As the setting sun painted the deep blue waters of the Aegean Sea red, the princess’ tears were dripping down her cheeks, spreading down her neck and from there to her chest. The princess still could not believe that she would soon leave Apaşaş, where she was born and raised, and embark on an irreversible journey into the unknown.
How could a father, even if he were a king, throw his only daughter out of the palace where she was born and raised and send her to a distant country for his own interests? Couldn’t a person’s heart ever ache? These unanswered questions were buzzing in the princess’s mind like bees.
Last night, she had pushed her luck one last time and begged her father, King Tarhundaradu of Arzava, not to send her to the hot lands on the banks of the Nile River to become the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh for who knows how many times. Despite crying for hours, she could not change Tarhundaradu’s decision. The King of Arzava had only said the following to his daughter, who he did not even look at:
“You are the Princess of Arzava. You have to make this sacrifice for your country. You know very well that the Hittite Kingdom exploits our beautiful country. We have to pay them taxes every year and send Arzavan heroes to Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites, to fight for the Hittites when they want. Enough is enough! We have to get rid of the Hittite yoke and gain our independence, and for this we need the support of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep. The easiest way to get this support is for you to go to Egypt as a bride. In this way, the Egyptian Pharaoh will be my son-in-law and my greatest ally against the Hittites. The Hittite King will never have the courage to exploit us Arzavans again.”
The princess’ heart was filled with such deep disappointment that she did not even go to see her father before setting off with her entourage. She passed through the sea-scented lands where the ancient city of Ephesus would be founded hundreds of years later, and proceeded towards her destiny. While the princess was on the road, countries, climates, and even seasons changed. When she finally arrived in the warm land of the pharaoh, she looked at the yellow sands she had seen for the first time in her life and reviewed her life story.
**
Many years had passed since the princess arrived in Egypt. She had missed her childhood in the Arzawa palace overlooking the Aegean Sea every day in Egypt. She still hated the Egyptian pharaoh and her father, the Arzawa King Tarhundaradu, for stealing her life and hopes. In fact, she had never even seen her husband, who would go down in history as Amenhotep III, except for her wedding night. After washing and putting on beautiful clothes the first night she arrived in Egypt, she became the pharaoh’s wife and the next morning was placed in the harem where hundreds of women lived. It was never the turn of the Arzawa Princess among the pharaoh’s hundreds of concubines again. She did not complain about never seeing the pharaoh’s face again.
As she did almost every day, the Arzawa Princess left the harem towards evening and came to the banks of the Nile. As her long, now white hair waved in the hot desert wind, the refreshing climate of her childhood came back to her mind. While she was thinking and longing for the Arzava Palace in Apaşaş, the Aegean Sea and the pine trees, a door opened in the waters of the Nile and the princess passed through that door and went into the unknown. The next morning, the princess’s body had already cooled down on the banks of the Nile, but the smile on her face was surprisingly fresh and lively.
NOTE: During the Hittite period (1650-1200 BC), the Luwians lived in Western Anatolia. The king’s palace of Arzava, the largest principality of the Luwians, was on Ayasuluk Hill near Ephesus. Tarhundaradu, one of the Arzava kings, sent his daughter as a bride to the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III in order to make an alliance with Egypt against the Hittites.
Written by Author Archaeologist Özlem Ertan for the Ephesus Foundation.