Neo-Hittite
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The states that are called Neo-Hittite, or more recently Syro-Hittite, were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-speaking political entities of Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BC and lasted until roughly 700 BC. The term "Neo-Hittite" is sometimes reserved specifically for the Luwian-speaking principalities like Melid (Malatya) and Karkamish (Carchemish), although in a wider sense the broader cultural term "Syro-Hittite" is now applied to all the entities that arose in south-central Anatolia following the Hittite collapse — such as Tabal and Quwê — as well as those of northern and coastal Syria [1].
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[edit] Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition
The collapse of the Hittite Empire is usually associated with the gradual decline of the Eastern Mediterranean trade networks and the resulting collapse of major Late Bronze Age cities in the Levantine coast, Anatolia and the Aegean [2]. It is understood to have culminated in the final (apparently peaceful) abandonment of Hattusa (modern Bogazkoy), the Hittite capital, ca. 1180-1175 BC. Following this collapse of large cities and the Hittite state, the Early Iron Age in northern Mesopotamia saw a dispersal of settlements and ruralization, with the appearance of large numbers of hamlets, villages, and farmsteads. [3] Syro-Hittite states emerged in the process of such major landscape transformation, in the form of regional states with new political structure and cultural affiliations. David Hawkins was able to trace a dynastic link between the Hittite imperial dynasty and the "Great Kings" and "Country-lords" of Melid and Karkamish of the Early Iron Age, proving an uninterrupted continuity between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age at those sites; [4]. thereby the old "Dark Age" hypothesis of a chaotic illiterate interregnum has been discredited.
Some scholars have associated the collapse of Late Bronze age palace economies with the so-called invasion of "sea peoples", attested in Egyptian texts at the time. Having found no reliable support from archaeological evidence, archaeologists and ancient historians now largely believe that the movement of the "sea-peoples" was probably a result and not the cause of the collapse, involving unrelated populations around the Mediterranean who were dislocated by the declining exchange network.
Aside from literary evidence from inscriptions, the uninterrupted cultural continuity from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age is now further confirmed by the recent archaeological work at the sites of Aleppo (Temple of the Storm God on the Citadel)[5] and Ayn Dara (Temple of Ishtar-Shawushka)[6], where temples built in the Late Bronze age continue into the Iron Age without hiatus, and those temples witness multiple rebuildings in the Early Iron Age.
The most prominent of these Syro-Hittite states were centered at Karkamish (a.k.a. Carchemish), Melid (modern Malatya), Hama, Aleppo, Tell Halaf/Guzana, Karatepe, Gurgum, Kummuh, Tabal and Quwê.
[edit] Inscriptions
Luwian monumental inscriptions in Anatolian hieroglyphs, are uninterruptedly continued from the thirteenth-century Hittite imperial monuments to the Early Iron Age Syro-Hittite inscriptions of Karkamish, Melid, Aleppo and elsewhere [7]. Luwian hieroglyphs was chosen by many of the Syro-Hittite regional kingdoms for their monumental inscriptions, which often appear in bi or tri-lingual inscriptions with Aramaic, Phoenician or Akkadian versions. The Early Iron Age in Northern Mesopotamia also saw a gradual spread of alphabetic writing in Aramaic and Phoenician. During the cultural interactions on the Levantine coast of Syro-Palestine and North Syria in the tenth through eighth centuries BC, Greeks and Phrygians adopted the alphabetic writing from the Phoenicians. [8].
[edit] Notes
- ^ Hawkins, John David; 1982a. “Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia” in Cambridge Ancient History (2nd ed.) 3.1: 372-441. Also: Hawkins, John David; 1995. "The Political Geography of North Syria and South-East Anatolia in the Neo-Assyrian Period" in Neo-Assyrian Geography, Mario Liverani (ed.), Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” Dipartimento di Scienze storiche, archeologiche e anthropologiche dell’Antichità, Quaderni di Geografia Storica 5: Roma: Sargon srl, 87-101.
- ^ See Hawkins, John David; 1994. “The end of the Bronze age in Anatolia: new light from recent discoveries,” in Anatolian Iron Ages 3: Proceedings of the Third Anatolian Iron Ages Colloquium, Altan Çilingiroğlu and David H. French (eds.); The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monograph 16: London, 91-94.
- ^ See Wilkinson, Tony J.; 2003. Archaeological landscapes of the Near East. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
- ^ See "Karkamish" and "Melid" in Hawkins, John David; 2000. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. (3 vols) De Gruyter: Berlin. Also: Hawkins, John David; 1995b. “Great Kings and Country Lords at Malatya and Karkamis” in Studio Historiae Ardens: Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Philo H.J. Houwink ten Cate, Theo P.J. van den Huot and Johan de Roos (eds.), Istanbul: 75-86.
- ^ Kohlmeyer, Kay; 2000a. Der Tempel des Wettergottes von Aleppo. Münster: Rhema.
- ^ Abū Assaf, Alī; 1990. Der Tempel von ءAin Dārā. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
- ^ Hawkins, John David; 1986b. “Writing in Anatolia: imported and indigenous systems,” WA 17: 363-376.
- ^ Brixhe, C. and M. Lejeune (1984). Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes. Paris.
