1 Introduction

The Hittite period (ca. 1650–1190 BCE), corresponding to the Late Bronze Age (LBA) in conventional archaeological periodization, is the best-documented phase of the second millennium BCE in Anatolia and by far the richest in terms of local textual sources before the Classical age. To this period also dates the earliest and most extensive corpus of Anatolian languages: three Indo-European (Hittite, Luwian, and Palaic) and one non-Indo-European (Hattian). Other four extra-Anatolian languages feature in the Hittite archives: Akkadian, Hurrian, Sumerian, and, to a very minor extent, Indo-Aryan. The remaining chapters of this volume will be devoted to analyzing the complex interactions occurring across time and space in this polyglot environment and the traces these languages left in each linguistic corpus. This chapter aims to open this discussion by offering a coherent historical introduction, which outlines the social and cultural contexts and political landscapes onto which mapping patterns of linguistic interference.

Earlier conventions, still followed by Horst Klengel in his authoritative handbook (1999), have tended to split Hittite history in three major phases, with an Old and a New Kingdom separated by an intermediate phase (Middle Kingdom). Scholars, however, have become increasingly dissatisfied with this periodization, considering it unsuitable for highlighting the main political, social, and cultural transformations that shaped Hittite society.¹ Indeed, this tripartition was motivated chiefly by the availability of textual evidence rather than reconstructed historical transitions. The Middle Kingdom was thus the label assigned to the ‘dark age’ incurring between Telipinu and Šuppiluliuma I, covering the 15th century BCE, as opposed to the better documented Old and New Kingdom phases.² Confusion was further augmented by the conflation of this historical periodization with the tripartite system still largely employed in the study of Hittite cuneiform paleography and language (Old Script/Hittite, Middle Script/Hittite, and New Script/Hittite; see Chapter 6, § 2.2).

To deal with these problems, a simpler system, based on a bipartite subdivision into Old Kingdom and Empire periods, was proposed by Garelli (1969) and Gurney (1973a:235)³ and then followed by many others, especially in the Anglophone tradition. First and foremost, this was the periodization used by Trevor Bryce in his authoritative overview of Hittite history (2005). In this periodization, the duration of the Old Kingdom was stretched to include the successors of Telipinu up to the accession of Tuthaliya I, which occurred around the late 15th century. Tuthaliya I’s reign would thus mark the inauguration of the new ‘imperial’ phase that lasted until the abandonment of Hattuša and the demise of its hegemonic rule in Anatolia and Syria with the last known king, Šuppiluliuma II. Significantly, this reframing came with the realization that several innovations ascribed to the ‘Middle Hittite’ linguistic phase had likely occurred no earlier than the reigns of Tuthaliya I and his successor, Arnuwanda I.⁴

As we shall see, new epigraphic discoveries and improved interpretations of the relevant historical sources have contributed to an understanding of the reigns of Tuthaliya I and Arnuwanda I as a period of radical transformation in political, administrative, and religious institutions—or, at least, in the official representations thereof. The bipartite periodization has the merit of acknowledging this transition, which would have been blurred in the mists of an unremarkable ‘middle’ phase were we to use the tripartite system. However, placing a clear-cut chronological divide in the late 15th century BCE risks oversimplifying transformations that took several generations to occur. In this framework, the opposition of the imperial and pre-imperial phases must also be better contextualized.

