Tiglath-Pileser, destined to be one of the…
1125 BCE to 1114 BCE
Tiglath-Pileser, destined to be one of the greatest of Assyrian conquerors, conducts his first campaign against the Mushki who had occupied certain Assyrian districts on the Upper Euphrates.
Known from Assyrian sources, they do not appear in Hittite records.
Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi.
Two different groups are called Muški in the Assyrian sources (Diakonoff 1984:115), one from the twelfth to ninth centuries, located near the confluence of the Arsanias and the Euphrates ("Eastern Mushki"), and the other in the eighth to seventh centuries, located in Cilicia ("Western Mushki").
Assyrian sources identify the Western Mushki with the Phrygians, while Greek sources clearly distinguish between Phrygians and Moschoi.
Originally, these "Eastern Mushki" may have occupied a territory in the area of Urartu.
They appear to have moved into Hatti in the twelfth century, completing the downfall of the collapsing Hittite state, establishing themselves in a post-Hittite kingdom in Cappadocia.
Allied with the Hurrians and Kaskas, they had invaded the Assyrian provinces of Alzi and Puruhuzzi in about 1160, but they are pushed back and defeated, along with the Kaskas, by Tiglath-Pileser in 1115 BCE.
The Kaska now disappear from all historical records.
When the Black Sea littoral returns to recorded history, it would be populated by the Armenians.
In a subsequent campaign, the Assyrian forces penetrate into the mountains south of Lake Van and then turn westward to receive the submission of Malatia.
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