Quwê – also spelled Que, Kue, Qeve, Coa, Kuê and Keveh – was a
Syro-HittiteAssyrianvassal state or province at various times from the 9th century BC to shortly after the death of
Ashurbanipal around
627 BC in the lowlands of eastern
Cilicia, and the name of its capital city, tentatively identified with
Adana, in modern
Turkey. The name Que reflects the Assyrian transmission of the indigenous name Hiyawa,[1] the same state is known as Hume from Babylonian sources.
The question whether the toponym Hiyawa is related to
Ahhiyawa, the Hittite designation of the
Mycenaean Greeks, is at present hotly debated.[2] The principal argument in favour of a Greek migration into
Cilicia at the end of the Bronze Age is the mention of Muksa/
Mopsos as the founder of the local dynasty in indigenous Luwian and Phoenician inscriptions.[3]
According to many translations of the
Bible, Quwê (
Hebrew: קְוֵ֖ה,
romanized: qəwé) was the place from which
Solomon obtained horses. (I Kings 10: 28, 29; II Chron. 1:16)
^Trevor Bryce, The land of Hiyawa (Que) revisited, Anatolian Studies 66 (2016): 67–79
^Max Gander, Ahhiyawa – Hiyawa – Que: Gibt es Evidenz für die Anwesenheit von Griechen in Kilikien am Übergang von der Bronze- zur Eisenzeit? Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 54 (2012): 281–309; Rostislav Oreshko, The Achаean hides caged in yonder beams: the value of Hieroglyphic Luwian sign *429 reconsidered and a new light on the Cilician Ahhiyawa, Kadmos 52.1: 19–33; Ilya Yakubovich, Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia, Anatolian Studies 65 (2015): 39a; J. David Hawkins, Addendum to ‘Phoenician and Luwian in Early Iron Age Cilicia’ by Ilya Yakubovich, Anatolian Studies 65 (2015): 54-55; Ilya Yakubovich, Adanawa or Ahhiyawa? Reply to the addendum by J.D. Hawkins, Anatolian Studies 65 (2015): 56-58; Rostislav Oreshko, Once again on the reading of Hieroglyphic Luwian sign *429: the evidence of the newly published ARSUZ inscriptions, N.A.B.U. 2015/3: 123-125
^Trevor Bryce, The land of Hiyawa (Que) revisited, Anatolian Studies 66 (2016): 74b
Mirko Novák and Andreas Fuchs, Azatiwada, Awariku from the House of Mopsos, and Assyria. On the Dating of Karatepe in Cilicia, in: A. Payne, Š. Velharticka, J. Wintjes (ed.), Beyond all Boundaries. Anatolia in the 1st Millennium B.C. OBO 295 (Leuven, 2021), pp. 397–466.
Mirko Novák, Kizzuwatna, Ḥiyawa, Quwe – Ein Abriss der Kulturgeschichte des Ebenen Kilikien, in J. Becker / R. Hempelmann / E. Rehm (ed.), Kulturlandschaft Syrien – Zentrum und Peripherie. Festschrift für Jan-Waalke Meyer, Alter Orient und Altes Testament 371, Ugarit-Verlag Münster 2010, pp. 397–425.
Cilicia Chronology Group: A Comparative Stratigraphy of Cilicia. Results of the first three Cilician Chronology Workshops, in: Altorientalische Forschungen 44/2, 2017, pp. 150–186.