Most definitions offered by a rich anthropological and historical literature on empire and imperialism conceive of an empire as a “territorially expansive and incorporative” polity in which a ‘core’ formation tries to impose forms of control over other sociopolitical entities.⁵ Seen in these absolute terms, the limits of Hittite imperialism are hard to pin down.⁶ For example, ‘imperial’ dialectics were in action both within and outside the core of the Hittite territorial domain (i.e., Hatti). This blurs spatial boundaries between the core and the peripheries—that is, between the ideal motor of imperial expansion and the targets thereof. From a chronological perspective, it is apparent that imperial ambitions informed the conduct of Hittite kings from the earliest formative stages, as is shown most prominently by the expansionist ventures of Hattušili I and Muršili I. In line with this, elements of an imperial ideology, including claims of hegemonic control over an extensive area or self-aggrandizing titles such as ‘great king,’ appear in royal propaganda at various stages, even with possible roots in the Anatolian canton states of the Old Assyrian period.⁷ Finally, on an organizational level, infrastructural interventions aimed at incorporating various sociopolitical realities in a centralized economic network are much more conspicuous in earlier rather than later Hittite archaeological sequences (below, § 3). These few hints are useful to show that the onset of a Hittite imperial phase may shift considerably on the spatiotemporal grid depending on the absolute parameters used to measure ‘imperiality.’

Moving from an absolute to a relative perspective, the characterization of a Hittite imperial phase may be useful for underlining the moment when the Hittite polity evolved from a merely local Anatolian phenomenon to an entity with a much greater impact on the broader Near Eastern landscape. In this sense, the label ‘Empire’ would most appropriately apply to the period from the (late) reign of Šuppiluliuma I onwards, when the Hittite power network more steadily embraced extra-Anatolian regions and was formally reorganized around structured hierarchical protocols. This change can also be observed from the emic perspective of the contemporaneous interregional diplomatic corpus, in which the Hittite polity is finally accorded the status of ‘great power’ on a par with other hegemonic states such as New Kingdom Egypt, Kassite Babylon, Mittani and, later, Assyria. In this light, the generations separating Tuthaliya I from Šuppiluliuma I, between the late 15th and early 14th century BCE, are often assigned to a distinct phase of the imperial period, usually termed the Early Empire. Here we prefer the term ‘proto-imperial,’ aiming to emphasize the transitional character of this period. Another major turning point was reached in the second quarter of the 13th century, with the temporary relocation of the Hittite capital by Muwattalli II from Hattuša to Tarhuntašša and the subsequent dynastic shift caused by the conflict between Hattušili III and Urhi-Teššub/Muršili III. The Hittite Empire then entered a phase of inner political fragmentation and economic instability that led to its final dissolution in the first quarter of the 12th century BCE. In the literature, this phase is often called the Late Empire period, a convention that will be followed here as well.

The Hittite kingdom and empire were centered in north-central Anatolia, within the bend of the Kızılırmak River. The key sites for the investigation of Hittite material culture and, above all, all of the known archives of cuneiform tablets related to the Hittite central administration (Figs. 5.1 and 6.3), are found in this region.⁸ The most important site and findspot of epigraphic material is, of course, the Hittite capital, Hattuša (modern Boğazköy), where uninterrupted excavations since the early 1900s have uncovered about 30,000 cuneiform tablets written in all of the eight languages mentioned above. These compositions belong to all textual genres and are chronologically distributed throughout the Hittite period. The richest archives after those of Hattuša are those that were discovered at Ortaköy, the site of Hittite Šapinuwa. They comprise 4000 texts spanning the 14th century.⁹ Šapinuwa, the seat of a local administrative palace and a temporary residence for the Hittite kings, was founded anew in the early 14th century by Tuthaliya III. The archives of Maşat Höyük, the site of Hittite Tapikka, have yielded a small administrative and epistolary corpus of letters belonging to local functionaries and dating between the late 15th and the early 14th century BCE.¹⁰ The site of Kuşaklı has revealed a small corpus of mainly ritual texts that have permitted the identification of the site as the Hittite Šarišša.¹¹ Kayalıpınar, now safely identified with the important Hittite center of Šamuha, was the findspot of about a hundred tablets of various genres dating from the proto-imperial period onward.¹² Minor tablet finds have occurred at other sites in north-central Anatolia, most prominently at Oymağaç Höyük, identified with the important cult center of Nerik.¹³

The remaining significant cuneiform tablet archives within the Hittite domain are all from beyond the Taurus, in Syria and Cilicia, most prominently at Ras Šamra-Ugarit and Meškene-Emar. Outside the Hittite domain, El Amarna, the seat of the Egyptian capital founded in the 14th century BCE by the pharaoh Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten, yielded hundreds of diplomatic letters in cuneiform exchanged by the pharaoh and other contemporary rulers of the ancient Near East.¹⁴

