Ebook: From the Mythical Atreus to the Ruler Attarissiya. Aegean Kingship in the Late Bronze Age through the Prism of Near Eastern Texts

Статья // In: Ein Minoer im Exil. Festschrift zum
65. Geburtstag von Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. — Bonn: Forthcoming. — Pp. 149-160.From the late 15th until the third quarter of the 13th century BC, the kings of Ahhiyawa were in a position to threaten Hittite interests in Western Anatolia. As a consequence, the Hittite kings Mursili II, Muwatalli II and Hattusili III were obliged to accord their Ahhiyawan counterparts an equal status. This was not just a means of appeasing an obtrusive neighbor, since it would be tantamount to publicly admitting Hittite military weakness. Thutmose III and Amenophis III also recognized the authority of one (or more) kings in the Aegean. The Mycenaeans got involved in the affairs of Anatolia in order to gain access to the gold and silver deposits of central West Anatolia as well as to the copper deposits of Assuwa. Finally, we may assume, at least as a working hypothesis, that, as in the case of amber, one of the trade routes for tin would have been through the Aegean.