Tabal () was a region which covered south-east Anatolia during the Iron Age.
Name
The native name of the region of Tabal is still unknown, although it might have been (), which is attested in inscriptions from Karkamiš. However, in the absence of native Tabalian inscriptions containing this name, this identification cannot yet be confirmed.
The origin of the name is also uncertain since it was not used for the Tabalian region in the Late Bronze Age.
Tabal As exonym Due to the absence of the name or any other name similar to it in native Central Anatolian sources of the Iron Age and the lack of its attestation to designate this area in Old and Middle Assyrian sources, this name tends to be considered by historians to have been an exonym given to the region by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
was likely an Akkadian term meaning "bank" or "shore" of a body of water, in reference to the kingdom and region of Tabal being on the southern bank of the Halys river, and was a -construct of the Akkadian verb (), meaning . The name appears to have been a widely used one, since a location sharing this name is recorded from southern Syria, and the toponym or is recorded during the period of the Akkadian Empire in the 3rd millennium BCE.
Due to this region being divided into several city states with fluid borders, the name was a regional label rather than a political one.
The name Tabal as designation for Central Anatolia is attested in the orthographies: : , , ,
, ,
, ; and : , .
The form might have been the genitive of an original form or or an absolute form of the toponym .
The adjectival form of the name was (, , and ).
Hurrian etymology hypothesis An explanation of the name of Tabal as meaning , derived from the Hurrian root or , meaning , and the professional noun-forming suffix has also been suggested. However, the proposed origin of the term, the Hurrian form () attested in the , is neither absolute nor adjectival or genitive, while "smith" in Hurrian would take the form .
Moreover, Hurrian toponyms were formed by the addition of a genitive suffix , meaning , so that "Land of the Smith" in Hurrian would be .
Additionally, the name Tabal first came into use in the 9th century BCE, by which time the Hurrian language had already become extinct.
As endonym Alternatively, the name of Tabal might have been of native Anatolian Luwian origin, and been related to the name of the Lydian town Tabala () and the Hittite mountain name (). The obscurity of the etymology of Tabala and the still unknown location of Mount Tapāla however make this proposed etymology very uncertain.
Usage The Neo-Assyrian Empire used the name of Tabal in a broad sense to refer both to the region located between the Halys river, the Taurus Mountains, the Konya-Karaman Plain, and the Anti-Taurus Mountains and to all the petty states located in this region collectively, as well as in a narrower sense to designate a specific kingdom within this region which in the 8th century was ruled by the king Wasusarmas. The name Tabal was itself initially used to designate the broader region during the reign of the Neo-Assyrian king Shalmaneser III before being later used for a specific kingdom within this region.
Modern scholarship therefore designates the kingdom of Tabal as "Tabal proper" to distinguish it from the broader region of Tabal.
In ancient sources The Neo-Assyrian exonym Tabal was used to describe a region which was politically divided into multiple petty states:
In the time of Shalmaneser III, Neo-Assyrian sources defined Tabal as a geographical territory in Central Anatolia to the west of Melid, and located between it and Ḫiyawa. These sources distinguished Tabal from Ḫatti, which they used to designate the northern regions of Syria situated along the Euphrates river. Similarly, Neo-Assyrian records from the reign of Sargon II again defined Tabal as a region of Central Anatolia where were located several unruly petty states, although this later conceptualisation of Tabal differed from that of Shalmaneser III's period by linking Tabal to Muški but not to Melid.
Neo-Assyrian sources differentiated Tabal from Ḫatti, with this latter name being used to refer to the part of northern Syria adjacent to the Euphrates river during the Iron Age, although Urartian sources from nonetheless referred to both Melid and Tabal as the "Hittite lands" (, ).
Geography Location The region of Tabal was located in the eastern and southeastern part of the Central Anatolian Plateau corresponding partially to the Classical region of Cappadocia and the present-day Turkish provinces of Nevşehir and Niğde, and covered the area ranging from the southern limits of Phrygia in the north to the Taurus Mountains in the south, and from the Konya Plain and the southern curve of the Halys river in the west to the Anti-Taurus Mountains in the east. Politically, the Tabalian region was bounded in the west by Phrygia, the east by Til-Garimmu, Melid and Urartu, and in the south by Ḫilakku and Ḫiyawa.
In the north, the Tabalian region might have possibly extended to the north of the Halys river, in the region which had constituted the core territory of the Hittites in the Bronze Age up to the site corresponding to present-day Alişar Hüyük, and possibly including all the territory to the east of the Halys and to the south of the Pontic Mountains. To the south, the Tabalian region also dominated the approaches of the Cilician Gates and the eastern routes into the Anatolian Plateau.