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Figure 5.1

Anatolia during the Hittite kingdom and empire, with key sites mentioned in the text

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Besides cuneiform, Hittite and other Anatolian rulers are known for their adoption of another script, called Anatolian hieroglyphs, that features on seals or their impressions, in graffiti, and especially in monumental inscriptions on stone. Inscriptions on seals generally include only the name of the seal owner(s) and their title(s). Graffiti is also generally quite short, whereas monumental inscriptions can be much longer and more detailed (Volume 2). As tools of the administration of the Hittite domain, seals and impressions bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions are found in archives in settlement sites across the entire area that became subject to the Hittite domain. Urban second-millennium monuments and graffiti with hieroglyphic inscriptions occur in a few sites in Anatolia and Syria. In addition, monumental inscriptions and graffiti can also appear in extra-urban contexts, on the so-called landscape monuments that served as cultic places and locales of commemorative celebrations. Landscape monuments are more numerous and feature some of the longest hieroglyphic inscriptions known so far, but appear only on the Anatolian mainland.¹⁵

2 The Formative Period and the Question of Ethnicity: Hittites and Hattians

The beginning of the Hittite period is conventionally set around 1650 BCE, when another ‘man of Kuššar’ (after Anitta) came to Hattuša, making this city a new royal residence for himself and his successors. To advertise his choice, the man would change his name to Hattušili, meaning ‘he of Hattuša.’ This event and the subsequent rise of the Hittite kingdom have been often described as the final product of ethnic conflicts that resulted in the political dominance of one Indo-European group, identified with speakers of the Hittite language, over indigenous Hattian populations.¹⁶ At the core of this interpretation is the assumption that the linguistic areas arguable for second millennium Anatolia corresponded with an equal number of ethnocultural zones and that the latter broadly overlapped with the main political entities of the time. According to this scheme, ethnic Hittites inhabited and ruled the land of Kaneš/Neša, the city after which they named their vernacular (nešili or nešumnili). Kuššar is also held to be part of the Hittite homeland because it was the place of origin of Anitta and, especially, Hattušili I.¹⁷ The Hattians, instead, had their homeland and political centers in the ‘land of Hatti,’ lying within the Kızılırmak River bend, thus encompassing ‘pre-Hittite’ Hattuš(a). Other areas are assigned to other ethnopolitical entities: Luwians to the south and west of the Kızılırmak, Pala to the northwest, and the Hurrians to the southeast.

Within this scope, reasons of ethnic affinity or dissimilarity would explain Anitta’s differential treatment of the cities that he subjugated. He spared Kaneš because of the Hittite heritage that it shared with his native city of Kuššar but violently destroyed and cursed Hattuša because it was situated in Hatti and thus belonged to the Hattian ethnopolitical area. Relevant to this line of thought have been interpretations of the story of the Queen of Kaneš that forms the first part of the so-called Tale of Zalp(uw)a (CTH 3).¹⁸ According to this account, the Queen of Kaneš gave birth to thirty princes at once and laid them down in a basket that she set adrift on the river. After being transported by the current to the sea, the boys were rescued by the gods and brought to the city of Zalpuwa. The river can be none other than the Kızılırmak and Zalpuwa a city located close to its mouth, that is, on the Black Sea coast.¹⁹ Once grown, the princes made their way back to Kaneš where, unrecognized by their mother and unaware of her identity, they aspired to marry her thirty daughters. Only the youngest brother realized that the unions would be incestuous and tried to warn his elders. At this point the text breaks off, leaving us to wonder whether the princes persevered in their attempt to marry their sisters. When the text resumes, it is with a very fragmentary historical account of a series of conflicts between representatives of the city of Zalpa (so spelled!) and a sequence of at least three kings—the present king, his father, and his grandfather. In this second part of the tale, Kaneš is no longer named, seemingly replaced by Hattuša as the main counterpart of Zalpa.²⁰

