Video essay·Wanax TV·2021
Achaean Expedition to Cyprus and the Indictment of Madduwatta (1400-1370 BC)
Chapters
About the video
This video essay from Wanax TV reconstructs diplomatic and military conflicts in western Anatolia and Cyprus between 1400 and 1370 BCE, drawing on the Hittite text known as the Indictment of Madduwatta. The first two thirds of the video trace how the western Anatolian warlord Madduwatta (also called Madyattes in the narration), nominally a vassal of the Hittite Empire under King Arnuwanda, took over Arzawa and neighbouring lands while aligning himself with the Achaeans led by Atreus.
From 0:09:28 the video turns to Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age, identifying the island with the kingdom of Alashiya. The narrator describes Alashiya as a trading hub supplied with copper and tin, inhabited by Eteo-Cypriots and allied with Hatti, to whom Arnuwanda claimed it paid tribute. Using the coastal cities of Lukka as a naval base, Atreus launched raids on the Cypriot coast, joined by Madduwatta and other western Anatolian rulers. When Arnuwanda protested this attack on a Hittite ally, Madduwatta replied that he had not known Alashiya paid tribute to Hatti, prompting Arnuwanda to issue the Indictment of Madduwatta.
In the final section, the narrator presents an account of a larger expedition against Alashiya after Arnuwanda's death, in which an Achaean, Lycian and Arzawan fleet landed on the island, defeated an Alashiyan army marching from its capital at Enkomi on the northwestern coast, and established early 14th-century BCE trading settlements in the northwest, including the site that later became Marion.
From our collection
Pieces in the Drakopoulos collection of the kinds and periods this talk covers: Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age).
White Slip II Hemispherical Bowl with Wishbone Handle
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Cypriot Three-Handled Jar in the Mycenaean Style with Running Spirals
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Base Ring II Bilbil Juglet with White-Painted Bands
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Base Ring Bilbil Juglet with Funnel Mouth and Neck Ridge
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Base Ring II Double Juglet with White-Painted Decoration
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Base Ring II Jug with White-Painted Lattice Bands
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
White Painted VI Owl-Headed Rattle
Late Cypriot (Late Bronze Age)
Found at the places discussed
Objects in our catalogue, in museum collections, recorded as found at these sites.
Background
Where to read more on this site before or after watching.
The site
Enkomi
Enkomi is a walled Late Bronze Age town near the mouth of the Pedieos river on the bay of Famagusta, lived in from about 1650 BC until it was gradually abandoned for nearby Salamis. It was a port for Cypriot copper, and its excavations produced metal workshops, sanctuaries with bronze cult statues, rich tombs and the largest group of Cypro-Minoan inscriptions on the island.
In the compendium
Hittite Empire and Cyprus
The Late Bronze Age Anatolian empire that claimed Alashiya as a tributary but left almost no material trace on Cyprus.
In the compendium
The Mycenaeans and Cyprus
The palatial Late Bronze Age societies of mainland Greece, whose pottery flooded Cypriot coastal towns in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE.
In the compendium
Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Cyprus
The mining, smelting and casting of the Troodos sulphide ores, from hammered Chalcolithic native copper to Late Bronze Age oxhide ingots and Archaic slag heaps.
Map of Cyprus
Places discussed in the talk
- Has a page on this site
- Other places
- Ground above 200, 500, 1,000 m
Places
- 1Enkomi
- 2Marion