Meanwhile, the Tabalian region covered the Konya Plain to the west.
Landscape The Central Anatolian Plateau where Tabal was located was divided into basins or plains and highland pastures that constituted an ideal setting for practising seasonal pastoralism. This terrain was itself divided by mountain ridges created by tectonic folds, which in turn caused territorial divisions. This part of Anatolia was isolated, and its terrain was rugged.
Two mountains of Tabal are mentioned in Neo-Assyrian records, Mulî, which possessed significant silver deposits, and Tunni, which contained large alabaster deposits, were located in the northeastern end of the Bolkar and Taurus Mountains, where are presently located the silver mines of Bulgarmaden and the gypsum mine at Porsuk-Zeyve Höyük.
Mount Mulî was likely identical with the Mount Mudi mentioned in an inscription of a petty king named Tarḫunazzas recording that his overlord, the king Warpalawas II of Tuwana, had granted him Mount Mudi in gratitude for his service. The name Mulî was the Akkadian form of a Luwian original name Mudi which had experienced the Luwian sound shift from to .
Neighbours The neighbours of the Tabalian region were the Muški in the west across the Halys, and the Kaška in the north-east.
History The primary sources of information on the polities of the Tabalian region are: Neo-Assyrian texts such as royal annals, tribute lists and correspondence; a smaller number of Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions from the Tabalian region itself. The limited material evidence from the Tabalian region has however made it difficult to understand its political extent, organisation and sphere of influence.
Bronze Age During the Late Bronze Age, the territory which would later become known as Tabal was part of the region called the Lower Land by Hittite texts, with the Iron Age Tabal covering much of the territory of the Bronze Age Lower Land. The Lower Land had been incorporated into the Hittite Empire at an early date, and it had served as a southwestern buffer zone for the core Hittite territory.
The Tabalian region appears to not have been drastically impacted by the Late Bronze Age Collapse or the fall of the Hittite Empire, and there was no significant population movement in this period.
Iron Age The earliest kingdoms in the region of Tabal might have formed in the period immediately following the collapse of the Hittite Empire during the Bronze Age Collapse, by which time it covered most of the territory of the former Hittite Lower Land. Although archaeological evidence for the region of Tabal is very small in number during this post-Bronze Age Collapse period, there appears to have been significant continuity between its population during the Bronze Age and the succeeding Iron Age.
Early development Earlier hypotheses on the development of the Tabalian region proposed that it was constituted of "lesser developed" polities which had undergone formation through processes of secondary state formation and wealth generation by interacting with more advanced states. This led to viewing the Tabalian region as a "contested periphery," that is a peripheral area caught between great powers which in consequence underwent development by navigating the rivalries of their more powerful neighbours.
Archaeological analysis of the region has however provided evidence that developments were underway throughout post-Hittite societies during the "dark period" following the Bronze Age Collapse through which a new political structure was established. This new framework used traditional devices of power and representation from the Hittite Empire, such as the use of hieroglyphic script and the conspicuous incorporation of monumental art in palaces, elite residences, and city gates.
This period was characterised by the emergence new cultural traditions arising from limited but influential migrations, the evolution of local settlement structures and distribution and of local funerary practices, food production and consumption, textile production, and other forms of community behaviours. Thus, contrary to claims that the Neo-Hittite states owed their development to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, they were instead already economically prospering in their own right.
Tabalian campaign of Shalmaneser III With the resurgence of Assyria in the form of the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the early 9th century BCE, the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II attempted to recover former Assyrian-held territories in Syria and the north, and an alliance of Aramaean and Luwian states had opposed its expansion into Syria. One of those states' kings, Katiyas of Ḫiyawa, attempted to expand his territory at the expense of that of the kingdom of Samʾal, whose king Kilamuwa submitted to Ashurnasirpal II's successor Shalmaneser III () and appealed to him for protection, which provided Shalmaneser III with the opportunity to start campaigning in Anatolia, including in the Tabalian region, soon after the anti-Assyrian coalition disintegrated in the .
During this time, the eastern and southern borders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire were relatively secure, with Nairi having been pacified, Babylonia not constituting a threat, and Elam still weakened. This provided Shalmaneser III with a safe situation during which he could campaign further westwards than before without it threatening his empire. Thus, Shalmaneser III was able to consolidate his father's conquests before acting against the frontier states such as Ḫiyawa, Melid and the Tabalian region.