Otten (1973:64) proposes that the travel of the thirty brothers from Zalpuwa to Kaneš echoed the movement of Indo-European populations between the Black Sea and central Anatolia.²¹ Singer (1981; 2007), who does not subscribe to Otten’s view, emphasizes instead the first movement, from Kaneš to Zalpuwa, suggesting that it reflected the Hittite penetration into Hattian territory and the resulting cultural tensions. In this scenario, the brother-sister union and its condemnation by the youngest brother would reference the contrast between the Hittite customs forbidding incest and Hattian mores that (allegedly) allowed it.²² Moreover, according to Singer, the historical section of the tale represents the natural continuation of interethnic conflicts between Hittites and Hattians after Hattuša had become the new center of ‘Hittiteness,’ inheriting the role previously held by Kaneš.²³

Any connection proposed between the story of the Queen of Kaneš and distant Indo-European roots is hardly compelling. The mythological character of the account could suggest several other interpretations. Watkins (2004:73–78) considers the mytheme of the prodigious multiple births as the legacy of a common Indo-European literary repertoire, shared with the Greek legend of the Danaids and Vedic mythical accounts. While this is possible, other literary motifs with an eclectic array of cultural parallels can be found in the story of the Queen of Kaneš, which argue against the possibility that it was the product of a ‘pure’ Indo-European cultural heritage.²⁴ For example, parallel stories of multiple births also feature in Biblical accounts (Judg. 10:1–15 and 12:7–15; Tsevat 1983), and the motif of the commitment of newborns to a river is also widely diffused outside the Indo-European horizon (cf. the mythical origins of Sargon of Akkad and Moses). If any etiological meaning existed behind the composition of the Tale of Zalp(uw)a, this can hardly be related to ethnicity, which did not play a significant role in the construction of Hittite society. The main parameter of Hittite self-identification was politico-geographical rather than ethnic or linguistic. From a juridical standpoint, a Hittite is simply a LÚ or DUMU (KUR) ^URUHATTI, that is, any inhabitant ‘of the land/city of Hattuša,’ irrespective of language or other cultural traits. Moreover, there is virtually no aspect of what we call Hittite culture that does not display a degree of cultural hybridization, including language, literature, religion, and even kingship ideologies. As discussed in the preceding chapter, Anatolian societies were culturally and linguistically mixed by the Old Assyrian period. The linguistic areas were not absolute and did not necessarily overlap with the areal distribution of other cultural traits. Even less did they correspond to real or alleged political spaces. Linguistic evidence points to a strong interference between Indo-European Anatolian language(s) and Hattian, deriving from a coexistence likely rooted well before the formation of the archives of Hattuša.²⁵ Hittite personal names and even toponyms are attested in Hatti/Hattum alongside Hattian examples by the Old Assyrian period, even though this region likely derived its name from an ethnonym for the Hattians.

Attempts to draw definite boundaries between a Hittite nucleus and Hattian or other cultic milieus in the earliest religious traditions attested at Hattuša are not conclusive.²⁶ Of course, based on elements such as divine names and associated toponyms, we are often able to distinguish primarily Hattian from Hittite or Luwian gods. Given these distinctions, it is now agreed that ideologies of kingship during the Old Kingdom were largely based on a Hattian religious system.²⁷ In this light, any notion of a direct nexus between ethnic identity and political developments is better set aside when considering historical developments in second-millennium Anatolia.²⁸

