[8] The rationale for maintaining a distinction between the two is presented by Jacques Freu, who notes, inter alia, that Tudḫaliya I was the son of the non-reigning Kantuzzili, while Tudḫaliya II writes that he ascended the throne as a youth after his father's death;[9] similarly, his sister Ziplantawiya was the daughter of a king.
[10] Additionally, Freu posits that the Šunaššura Treaty between the Hittite Kingdom and Kizzuwatna reflects successive equal and unequal treaty arrangements under two different sets of kings on both sides,[11] discerns three Tudḫaliyas as predecessors of Muršili II on his "cruciform seal," [12] and argues that the Tudḫaliyas who engaged in repeated military action in Syria and in western Anatolia should be distinguished from each other to avoid an overly long reign.
[13] The treatment below tentatively follows Freu's distinction of two 15th-century BC Hittite great kings named Tudḫaliya.
[17] Onofrio Carruba and Freu propose that Tudḫaliya's mother was Walanni, attested in the royal offerings lists, and who might have been a daughter of the earlier king Zidanta II.
Tudḫaliya appears to have pardoned and purified the regicides, the brothers Ḫimuili and Kantuzzili, although their relation to him remains obscure.
[22] Muwattali's Commander of the Guard, Muwa, may have murdered a queen in retribution, and then attempted to stage a revolution with the help of Hurrians led by Kartašura.