Palistin Wadasatini / Padasatini | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11th century BC–9th century BC | |||||||||
| Capital | Kinalua | ||||||||
| Common languages | Luwian | ||||||||
| Government | Absolute monarchy | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
| Historical era | Iron Age | ||||||||
• Established | 11th century BC | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 9th century BC | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Syria Turkey | ||||||||
Palistin (orWalistin), was an earlySyro-Hittite kingdom located in what is now northwesternSyria and the southeasternTurkish province ofHatay. Its existence was confirmed by the discovery of several inscriptions mentioningTaita, king of Palistin.
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Palistin was one of the Syro-Hittite states that emerged in Syria after theLate Bronze Age collapse.[1]
It dates to at least the 11th century BC and is known primarily through the inscriptions of its king Taita and his wife.[1] The kingdom emerged some time soon after the collapse of theHittite Empire, of which it is one of thesuccessor states, and it encompassed a relatively extensive area, stretching at least from theAmouq Valley in the west, toAleppo in the east, down toMhardeh andShaizar in the south.[2] Prof.Itamar Singer proposes that it was the predecessor state that, once it disintegrated, gave birth to the kingdoms ofHamath,Bit Agusi andPattin (shortened form of Palistin).[3]
The excavations atTell Tayinat in the Turkish Hatay province which might have been the capital of Palistin,[4] revealed two settlements, the first being a Bronze Age Aegean farming community, and the second an Iron Age Syro-Hittite city built on top of the Aegean farming settlement.[3] Palistin is attested asWalistin in an inscription discovered in 1936 at the site.[5]
Palistin ("Watasatina") is also attested in theSheizar Stele, which is the funerary monument of QueenKupapiya, the wife of Taita.[6] Another stele, discovered inMeharde, might well be the funerary monument of King Taita. Both stelae mention the name of Taita, and invoke a "divine Queen of the Land", possibly the goddessKubaba.[6] Most importantly, in 2003 a statue of King Taita bearing his inscription inLuwian was discovered during excavations conducted by German archeologist Kay Kohlmeyer in theCitadel of Aleppo.[1][7]
WhileHittitologist John David Hawkins initially gave two transcriptions of the Aleppo inscriptions,Wadasatini andPadasatini, a later reading suggests a third possible interpretation:Palistin.[4] The similarity betweenPalistin and names for thePhilistines,[8] such as theAncient EgyptianPeleset and theHebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּיםPlištim, have led archaeologists Benjamin Sass[9] and Kay Kohlmeyer to hypothesize a connection. It has even been suggested, for instance, that the area aroundKunulua (Calno; Tell Tayinat) may even have been part of a Philistineurheimat.[10]
Gershon Galil suggests that King David halted the Arameans’ expansion into the Land of Israel on account of his alliance with the southern Philistine kings, as well as withToi, king of Ḥamath (mentioned in the Bible), who is identified with Taita II, king of Palistin (the northern Sea Peoples).[11]
According to Galil, there are now eight inscriptions recently discovered at different sites indicating that a large kingdom named Palistin existed in this area, which included the cities of Hamath, Aleppo and Carchemish.[12]
The proposed Palistin-Philistines link remains controversial.[2][8] According to HittitologistTrevor Bryce, the connection between the biblical Philistines and the kingdom of Palistin remains a hypothesis and further excavations are needed to establish such a connection.[2] The Shaizar and Meharde inscriptions apparently preserve theethnonymWalistin and there is no clear explanation for the alternation between a character signifyingWa- in the Shaizar and Meharde inscriptions and one signifyingPa- in the Aleppo inscriptions.[8]
If it was the case – as has been proposed by some theories concerning the Sea Peoples – that they originated in theAegean area, there is no evidence from theSyro-Hittite artefacts at Tell Tayinat, either pictorial nor philological, to indicate a link to knownAegean civilizations.[3] On the contrary, most of the discoveries at Tell Tayinat indicate a typical Luwian state. To cite two examples: firstly, the Syro-Hittite inhabitants used predominantlyred slipped burnished ware, which is totally different from the Aegean-type pottery used by the early farming inhabitants.[3] And secondly, the names of the kings ofPalistin and the kings of the successor state ofPattin are also Hittite,[3] even though there is no evidence of a direct link between Taita and the old Hittite royal house. It has since been proposed, based on material evidence and epigraphical parallels, that some Philistines did in fact settle in Kinalua, living alongside the indigenous inhabitants before assimilating into the Luwian population of what became a typical Neo-Hittite state in all but its name, which was all that remained of the Early Iron Age Sea Peoples settlers.[3][13][14][15]
