Tuwanuwa/Tyana in the light of written sources

Tyana Ancient City, located in Kemerhisar Town of Bor District of Niğde Province, dates back to BC. II. It is an important city that has been inhabited for thousands of years. The city mentioned as Tuhana/Tuwana in Assyrian tablets is known as Tuwanuwa in Hittite cuneiform texts. In particular, we learn most of the information about the Late Hittite Period from the clay tablets, the number of which exceeds 20 thousand, and other archaeological finds. The commercial relations of the Assyrians with Anatolia cover a period of approximately 250 years. Although the city of Tyana is at the forefront with the Roman and Byzantine periods today, the historical past of the city and the archaeological finds unearthed for the first time in 2021 are proof that it has been inhabited continuously since the Assyrian Trade Colonies Age. Tabal Region, which was one of the largest kingdoms in the Late Hittite Period, is seen as one of the cities that gained political power at that time. The capital of Tabal Region is known as Tuwanuwa in ancient sources and cuneiform documents, and King Warpalawas is known as the king of this region. Excavations of the city of Tyana are still continuing today, and the remains of the ancient city, which is intertwined with the modern settlement, are largely underground. The fact that pre-classical archaeological data in Tyana localization has not been reached so far has left a question mark in the pre-classical cultural existence of the city. Important data that will shed light on the pre-classical period of the city through archaeological finds and ancient sources, which are the subject of the thesis, have been brought together and evaluated in the thesis study. However, we obtain a lot of information from ancient and modern writers about the city through ancient sources, and in this context, it is an obvious fact that travel books, which constitute the modern face of written documents, are undoubtedly among the most important sources.