الصراع على العرش الحثي و وصول حاتوشيلي الثالث (1267-1237 ق. م)‎ إلى سدة الحكم

Abstract EN

the time of Muwattalli’s death, perhaps shortly after these events, Hattusili’s status and influence, and the powers accorded him, must have set him far above all others amongst the king’s subjects.

Not without good reason.

He had played an important role in Syria, he had confounded the attempts of his personal enemies to discredit him, and most importantly he had brought some measure of peace and stability to the northern regions of the kingdom.

Thus when the king died without leaving a male heir of the first rank, he might have been sorely tempted to claim the throne for himself.

a reasonably harmonious relationship between Urhi-Teshub and his uncle eventually turned sour.

Unfortunately, we have only Hattusili’s version of the reasons for this, a version which predictably assigns all blame to Urhi-Teshub.According to Hattusili, his nephew’s jealousy was the chief cause of the increasing hostility between them: ‘When Urhi-Teshub saw the goddess’s goodwill towards me, he envied me and sought to do me harm.

He took away from me all my subjects.

Further, he took away from me all the depopulated lands which I had resettled and made me weak’ In actual fact, Urhi-Teshub probably had good reason for distrusting his uncle, to the point where he was forced to strip him of much of his power.

There was no denying the substantial contributions Hattusili The Ill-Fated Reign of the Second-Rank Son had made to the kingdom, particularly in strengthening the northern regions against enemy attack, and recapturing and resettling areas which had long been under enemy control and occupation.

Further, in the early days of Urhi-Teshub’s reign one of Hattusili’s crowning achievements had been the reoccupation and rebuilding of the holy city of Nerik, which had been captured and sacked by the Kaskans during the reign of Hantili II some 200 years earlier, and left in ruins since that time.

ended in a decisive defeat for Urhi-Teshub.

He had managed to reach Samuha, where he established his base.

But Hattusili placed the city under siege, and eventually forcing his surrender.

Urhi-Teshub had left Hattusa as the king of the Hittite realm.

He now suVered the ignominy of returning to the city as his uncle’s prisoner, probably only a few years after he had assumed the royal power.He was formally deposed, and his uncle seized the throne.