Wilusa

.This land lay in the extreme northwest of Anatolia, including the Troad, and features quite prominently in the affairs of the  region during the 13th century BC, though never a state of the first  rank. Linguistic evidence indicates that Wilusa lay outside the Luwian-speaking zone: it therefore seems reasonable to see this as a  hint that it was not strictly part of the Arzawa lands. This could be  one factor behind the loyalty to Hatti of Wilusa as a vassal state,  whose geographical location made it especially valuable to the Hittites. After his campaign, led by the general Gassu, Muwatalli II  restored Hittite control over Wilusa, establishing Alaksandu as  ruler and drawing up a treaty with him, in which the past loyalty  of Wilusa to Hattusa is stressed. Troubles in Wilusa later came to  a head in the time of Tudhaliya IV, when Walmu was the vassal  ruler: he was deposed, fleeing to Millawanda, where a new, proHittite ruler had come to power, possibly allied by marriage to the  Hittite royal house. Significantly, Walmu was apparently answerable both to Tudhaliya in Hattusa and to Milawat, an arrangement  which would not have been tolerated by earlier Hittite kings, who  demanded exclusive fealty to themselves and who did not differentiate between their vassals in terms of status.  The location of Wilusa, commanding the sea route through to  the Black Sea, provided it with a source of wealth but also the danger of attack by envious, rapacious neighbors. In the 13th century  BC these were above all the Mycenaeans, almost certainly identifiable with Ahhiyawa. As long as this power flourished, Wilusa was  in constant danger of attack. Its links across the Dardanelles with  Europe were archaeologically clearest in the 12th century BC, after  the heyday of Mycenaean power in the maritime region of western  Anatolia and the downfall of the Hittite Empire.   If Hissarlik--the site of Heinrich Schliemann’s and later excavations--is indeed to be identified with Homeric Troy, then it  must surely be with Troy VIH, imposing in its architectural remains in contrast with those of the following levels, and destroyed  most probably around 1250 BC. The last two names in the list of  states comprising the alliance defeated by Tudhaliya I/II (ca.1400  BC)--Wilusiya and Taruisa--have been identified with the Greek  names (W)ilios or Ilion and Troia (Troy). The implication is that  the name of Wilusa, clearly in the first instance that of a land or  minor state, came to be given to the city we know as Troy. Mycenaean-Greek elements in western Anatolia seem implied by the very name of Alaksandu, vassal ruler of Wilusa. On the identification of Wilusa as Ilios and thus Troy a divergent theory distinguishes Truisa from Wilusa, with the former lying not far east of  the latter.  One of the sources of the wealth of Troy was the plentiful  supply of fish, an attraction to covetous neighbors. The sea came  further inland than today, and ships would have plied to and fro between the port and Mycenaean harbors, as well as in the more hazardous maritime trade with the Black Sea.  Wilusa lay at the junction of two continents and the meeting  place at various times of different populations, among them the ancestors of both Lydians and Etruscans.  In the 13th century BC its  situation gave it a pivotal role for Hittite policy in the west, not  least for curbing the designs of Ahhiyawa.

Not all scholars have accepted the identification of Wilusa with Troy. There is an alternative hypothesis, for example, that Wilusa was located near Beycesultan, which was known in the Byzantine era as "Iluza" (Ἴλουζα).

Wilusa per se is known from six references in Hittite sources, including:

• the Manapa-Tarhunta letter (c. 1310–1280 BC); which places it beyond the Seha river;
• the Alaksandu treaty (c. 1280 BC), between Alaksandu of Wilusa and Muwatalli II of Hatti;
• the Tawagalawa letter (c. 1250 BC), addressed to the king of the Ahhiyawa by Hattusili III, mentioning a military conflict over Wilusa, and;
• the Milawata letter (C. 1240 BC), believed to be written by Tudhaliya IV of Hatti, discussing the reinstallation of Walmu as king of Wilusa.