Tabal kingdom

In the tenth and early ninth centuries BC, Assyrian kings strove to re-establish the traditional “land of Assur” by recovering territories in Syria and the north that had been lost at the end of the second millennium B.C.

The Assyrians entered Tabal in 836 BC. in order to make a show of force, extort whatever goods they could, and most importantly, stabilize their presence in Syria by intimidating the lands beyond it. In the early Iron Age, the region called Tabal in Neo-Assyrian texts was occupied by a number of mainly small independent kingdoms.

History most likely first encounter the Tabalian dynasty in question in 836 BC, when Shalmaneser III, coming from Melid (Malatya) via Mt Timur, invades Tabal, burns the cities of Tuatti (king) of Tabal, besieges his capital city, Artulu, and receives the submission and tribute of Tuatti’s son Kikki along with that of twenty other unnamed ‘‘kings of Tabal’’.

The numerous petty kings of Tabal, unable to mobilize effectively against the larger power and cowed by Assyria’s military capabilities, had little choice but to “pay up.” Tabal Kingdom came to prominence during the 1st millennium BC after the decline of the great Hittite kingdom of Hattusas.
Tabal kingdom