Tabal
Tabals (also spelled Tobal, Jabal and Tibarenoi) were an indigenous tribe of Asia Minor, who inhabited Great Cappadocia, now part of the territory of Turkey. Some scholars associate them with the Meshechs (or Meshekhs/Mosokhs). According to archeologist Kurt Bittel (Hattusha, the Kingdom of the Hittites 1970: pp. 133f), they first appeared after the collapse of the Hittite Empire, although some experts claim to trace their presence back to the 3rd millenium BC.
The Assyrian king Shalmaneser III records that he received gifts from their 24 kings in 837 BC and the following year. A century later, their king Burutash is mentioned in an inscription of king Tiglath-Pileser III. They have left a number of inscriptions from the 9th - 8th centuries BC in hieroglyphic-Luwian in the Turkish villages of Calapverdi and Alişar.
The Georgian historian Ivane Javakhishvili considered Tabal, Tubal, Jabal and Jubal to be ancient Georgian tribal designations, and argued that they spoke a non-Indo-European language. Many authors, following Josephus, relate the term to Iber; he wrote: "Tobal gave rise to the Tobals, which are now called Iberians". This identification was repeated by Eustathius of Antioch, Bishop Theodoret and others.
Bibliography
- Ivane Javakhishvili. Historical-Ethnological problems of Georgia, the Caucasus and the Near East. Tbilisi, 1950, pp. 130-135 (in Georgian)
- Simon Janashia. Works, vol. III. Tbilisi, 1959, pp. 2-74 (in Georgian)
- Nana Khazaradze. The Ethnopolitical entities of Eastern Asia Minor in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Tbilisi, 1978, pp. 3-139 (in Georgian, Russian and English)