Another line of investigation on the Hittite formative period focuses on the reconstruction of dynastic histories but incidentally argues against a sharp ethnopolitical separation between Indo-European Anatolians, chiefly Hittites, and Hattians. After the end of the Kārum Ib period, Old Assyrian scribal traditions disappeared from Anatolia, resulting in the temporary discontinuation of all record keeping. As a result, the intervening half century before the rise of Hittite kingship in Hattuša, corresponding to Kārum Ia at Kaneš, did not yield textual records. A documentary hiatus of about sixty years is thus produced between Zuzu’s reign at Kaneš (Chapter 4) and the installation of Hattušili I in Hattuša. This would roughly correspond to at least two or three generations. Later Hittite evidence, namely the Cruciform Seal of Muršili II (late 14th century BCE) and the offering lists of deceased kings, also called King Lists (CTH 661), yield the names of two predecessors of Hattušili I who could have filled this gap, namely, Huzziya and Labarna.²⁹ A king named Labarna, who was a predecessor of Hattušili I, is also mentioned in the Edict of Telipinu (CTH 19) in relation to the conquest and annexation of southern provinces (see below).³⁰

There is no certainty or scholarly consensus about possible kin relationships, if any existed, between Huzziya, Labarna, and Hattušili I, and several hypotheses have been formulated in this regard.³¹ Forlanini (2004b:254; 2010:123) tentatively suggested that Huzziya was a descendant of the namesake king of Zalpuwa who was confronted by Anitta, but the supporting arguments are hardly conclusive. Onomastic considerations, however, offer circumstantial elements that point broadly in the same direction. The name Huzziya is of no clear etymology, but several hints would localize its origin in a northern, and thus mostly Hattian, environment.³² A god with this name was part of the Hattian pantheon; this is best exemplified by the birth ritual KUB 30.29, featuring ^dHuzziya together with a series of deities of the Hattian tradition—the Sun goddess of Arinna, Halmašuit, Hatepinu, Telipinu, and Hannahanna.³³ Interestingly, in this text Huzziya is associated with the northern city and region of Hakmiš, the same nisbe attributed to another Huzziya, this time a prince, in the offering list KUB 36.120 (Otten 1951:64; Gilan 2014:96). This evidence concurs with the Anitta Text to locate the name Huzziya and, as a reflex, at least some of its bearers, in a northern Hattian milieu. In addition, Forlanini (2010:123 and fn. 43) convincingly analyzes as Hattian the name Pawahtelmah, which was borne by a prince somehow connected to Hattušili’s family mentioned in the King Lists and in Hattušili I’s so-called Testament (CTH 6). With these premises, the roots of the Hittite royal family might be more appropriately placed in northern ‘Hattian’ milieus rather than in ‘Hittite’ Kaneš. In consonance with this, the most salient Kuššarite-Kanešean rulers, Anitta and Pithana, did not play any prominent role in Hittite dynastic histories, as their names never recur as Hittite dynastic names and are absent from known royal genealogies, including the Cruciform Seal and the King Lists.³⁴

3 Hatti, Luwiya, and Pala: Core-Periphery Dialectics in Hittite Anatolia

We do not know what reasons induced Hattušili I to establish the capital at Hattuša. In this regard, we may perhaps follow Schachner (2020), who proposes that Boğazköy gained a prominent role in the frame of interregional contacts of the late third to early second millennium due to its position at the interface between the southern plains and the northern mountain ranges that were rich in raw materials. Be that as it may, Hattušili’s transfer to Hattuša was definitive: this city became the permanent center of Hittite power down to the 13th century and the seat of the main gods of the Hittite official religion, headed by the Hattušean Storm god. In Hittite texts of all periods, the toponym Hattuša is used interchangeably with the term Hatti to mean both the city itself and surrounding land within the Kızılırmak basin. Scholars generally agree that the term Hatti was merely the Akkadian form of Hattuša.³⁵ The two terms Hattuš and Hattum, geographically distinct during the Old Assyrian period (see Chapter 4, § 4.2), were thus conflated in the pair Hattuša/Hatti in Hittite usage. Significantly, Wiušti only claims the title ruba’um Hattuš in the Old Assyrian letter KBo 71.81 but is named interchangeably ‘king of Hatti’ and ‘king of Hattuša’ in the Anitta Text, which was composed in the current form during the Hittite period and thus reflected Hittite geographic perceptions.

