Palà was an ancient region of Anatolia to the northwest of Hattusa at the time the Hittites took control of the land of Hatti. Its inhabitants spoke an Indo-European language called palaumnili and appear to have coexisted with the Hattians for centuries prior. They are lost to history with the advance of Kaskian peoples from the east in the early 1500s BC.
Etymology
The exonym "Palà" is always written as pa-là-a in Hittite records.Popko, M. (2008). Völker und Sprachen Altanatoliens. Germany: Harrassowitz. Google Books It appears to have been bestowed upon Palaic-speakers ("palaumnili") by the Hattians.Watkins, Calvert. (2006). "An Indo-European Linguistic Area and its Characteristics: Ancient Anatolia. Areal Diffusion as a Challenge to the Comparative Method?" Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. It may have originated from the Sumerian ba.la R. Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon (MZL), Münster (2003) denoting a trade relationship with peoples on the fringes of Sumerian territory.Vanstiphout, H. L. J. (2004). Epics of Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta. Netherlands: Brill. Due to allophone variation over time (and exposure to different language speakers), the linguist Robert S. P. Beekes determined "P/Bla" to be the correct reading of Hittite Pal.Beekes, R. S. P. (2002). "The Origin of the Etruscans." Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen,Amsterdam. Robert Beekes
Geography
The land of Palà has been localized northwest of HattusaPowell, B. B. (2012). Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization. Germany: John Wiley & Sons. beyond the northern course of the Maraššantiya.Archi, Alfonso. (2015). "Hittite Religious Landscapes." Sacred Landscapes of Hittites and Luwians: Proceedings of the International Conference in Honour of Franca Pecchioli Daddi, Florence, February 6th-8th, 2014. (2015). Italy: Firenze University Press. It bordered Tummana to the east, Kalasma to the west and Kaissiya to Mount Asharpaya toward the south.Corti, Carla. (2017). "The North: Hanhana, Hattena, Istahara, Hakpis, Nerik, Zalpuwa, Tummana, Pala and the Hulana River Land." Hittite Landscape and Geography, p.234. Netherlands, Brill, 2022. It likely corresponded in whole or in part with the classical PaphlagoniaSasson, J. M. (1995). Civilizations of the Ancient Near East: pt. 9 Language, writing, and literature. pt. 10. Visual and performing arts. pt. 11. Retrospective essays. United Kingdom: Scribner. and the classical Blaene. The primary Palaic settlement known to the Hittites may have been located at modern day Kargi.Frayne, D. R., Stuckey, J. H. (2021). A Handbook of Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East: Three Thousand Deities of Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam. United States: Penn State University Press. Its westward extent remains unknown, though Bryce believed it was situated 600 km to the east of ancient Troy.Bryce, Trevor. The Trojans & Their Neighbours, p. 140. United Kingdom, Taylor & Francis, 2006.
Origins
Palaumnili is the oldest Indo-European language of Anatolia,Mosetto, M. (2018). Origins of European Peoples: Part One: Ancient History. United States: AuthorHouse UK. the least attestedGiusfredi, F., Pisaniello, V., Matessi, A. (2023). Contacts of Languages and Peoples in the Hittite and Post-Hittite World: Volume 1, The Bronze Age and Hatti. Netherlands: Brill. and was dead or dying by the time of the Hittites.Yakubovich, Ilya. (2010). Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Division of the Humanities In Candidacy For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. Academia.edu It has been speculated that Palaic-speakers were never literate, that Hittite scribes relied upon syllabary to incorporate their traditions into the state cult and that they may have entered Anatolia as early as 3000 BC.Collins, B. J. (2007). The Hittites and Their World. United States: SBL Press. This is proximate in time to the Indo-European invasionFrangipane M. (2015). "Different types of multiethnic societies and different patterns of development and change in the prehistoric Near East." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(30), 9182–9189. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1419883112 of the Anatolian/Lesser Armenian region of Palu/PaluaÇifçi, A. (2017). The Socio-Economic Organisation of the Urartian Kingdom. Netherlands: Brill. in modern Elazığ Province, for which the Kızılırmak river would have been a natural route into AnatoliaAnatolian Studies. (2005). United Kingdom: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. northward beyond the Hattic speaking region. Linguistic analysis shows extensive interaction between the two languages, suggesting a prolonged period of contact between the two peoples.
History
The Hittite laws as early as 1650 BCFrom: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1901), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 9-11. mention Palà as one of two bordering lands (the other being Luwiya) where the people spoke a different languageGurney, O. R. (2016). The Hittites. (n.p.): Hauraki Publishing. and where "different treatment was applied when a felony over which Hatti had jurisdiction was perpetrated outside of the boundaries of the kingdom." This land existed prior to the arrival of the Hittites and was too far removed from the predominant trading networks of the Mesopotamian-centered world to have garnered much notice:
By the reign of Telipinu in the early 1500s BC the Hittites had lost most of their conquests and their kingdom had contracted to its core territories.Brandau, B., Schickert, H. (2001). Hethiter: die unbekannte Weltmacht. Germany: Piper. The Kaskians had overrun the north of Anatolia and occupied formerly controlled Hittite towns.Garstang, J. (2017). The Geography of the Hittite Empire. United Kingdom: British Institute at Ankara. Palà thereafter became something of a border territory between the Hittites and the Kaskians.Glatz, C., & Matthews, R. (2005). Anthropology of a Frontier Zone: Hittite-Kaska Relations in Late Bronze Age North-Central Anatolia. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 339, 47–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25066902 Historians have historically considered this the end of the Palaic peoples, though the area was still referred to as 'the land of Pala" as late as the reign of Muršili II (1330–1295 BCE).Essays on Anatolian Archaeology, p. 14. Germany, Harrassowitz, 1993. The recently discovered Kalašma language may indicate a continuation of Palaic peoples further west.
Religion
The Palaic religion is known from cuneiform ritual texts from the temple of the Palaic storm god in the Hittite capital Ḫattuša where the cult of Palaic deities continued even when contacts between Hittites and Pala had disappeared. The following deities are known:Piotr Taracha: Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia. Wiesbaden 2009, p. 58-59.
Name Gender/Number Notes Alternative Names Hittite or Luwian counterpart Ziparwa god Palaic major god, storm god Zaparwa, name of Hattian origin Tarḫuna, Tarḫunt Kataḫzipuri goddess wife of Zaparwa Kataḫziwuri, name of Hattian origin Kamrušepa Tiyaz god sun god Tiyad Sun god of Heaven, Tiwaz Gulzannikeš goddesses fate goddesses Gulzikannikeš Daraweš Gulšeš Ḫašamili god Ḫašammili, name of Hattian origin Inar goddess Kamama god Kammamma Hearth deity hearth deity Šaušḫalla deity Šaušḫilla Ḫilanzipa deity Ḫilašši Ḫašauwanza deity Aššanuwant deity Aššiyat Ilaliyantikeš deities Ilaliyant Kuwanšeš deities Uliliyantikeš deities Uliliyašši
References