TheKaska (alsoKaška, laterTabalianKasku[1] andGasga[2]) were a loosely affiliatedBronze Age non-Indo-European[3] tribal people, who spoke the unclassifiedKaskian language and lived in mountainous EastPonticAnatolia, known fromHittite sources.[4] They lived in the mountainous region between the coreHittite region in easternAnatolia and theBlack Sea, and are cited as the reason that the laterHittite Empire never extended northward to that area. They are sometimes identified with theCaucones known from Greek records.
The Kaska, probably originating from the eastern shore of thePropontis,[5] may have displaced the speakers of thePalaic language from their homes inPala.[citation needed]
The Kaska first appear in the Hittite prayer inscriptions that date from the reign ofHantili II, c. 1450 BC, and make references to their movement into the ruins of the holy city ofNerik.[6] During the reign of Hantili's son,Tudhaliya II (c. 1430 BC), "Tudhaliya's 3rd campaign was against the Kaskas."[7] His successorArnuwanda I composed a prayer for the gods to return Nerik to the empire; he also mentionedKammama andZalpuwa as cities which he claimed had been Hittite but which were now under the Kaskas. Arnuwanda attempted to mollify some of the Kaska tribes by offering tribute.
Sometime between the reigns of Arnuwanda andSuppiluliuma I (about 1330 BC), letters found inMaşat Höyük note that locusts ate the Kaskas' grain. The hungry Kaska were able to join withHayasa-Azzi andIsuwa to the east, as well as other enemies of the Hittites, and burnHattusa, the Hittite capital, to the ground. They probably also burned the Hittites' secondary capital,Sapinuwa. Suppiluliuma's grandsonHattusili III in the mid-13th century BC wrote of the time before Tudhaliya. He said that in those days the Kaska had "madeNenassa their frontier" and that their allies in Azzi-Hayasa had done the same toSamuha.
In theAmarna letters,Amenhotep III wrote to theArzawan king Tarhunta-Radu that the "country Hattusa" was obliterated, and further askedArzawa to send him some of these Kaska people he had heard about.[8] The Hittites also enlisted subject Kaska for their armies. When the Kaska were not raiding or serving as mercenaries, they raised pigs and wove linen,[9] leaving scarcely any imprint on the permanent landscape.[10]
Tudhaliya III andSuppiluliuma I (c. 1375–1350 BC) set up their court inSamuha and invadedAzzi-Hayasa from there. The Kaska intervened, but Suppiluliuma defeated them; after Suppiluliuma had fully pacified the region, Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma were able to move on Hayasa and defeat it too, despite some devastating guerrilla tactics at their rear. Some twelve tribes of Kaska then united under a leader namedPiyapili, but Piyapili was no match for Suppiluliuma. Eventually, Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma returned Hattusa to the Hittites. But the Kaska continued to be a menace both inside and out and a constant military threat. They are said to have fielded as many as 9,000 warriors and 800 chariots.[11]
In the time of ailingArnuwanda II (around 1323 BC), the Hittites worried that the Kaskas fromIshupitta within the kingdom to Kammama without might take advantage of the plague in Hatti. The veteran commander Hannutti moved to Ishupitta, but he died there. Ishupitta then seceded from Hatti, and Arnuwanda died too. Arnuwanda's brother and successorMursili II recorded in his annals that he defeated this rebellion. Over the ongoing decades, the Kaskans were also active in Durmitta and in Tipiya, by Mount Tarikarimu in the land of Ziharriya, and by Mount Asharpaya on the route to Pala; they rebelled and/or performed egregious banditry in each place. At first, Mursili defeated each Kaska uprising piecemeal.
The Kaska united for the first time under Pihhuniya of Tipiya, who "ruled like a king" the Hittites recorded. Pihhuniya conquered Istitina and advanced as far as Zazzissa. But Mursili defeated this force and brought Pihhuniya back as a prisoner to Hattusas. Mursili then switched to a defensive strategy, with a chain of border fortresses north to theDevrez.[12] Even so, in the early 13th century, when Mursili's sonMuwatalli II was king in Hatti, the Kaskas sacked Hattusa. Muwatalli stopped enlisting Kaska as troops; he moved his capital toTarhuntassa to the south; and he appointed his brother, the futureHattusili III, as governor over the northernmarches. Hattusili defeated the Kaska to the point of recapturing Nerik, and when he took over the kingdom he returned the capital to Hattusa.
The Kaska may have contributed to the fall of the Hittite empire in theBronze Age collapse, c. 1200 BC.[13] Then they penetrated eastern Anatolia, and continued their thrust southwards, where they encountered theAssyrians. The Assyrian kingTiglath-Pileser I recorded late in the 12th century BC that the Kaska (whom he referred to as "Apishlu") and theirMushki and Urumu (Urumeans) allies were active in what had been the Hatti heartland. Tiglath-Pileser defeated them, and the Kaska then disappear from all historical records.[citation needed]
Repulsed by the Assyrians, a subdivision of the Kaska might have passed north-eastwards to theCaucasus, where they probably blended with theProto-Colchian orZan autochthons, forming a polity which was known as the Kolkha to theUrartians and later as theColchis to theGreeks. Another branch might have established themselves inCappadocia, which in the 8th century BC became a vassal of Assyria and ruled some Anatolian areas.[5]
According toI. Singer, Kaskians and Hattians are different branches of the same people. However, if the Hattians were assimilated by the Hittites, then the Kaskians were pushed to the periphery of their former territory.[14]
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