Alaksandu

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Alaksandu was a ruler of the Hittite vassal state Wilusa in the 13th century BC. Chr.

He is out of a treaty known that at the excavations at Boğazkale among the clay tablets - cuneiform finds found Hittite Palace Archives, the so-called Alaksandu contract ( CTH 76 ). In him, the great king Muwattalli II (around 1294 BC to 1272 BC) recognized Alaksandu as a vassal and assured him of his protection. The treaty also states that Alaksandu is the successor of a Kukkunni king , but not whether he immediately succeeded Kukkunni to the throne. It is known from the treaty that Kukkunni did not turn against Šuppiluliuma I , the grandfather of Muwattalli II, during the Arzawa Wars , but instead regularly sent envoys to the court of Ḫattuša .

As early as the 1920s, Emil Forrer in particular had assumed that the place Taruiša, mentioned in Hittite texts, was equated with Troy and the identity of Wilusa with the city (W) Ilion, an alternative Greek name for Troy. A connection of the name Alaksandu with the Greek name Alexandros , which Homer also uses very often in the Iliad as an alternative name for the Priam's son Paris , was first considered by Daniel David Luckenbill in 1911 , while Paul Kretschmer then argued in detail in an article in 1924. The derivation of the name Alaksandu from the Greek was mainly contradicted by Ferdinand Sommer , among other things because, in his opinion, the ending - andros (man) only appeared in Greek personal names from the archaic period . Sommer considered the name Alakšandu to be rather small, while Alexandros was a Graecised form of this name and pointed out that in Homer's epics most people whose names end in -andos are non-Greeks. In the meantime, however, a Linear B tablet (My 303) has been discovered in Mycenae , on which the personal name a-re-ka-sa-da-ra (= Alexandra) is written, which is why the equation of the names Alaksandu and Alexandros has now become very popular .

literature

  • Susanne Heinhold-Krahmer : Has Ilios' identity with Wiluša been finally proven? in: Studi micenei ed egeo-anatolici. 45, 2004, pp. 29-57, especially pp. 35 ff.
  • Joachim Latacz , Frank Starke : Wilusa and the Big Four. Troy in the Political Landscape of the Late Bronze Age . In: Joachim Latacz (Ed.): Homer's Iliad. Studies on poets, works and reception (Kleine Schriften II) (= contributions to antiquity, volume 327). De Gruyter, Berlin-Boston 2014, pp. 375-400, especially pp. 384-391. ISBN 978-3-11-030619-4 . (A translation of the contract is also printed here)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joachim Latacz: Troy and Homer . The way to solve an old riddle. 6th edition. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-7338-0332-2 , The Alaksandu contract, p. 161-166 .
  2. ↑ Emil Forrer: pre-Homeric Greeks in the cuneiform texts of Boghazöi. , MDOG 63, 1924, p. 7. - online version
  3. ↑ In 1924, Forrer still misunderstood the importance of Wilusa and located it much further south. s. Forrer, ibid p. 4f.
  4. ^ Daniel David Luckenbill: A Possible Occurrence of the Name Alexander in the Boghaz-Keui Tablets. In: Classical Philology. 6, 1911, pp. 85f.
  5. ^ Paul Kretschmer : Alakšanduš, King of Viluša . In: Glotta . 13th volume. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1924, p. 205-213 , JSTOR : 40265107 .
  6. ↑ Ferdinand summer: The Aḫḫijava certificates. Treatises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Phil.-hist. Abt. NF6, Munich 1932, pp. 365-370.
  7. ↑ Entry in Paleolexicon
  8. ↑ Ernst Risch : Word formation of the Homeric language. De Gruyter, Berlin 1973, p. 227.
  9. ↑ cf. also Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier: Ḫattusa's relations to West Asia Minor and Mycenaean Greece (Aḫḫijawa). In: Gernot Wilhelm (Ed.): Ḫattuša-Boğazköy. The Hittite Empire in the field of tension of the ancient Orient. 6th International Colloquium of the German Orient Society 22. – 24. March 2006, Würzburg. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 296 f .; Wolfgang Röllig : Achaeans and Trojans in Hittite Sources? In: Ingrid Gamer-Wallert (Ed.): Troia. Bridge between Orient and Occident. Attempto, Tübingen 1992, p. 193. A little more cautious Hans Gustav Güterbock : Troy in the Hittite texts? Wilusa, Ahhiyawa, and the Hittite History. In: John Lawrence Angel: Troy and the Trojan War. A Symposium Held at Bryn Mawr College, October 1984. Bryn Mawr Commentaries, 1986, p. 33 ff .: "... Alasandus may be the Greek name Alexandros." (P. 34)
personal data
SURNAME Alaksandu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Wilusa
DATE OF BIRTH 14th century BC BC or 13th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 13th century BC Chr.