When Hattušili I took power, a large portion of central Anatolia was probably under Hittite hegemony. Starting from this base, Hattušili I and his successor Muršili I pushed their claims well beyond the limits of central Anatolia. As told in his Annals (CTH 4), Hattušili I consolidated his power in Anatolia and crossed the Taurus, marching against various Syrian cities. It is generally held that these campaigns inaugurated the second wave of cuneiform literacy in Anatolia, through the introduction of Syrian scribal traditions (see Chapter 6, § 2.2). Like Hattušili I, Muršili I raided Syria, putting an end to the powerful kingdom of Yamhad, based at Aleppo, but then overshadowed his predecessor pushing as far as Babylon, which he famously sacked in 1595 BCE.

According to a text composed almost a century after these events, the Edict of Telipinu (late 16th century BCE), aspirations to territorial expansion informed the actions of Hittite kings even before Hattušili I. In fact, the long historical introduction of this text starts with the account of Labarna’s conquest of lands to the south and southwest of the Kızılırmak River, followed by the organization of a patriarchal administrative network:

(Labarna) kept devastating countries, he disempowered countries, he made them the boundaries of the Sea. When he came back from campaign, however, each (of) his sons went somewhere to a country: the cities of Hupišna, Tuwanuwa, Nenašša, Landa, Zallara, Paršuhanta (i.e., Purušhanda), and Lušna. These countries they each governed and the great cities made progress.³⁶ (CTH 19, i 7–12)

Incidentally, this passage would also inform us that spatiopolitical interactions during the formative stages of the Hittite kingdom were structured through relationships between the king and a cohort of descendants or relatives dispatched to various townships as local governors. While the spatial extent of Labarna’s reign was almost certainly inflated for propagandistic purposes in Telipinu’s account, the existence of a patriarchal base in the early administrative organization is corroborated by other Old Hittite sources. For example, each episode of the conflict unfolding in the historical section of the Tale of Zalp(uw)a follows a fixed scheme: the ruling kings dispatch their sons to Zalpa to act as local administrators; the sons rebel against the authority of their fathers/kings, and the rulers intervene to restore order. According to Gilan (2015:204–213), precisely this theme would connect the historical narrative to the preceding part of the Tale of Zalp(uw)a—the myth of the Queen of Kaneš—constituting a warning of sorts that large royal families could be the main cause of dramatic internecine conflicts. The Palace Chronicle (CTH 8; OH), whose anecdotes provide an idealized sketch of early Hittite political life, closes with a banquet scene that features the ruling king with his sons and relatives, who are associated with various townships through the formula DUMU ^URUGN (KBo 3.34 iii 15′–19′).³⁷

These considerations may have important politico-geographical implications. It is worth noting that none of the preserved toponyms associated with ‘governors’ (išha-), ‘administrators’ (^LÚmaniyahtalla-), or even ‘men of GN’ in Old Hittite sources can be traced in the ‘land of Hatti’ or localized within the bend of the Kızılırmak. No appointed governor is ever mentioned in relation to such cities as Ankuwa, Šanahuitta, Tawiniya, Hattena, Zippalanda, or Katapa that were important nodes in the Hittite administration. This picture might well be skewed because of the limited evidence available for the formative period. However, it may also reflect an actual geographical differentiation in the administrative layout of the early Hittite kingdom, based on a distinction between Hatti centers and those belonging to the outer fringes of the Hittite domain. In this framework, only centers belonging to the external belt were assigned to the care of local governors. Interestingly, no definite ethnocultural or linguistic rationale can be discerned behind this apparent subdivision. Some centers traditionally assigned to a ‘Hattian’ cultural milieu also belonged to the inner administrative sphere (Hatti), but other Hattian centers, such as Zalpuwa, were run by princely governors. Other governmental seats were located in the Luwian area, such as Tuwanuwa, Purušhanda, or Lušna.

