Mushki

Hattusa’s citadel boasts royal and administrative buildings, five temple complexes, and a massive defensive enclosure wall with its famous lion, sphinx, and so-called king's gates.

Hieroglyphic Luwian, often called Hieroglyphic Hittite (not yet well understood, and its pictographic script not wholly deciphered) probably represents a later stage of development of Cuneiform Luwian.

The language begins to be recorded from 1200 BCE in what are now northern Syria and south central Turkey. (Modern scholars suggest that some of the vocabulary of Hieroglyphic Luwian is preserved as loan words in classical Armenian).

It appears that by the time of the collapse of the Hittite Empire circa 1180 BCE, the Hittite king and the members of the royal family are bilingual in Luwian.

The very last king, Suppiluliuma II, manages to win some victories, including a naval battle against the Sea Peoples off the coast of Cyprus, but these efforts prove too little and too late.

The Sea Peoples have already begun their push down the Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean, and continuing all the way to Philistia—taking Cilicia and Cyprus away from the Hittites en route and cutting off their coveted trade routes.

This leaves the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, Hattusa is burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BCE following a combined onslaught from Kaskas and Bryges.

The Hittite Kingdom thus vanishes from historical records.

The Eastern Muski appear to have moved into Hatti in the twelfth century, completing the downfall of the collapsing Hittite state, along with various Sea Peoples.

They establish themselves in a post-Hittite kingdom in Cappadocia.

Whether the Muski moved into the core Hittite areas from the east or west has been a matter of some discussion by historians.

Some speculate that they may have originally occupied a territory in the area of Urartu; alternatively, ancient accounts suggest that they first arrived from a homeland in the west, from the region of Troy, or even from as far as Macedonia, as the Bryges.

The historical writings of Herodotus contain the earliest mentions of the Bryges.

He relates them to Phrygians by stating that, according to the Macedonians, the Bryges "changed their name" to Phryges after migrating into Anatolia, a movement that is thought to have happened between 1200 BCE and 800 BCE perhaps due to the Bronze Age collapse, particularly the fall of the Hittite Empire and the resultant power vacuum.

The Kaska, having contributed to the fall of the Hittite empire, then penetrate eastern Anatolia, and continue their thrust southwards, where they encounter the Assyrians.

Together with the Hurrians and Kaskians, the Muski invade the Assyrian provinces of Alzi and Puruhuzzi in about 1160, but they are pushed back and defeated, along with the Kaskas, by Tiglath-Pileser I in 1115 BCE, who until 1110 advances as far as Milid.

The Kaska then disappear from all historical records.

Repulsed by the Assyrians, a subdivision of the Kaska might have passed northeastwards to the Caucasus, where they probably blended with the proto-Colchian or Laz autochthons, forming a polity that was known as the Qulhi to the Urartians and later as the Colchi of the Greeks.

Another branch might have established a polity in Cappadocia that will become a vassal of Assyria in the eighth century BCE.

The "Mushki," as the Assyrian records refer to them (they are perhaps ancestral to the later Phrygians), who may originally have occupied a territory in the area of Urartu, 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.

A large force of Mushli, allied with the Hurrians and Kaskas, invade Assyria’s western provinces of Alzi and Puruhuzzi in about 1160.

In reaction, Assyrian armies react by seeking to move into southeastern Anatolia. (The Mushki do not appear in Hittite records. Several authors have connected them with the Moschoi of Greek sources and the Georgian tribe of the Meskhi. Josephus Flavius identified the Moschoi with the Biblical Meshech.)

Assyrian power has declined since the death of Tukulti-Ninurta I around 1208 BCE, but is to be restored briefly in the eleventh century BCE by Tiglath-pileser I, the son of Ashur-resh-ishi I, who ascends the Assyrian throne in 1115 BCE at a time when a people known as the Mushki, or Mushku, are thrusting into Asia Minor (now Turkey).

Their invasion constitutes a serious threat to Middle Eastern civilization because Asia Minor is the principal source of iron, which was now coming into general use.

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.

The Phrygian kingdom, with its capital at Gordium in the upper Sakarya River valley, has expanded during the eighth century BCE into an empire dominating most of central and western Anatolia and encroaching upon the larger Assyrian Empire to its southeast and the kingdom of Urartu to the northeast.

A distinctive Phrygian pottery called Polished Ware appears, and a system of writing in the Phrygian language develops and flourishes in Gordium, using a Phoenician-derived alphabet similar to the Greek one.

The powerful kingdom founded by the Phrygians is to last until the Lydian ascendancy in the early seventh century BCE.

Under kings alternately named Gordias and Midas, the independent Phrygian kingdom maintains close trade contacts with her neighbors in the east and the Greeks in the west.

Phrygia seems to have been able to coexist with whatever power is dominant in eastern Anatolia at the time.

The Assyrians had detached the eastern part of the Phrygian confederation by about 730, and the locus of power has shifted to Phrygia proper.

According to the classical historians Strabo Eusebius and Julius Africanus, the king of Phrygia during this time was another Midas.

This historical Midas is believed to be the same person named as Mita in Assyrian texts from the period and identified as king of the Mushki.

Scholars figure that Assyrians called Phrygians "Mushki" because the Phrygians and Mushki, an eastern Anatolian people, were at that time campaigning in a joint army.

This Midas is thought to have reigned Phrygia at the peak of its power from about 720 BCE to about 695 BCE (according to Eusebius) or 676 BCE (according to Julius Africanus).

In 716, Sargon of Assyria suppresses a rebellion in Cilicia fomented by Mita; an Assyrian inscription mentioning "Mita" as an ally, dated to 709 BCE, suggests Phrygia and Assyria had struck a truce by that time.

This Midas appears to have had good relations and close trade ties with the Greeks, and reputedly married an Aeolian Greek princess.