporarily acted as capital under the reign of the king Sarruwannis. Another important settlement in Tuwana was the location known in Classical Antiquity as Tynna and presently as Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük.

By the 8th century BC, Tuwana's territory included the Mount Mudi, which was likely identical with the "alabaster mountain," Mount Mulî, which the Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III climbed and from where he extracted alabaster during his campaign in the Tabalian region in 837 BCE. The name Mulî (𒆳𒈬𒇷𒄿) was the Akkadian form of a Luwian original name Mudi (𔑿𔑣‎) which had experienced the Luwian sound shift from /d/ to /l/.

Based on the close association of the "silver mountain," Mount Tunni, with Mount Mulî in the Neo-Assyrian records, both of these mountains were located close to each other, in the northeastern end of the Bolkar and Taurus Mountains, where are presently located the silver mines of Bulgarmaden and the gypsum mine at Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük. An inscription from the silver mines in the Bolkar Mountains suggests that these metallic resources constituted an important source of income for Tuwana.

History

Tuwana might have been ruled by a single dynasty consisting of the kings Warpalawas I, followed by his son Sarruwannis, who was succeeded by his own son Muwaḫḫaranis I, himself succeeded by his son Warpalawas II, whose son and successor was Muwaḫḫaranis II.

Tuwana was spared by the Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III's invasion of the Tabalian region which he conducted in 837 BC.