page_title: Attarsiya
section_title: Anatolia
hierarchical_section_title: Attarsiya / Military campaigns / Anatolia
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Eberzahnhelm, Archäologisches Museum Iraklion English: Boar tusk helmet, Archaeological Museum of Herakleion Français&#160;: Casque en défenses de sanglier. Musée archéologique d'Héraklion. Ce casque, daté de 1450 à 1400 av. J.-C., est originaire de Cnossos.
context_page_description: Attarsiya was a 15th–14th century BCE military leader of Ahhiya. In the Hittite archives of circa 1400 BCE, he is described as a "man of Ahhiya", a country identified with the Achaeans and Mycenaean Greece. The campaigns of Attarsiya, as well as his conflict with the Hittite vassal, Madduwatta, represent the first recorded Mycenaean Greek military activity on the Anatolian mainland, as well as the first conflict between Achaeans and Hittites. He finally withdrew from Anatolia after Hittite intervention, but later launched a campaign against Alashiya.
  Contemporary Hittite accounts about the campaigns of Attarsiya and the Ahhiya in general may indicate that there was a possible Mycenaean empire centered on late Bronze Age Greece. Moreover, Attarsiya might be a possible Hittite reconstruction of the Greek name Atreus, a king of Mycenae according to Greek mythology.
context_section_description: The Hittite archives of circa 1400 BCE, during the reign of Arnuwanda I, describe the military campaign of Attarsiya in southwest Anatolia, probably in the region of Lycia. The Achaean expedition in Anatolia is associated with increased Mycenaean findings in Milet during this period (early 14th century BCE), indicating that a number of Greek people moved from mainland Greece to this region.
  Attarsiya probably used the city of Miletus, in west coast Anatolia, which was already under Achaean influence, as a military base. Attarsiya launched a campaign deploying an army that included 100 war chariots and attacked regions which were Hittite vassals, or at least under a certain decree of Hittite influence. Among them, he attacked the Hittite vassal, Madduwatta, likely a prince of the kingdom of Arzawa, and managed to expel him from his country. The latter found refuge in the court of the Hittite ruler and was installed by him as a vassal in Zipasla, somewhere in western Anatolia. Attarsiyas launched a second attack against Madduwatta and managed again to defeat him. The Hittite vassal was unable to provide any opposition and managed. As a result of Achaean military activity in the region, the Hittites dispatched an army under Kisnapli. The Indictment of Madduwatta gives a brief description of the battle:
  Kisnapli went into battle against Attarsiya 100 [chariots and ... infantry] of Attarsiya [drew up]. And they fought. One officer of Attarsiya was killed, and one officer of ours, Zidanza, was killed. Then Attasiya ... to Madduwatta, and he went off to his own land.
  The way the conflict is described, by counting only two casualties, may point that there was a duel between the nobles of the two sides. However, it is also possible that the dead among the common soldiers were not considered important to mention. Although the outcome of the battle remained unresolved, Attarsiya decided to withdraw his troops from the battlefield. After his retreat from the Anatolian mainland, Madduwatta was again installed as a Hittite vassal in the region.
caption: Boar's tusk helmets were typical of Mycenaean warfare. The campaigns of Attarsiya in Anatolia must have had a certain impact on the local population, since a depiction of a soldier wearing such a helmet was found in the Hittite capital, Hattusa.
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