The Original Home of the Hittites and the Site of Kussar

Extract

The original home of the founders of the royal dynasties of the Hittites was the country of Kussar. It was of Kussar and Kussar only that Khattusilis, the ancestor of Subbi-luliuwas, the founder of the second dynasty, was king (KB. iii, p. 30); so, too, was “the lord” Labarnas or Tabarnas, the founder of the first dynasty (c. 1900 b.c.). From his death-bed in the city of Kussar Khattusilis I issued his last testament to his son and successor Mursilis I, and the only territorial title of the unnamed “great king” in whom Dr. Forrer is probably right in seeing Mursilis I is “king of Kussari”. The state records carefully preserved the annals of a still earlier monarch, Anittas “king of Kussara”, who describes in them his conquest of the Hittite-land.