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Arzawa was a region and a political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age (late 15th century BC-beginning of 12th century BC). This name was used in contemporary Hittite records to refer either to a single "kingdom" or a federation of local powers. The core of Arzawa is believed to be along the Kaystros River (modern Küçük Menderes River), with its capital at Apasa, later known as Ephesus. When the Hittites conquered Arzawa, it was divided into three Hittite provinces: a southern province called Mira along the Maeander River; a northern province called the Seha River Land, along the Gediz River; and an eastern province called Hapalla.
It was contemporary to the Assuwa league, which also included parts of western Anatolia, but was conquered by the Hittites c. 1400 BC. Arzawa was the western neighbour and rival of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms. On the other hand, it was in close contact with the Ahhiyawa of the Hittite texts, which corresponds to the Achaeans of Mycenaean Greece. Moreover, Achaeans and Arzawa formed a coalition against the Hittites in various periods.
Name
The name Arzawa and its earlier variant Arzawiya is attested in Hittite inscriptions, firstly appearing during the reign of the Hittite king Ḫattušili I (1650–1620). Place names using the ending -iya like the earlier variant Arzawiya are considered Anatolian names.
Language
The languages spoken in Arzawa during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age cannot be directly determined due to the paucity of indigenous written sources. It was previously believed that the linguistic identity of Arzawa was predominantly Luwian, based, inter alia, on the replacement of the designation Luwiya with Arzawa in a corrupt passage of a New Hittite copy of the Laws. However, it was recently argued that Luwiya and Arzawa were two separate entities, because Luwiya is mentioned in the Hittite Laws as a part of the Hittite Old Kingdom, whereas Arzawa was independent from the Hittites during this period. The geographic identity between Luwiya and Arzawa was rejected or doubted in a variety of recent publications, although the ethnolinguistic implications of this analysis remain to be assessed. One scholar suggested that there was no significant Luwian population in Arzawa, but instead that it was predominantly inhabited by speakers of Proto-Lydian and Proto-Carian. The difference between the two approaches need not be exaggerated since the Carian language belongs to the Luwic branch of the Anatolian languages. Thus, the Luwic presence in Arzawa is universally acknowledged, but whether the elites of Arzawa were Luwian in the narrow sense remains a matter of debate.
The zenith of the kingdom was during the 15th and 14th centuries BC. The Hittites were then weakened, and Arzawa was an ally of Egypt.
Arzawa letters
Alliance with Egypt is recorded in the correspondence between the Arzawan ruler Tarhundaradu and the Pharaoh Amenophis III, which is part of the Amarna letters archive found in Egypt. Two of these letters (Nr. 31 and 32) are known as the Arzawa letters, and they played a substantial role in the decipherment of the Hittite language in which they were written.
Jorgen A. Knudtzon, a Norwegian linguist and historian, played a big role in this decipherment. In 1902, he recognized the Hittite language as Indo-European based on their study. He published further two volumes on Amarna letters in 1907 and 1915.
Max Gander (2014) analysed the clay from which the Amarna Letter EA 32 tablet was made based on the petrographical analyses that had been conducted. Three different analytical methods were used in these analyses.
According to him, the results are rather surprising. What would be expected from them, based on general opinion, is that the clay should have come somewhere from the vicinity of Ephesos, which is widely considered as core territory of the Arzawan state. But instead, they point to northern Ionia, and even into Aeolis. Specifically mentioned are the areas around the cities of Kyme (Aeolis) and/or Larissa. But this location is very close to, or even inside of the conventional location of the Seha River Land.
Accordingly, Gander suggests that Seha should be located further to the south. Thus it could be located south of Ephesus, and closer to the valley of Meander River. Such a location was generally considered in older scholarship.
As to Arzawa, Gander suggests that it could have been located closer to what was later called Lydia.