Skip to main content

Kingdom of the Hittites » Book Review

This book presents a comprehensive history of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of the Hittites and the role it played within the context of the ancient Near Eastern world in general. From their capital Hattusa in central Anatolia, the Hittite kings ruled a vast network of subject territories and vassal states reaching from the Aegean coast of Anatolia through Syria to the river Euphrates. In the 14th century BC the Hittites became the supreme political and military power in the Near East. How did they achieve their supremacy? How successful were they in maintaining it? What brought about their collapse and disappearance?
In seeking to answer these questions, the book begins with an account of the Hittites' predecessors in Anatolia, particularly in the early centuries of the second millennium, traces the rise and development of the Hittite kingdom over a period of some 500 years, and ends with the events which followed in the wake of the kingdom's collapse. Translations from the original texts are a particular feature of the book. Thus on many issues the Hittites and their contemporaries are allowed to speak to the modern reader for themselves...

More: Kingdom of the Hittites » Barnes & Noble.com
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Hattians - First Civilizations in Anatolia

The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in Asia Minor in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC. They spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic (now believed by some to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group). They eventually merged with or were replaced by the Hittites, who spoke the Indo-European Hittite language.

Read & see more »

Early Neolithic site in southeastern Turkey dated to 11000 years ago: Göbekli Tepe, Urfa

Göbekli Tepe is an early Neolithic site in Urfa, southeastern Turkey. It is famous for containing the world's oldest known stone temples (dated to before 9000 BC), and because it contradicts the long-held belief that the introduction of agriculture preceded the construction of large buildings. Göbekli Tepe was created by hunter-gatherers, yet is assumed to be a key location for understanding the origins of agriculture. (To give a timescale, remember that Stonehenge, a Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monument located near Amesbury in the English county of Wiltshire, about 8 miles north of Salisbury, was erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC although the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.)

Read & see more »

Etruscans: Anatolian Italians?

The Etruscan civilization is the name given today to the culture and way of life of people of ancient Italy whom ancient Romans called Etrusci or Tusci. The ancient Greeks' word for them was Tyrrhenoi, or Tyrrsenoi. The Etruscans themselves used the term Rasenna, which was syncopated to Rasna or Raśna.

Read & see more »