Between the hittites and the mittanians: The Malatya-Elazig area during the Late Bronze Age

The Malatya-Elazi? area is a mountainous part of eastern Turkey, which was geopolitically important throughout history, both because some of the main routes linking Anatolia to Syria, Mesopotamia and to the East passed through it and also because of the copper deposits that it possessed. The area became a buffer zone between the regional powers that emerged in the Late Bronze Age, namely, the Hittite, the Mittani and later the Middle-Assyrian Kingdom, who all wanted to secure access to the mineral sources and to the major trade routes. In this article, the textual and archaeological evidence are studied together for a better understanding of how the area itself was culturally and polictically affected by these struggles. It is suggested that one of the main outcomes was the emergence of the Kingdom of Isuwa.