Kalaà ¡ma or Kalasma (occasionally Kalaà ¡pa) was a late Bronze Age polity in Northern Anatolia on the border of the Hittite Empire.
Kalaà ¡ma was located somewhere in northwestern Anatolia. Though its precise location is uncertain, its location relative to other places can be deduced from geographical references in contemporary documents. For instance, it is known to have been south of Arawanna and west of Pala. Current research suggests that it was located near modern day Bolu.
A city called Harranassi may have been located in Kalaà ¡ma. When Hittite was first deciphered, Bedà Âich Hrozný took the placename "Kalaà ¡mitta" to be a variant of "Kalaà ¡ma", but current research suggests that they were in fact separate places.
Forlanini says that Kalaà ¡ma was not a tribal name but a city-state, the eponymous city having been fortified by the Hittite king Hantili I (died c. 1560 BCE). Hantili failed to reinstate Kalaà ¡ma's local weather god, and on returning to Ḫattuà ¡a, the Hittite capital, he had to perform expiatory rituals to the Sun goddess of the Earth.
Arnuwanda I (ruled 1380s BCE) installed oathbound military commanders in regions including Kalaà ¡ma. Civil administration was by a council of elders. In the reign of Arnuwanda's son Tudhaliya II, troops from Kalaà ¡ma and elsewhere rebelled and fled through Ià ¡uwa to an unnamed enemy country; Tudhaliya's son Suppiluliuma I subdued the rebel regions. There were several revolts in the reign of Suppiluliuma's son Murà ¡ili II (ended 1295 BCE). One triggered a punitive raid by Hittite general Nuwanzas. Murà ¡ili replaced the elders with a single administrator named Aparru, who rebelled, seized royal power, and invaded neighbouring Sappa. Aparru was soon defeated but Kalaà ¡ma was in civil war until pacified the next year by Hutupiyanza, governor of Pala.
Kalaà ¡mans were later to be found further east, at Pahhuwa on the upper Euphrates, possibly having been deported there by Murà ¡ili, or as mercenary soldiers. Kalaà ¡mans fought alongside the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptian Empire in 1274 BCE.
Kalaà ¡ma is one of the places mentioned in a Luwian hieroglyphic tablet from the reign of Arnuwanda III (ended c. 1210 BCE) as conquered by Mukà ¡uà ¡.
In 2023 a tablet written in "the language of Kalaà ¡ma" was discovered in the Bogazköy Archive excavated at Ḫattuà ¡a. It is in the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, probably the Luwic sub-branch.
In 1958 had noted that a Hittite-language oath taken by officials from Kalaà ¡ma represented a different dialect of Hittite from the oath of other regions' officials.