The Tawagalawa letter was written by a Hittite king to a king ofAhhiyawa around 1250 BC. This letter, of which only the third tablet has been preserved, concerns the activities of an adventurer named Piyama-Radu against the Hittites, and requests his extradition to Hatti under assurances of safe conduct. It is so named because it mentions a brother of the king of Ahhiyawa named Tawagalawa, a name suggested by numerous scholars to be a Hittiterepresentation of the Greek nameEteocles. Originally, it was assumed that the beginning of this letter concerned the activities of Tawagalawa. After Itamar Singer and Suzanne Heinhold-Krahmer stated their preferences for Piyama-Radu in 1983, most scholars relegated Tawagalawa to a minor role in the letter. There are technical difficulties, however, with accepting Piyama-Radu as the man who asked to become the Hittite king's vassal. Piyama-Radu is also mentioned in the Manapa-Tarhunta letter and, in the past tense, in the Milawata letter. The Tawagalawa letter further mentions Miletus and its dependent city Atriya, as does the Milawata letter; and its governor Atpa, as does the Manapa-Tarhunta letter. The letter bears a conversational style which has commonly been associated with Hattusili III. However, Oliver Gurney in "The authorship of the Tawagalawas Letter" argues that the letter belongs to his older brother Muwatalli II. But if the Milawata letter postdates this letter, and if that letter is taken as a letter of Mursili II, then the Tawagalawa letter might belong to Mursili in the late 14th century BC, but after the end of his annals. In this letter, the Hittite king refers to former hostilities between the Hittites and the Ahhiyawans over Wilusa, which had now been resolved amicably: As most scholars identify Wilusa with Troy, this reference has been said to provide "a striking background for Homeric scholars researching the origin of the tradition of the Achaean attack on Ilios." The letter also makes reference to a city called Waliwanda.
