Histories and Historians of the Ancient Near East - The Hittites. (original) (raw)
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ON THE WRITING OF HITTITE HISTORY
The publication of a new edition of The Hillites and their Contemporaries in Asia Minor by J. G. Macqueen provided the opportunity to make available to the English speaking public an up-to-date survey of Hittite history and culture based on the latest textual and archaeological data. Unfortunately this edition has failed to live up to this promise. Our comments below highlight the shortcomings of the book and provide some additions, corrections, and suggestions for yet another revision.
Hittite Diplomatics. Studies in Ancient Document Format and Record Management
In the Hittite capital Ḫattuša some 25.000 tablets and mostly fragments have been discovered on several locations. These tablets all formed part of the state archives of the Hittite Empire (ca. 1650-1180 BCE) and contained texts of various nature (religious, legal, historical, literary, administrative etc.). Applying the research methods of diplomatics or Urkundenlehre, this study has taken the clay tablet per se as a starting point in order to get a better understanding of these tablet collections. The first chapters (1-6) deal with the extrinsic elements of documentary form, consisting of a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the physical characteristics of the Hittite clay tablet, such as its size, shape and layout. This study makes clear that certain conventions regarding their physical appearance existed and that they were partly dependent on the text type of the tablet and the time period in which it was written. In chapter 7, Hittite terminology for writing materials is discussed. Central to chapter 8 is an intrinsic element of documentary form, the colophon. As it turns out, the distribution of Hittite colophons is very consistent: some text genres practically always have a colophon whereas it is absent in others. Within the colophons themselves, one can further detect chronological developments. Since no complete edition of the colophons is available, transliterations and translations of this corpus have been included in the appendices. The last chapter of the book aims to reconstruct the record management and organization of the Hittite tablet collections.
In Royal Circles: The Nature of Hittite Scholarship
This essay advocates a distinction between scribal craftsmen and scholar-scribes, the latter mostly coming from the elite circles of the kingdom and increasingly, as their career advanced, involved in scholarly endeavors rather than tablet production. It is these scholars who were probably also responsible for the so-called tablet inventories (" catalogs ").
Hitherto, research on the Hittites has been highly specialised and often separated by discipline: history, philology and archaeology (in which natural sciences are taking a more prominent role). Unfortunately, no up-to date publication has been available to bring the work and evidence of these different fields together, making it extremely difficult for the non-specialist to obtain a general overview of Hittite studies. This volume closes that gap by providing contributions on several key issues in Hittite studies based on new developments and approaches from historical, philological and archaeological points of view. The subjects discussed include history, state and society, the written legacy, the environment and economy, foreign contacts, cities, temples and sanctuaries, military and warfare, pottery, and metals and metallurgy. The contributions are written by specialists actively engaged in research in their respective fields. The time-frame of this volume extends from the period of the Old Hittite kingdom in the 17th century BC to the end of the Hittite Empire in the early years of the 12th century BC. Detailed contributions, a research overview and a comprehensive index create a useful introduction to the vast and complex field of Hittite studies. Fore more information please follow the link.
News from the Lands of the Hittites
2019
MassiMo Poetto A Hieroglyphic graffito on a pitcher from Kültepe leoPoldo rePola Technologies and procedures for the survey of architectural traces along the Büyükkaya-Ambarlikaya gorge at Hattusa Hakan erol The parties and the accessing regions of the Old Assyrian trade