The governors likely enjoyed a good degree of autonomy. They could escape royal authority by becoming local dynasts and, eventually, force their way up the hierarchy by waging war against their overlords. Telipinu in his Edict famously depicts the reigns of Labarna and his successors, Hattušili I and Muršili I, as an idealized ‘golden era’ of harmony and peace within the royal family. In spite of its mythical tone, the Tale of Zalp(uw)a provides a more realistic picture of the interactions existing within the early royal family, including those between the kings and the princes appointed as local governors. Similarly, the anecdotes told in the Palace Chronicles also warn rulers of corruption among peripheral ruling elites, while a text attributed to Hattušili I (CTH 5) depicts a generalized rebellion of various princes against their father-king, involving the governors (NB: ‘men’) of Zalpa, Haššuwa, and Halpa (i.e., Aleppo).³⁸ Interestingly, at least some of the cities governed by royal offspring were important city-states during the Old Assyrian period (e.g., Purušhanda, Zalwar). In these cases, dynastic tensions between the center and periphery that emerged in the Hittite formative period may have mapped onto fractures rooted in the former political fragmentation.

We are unable to follow the evolution of the situation during the poorly documented generations after Muršili I. The next phase in Hittite administrative history is documented a century later in §§ 35 to 40 of the Edict of Telipinu (CTH 19), devoted to illustrating an administrative reform focused on the management of staple production. Unfortunately, several passages in this section are lost, but what is preserved is nonetheless illuminating. In § 35 provisions are made for the fortification of cities and the irrigation of fields. The poorly preserved § 36 mentions Telipinu Great King (iii 7–8) and, perhaps, Hattuša (iii 12). The next sections, 37 and 38, are occupied by two lists of toponyms, respectively described as cities of the ‘storehouses’ (É ^NA4KIŠIB, lit. ‘house of the seal’) and ‘storehouses of the mixed fodder’ (É ^NA4KIŠIB imiulaš). Finally, §§ 39 to 40 set forth provisions for preventing fraud and embezzlement by the administrators of staple revenues, namely the ^LÚ.MEŠAGRIG.³⁹ This passage includes the advice to future kings to always ‘seal the grain’ (halkiuš šai-) with their own seals.

One may wonder how innovative these provisions were as there is nothing to compare them to in the preceding century of Hittite history. Elsewhere in the Edict, Telipinu shows an insistent concern for protecting estates and movable properties from the appetites of dignitaries and courtiers.⁴⁰ These passages have often been analyzed in connection with the supervised land transfers documented by the land grants (Landschenkungsurkunden, hereafter LSU) that were meant to keep land transactions under royal control.⁴¹ The provisions of §§ 35 and 40 and the LSU are complementary strategies of institutional intervention in the administration of agricultural land, symbolized in both cases by the apposition of the royal seal,⁴² and they testify to a practice introduced by Telipinu and followed by his successors.⁴³

Archaeological research corroborates the picture of the mid- to late 16th century as an age of great transformations in the Hittite urban and economic landscape that involved both the capital and peripheral centers.⁴⁴ The Hittite state began to sponsor massive infrastructural interventions in central Anatolia in tandem with a new settlement policy. The best documented case is Kuşaklı-Šarišša, a large (ca. 18 ha), planned Hittite settlement built ex nihilo in the Upper Kızılırmak area.⁴⁵ Several dendrochronological determinations from architectonic timber date the foundation of this settlement to around the mid- to late 16th century.⁴⁶ Architecturally, Kuşaklı-Šarišša was modeled on Hattuša, as best illustrated by the layout of the main temples (Building C and Temple 1) and fortification system. Most importantly, in its earliest phase, the city was equipped with a granary silo with a storage capacity of about 700 tons, situated near the city wall like contemporary counterparts at Hattuša.⁴⁷

The foundation of Kuşaklı-Šarišša and its administrative facilities was roughly coeval with the reign of Telipinu or preceded it by only a few decades. Other granaries besides those of the Hittite capital and Kuşakli-Šarišša have been found in north-central Anatolia, chiefly at Kaman-Kalehöyük and Alaca Höyük. Circumstantial arguments suggest that these structures were in use during the 16th century, although evidence is lacking for a more precise chronological contextualization.⁴⁸ There is, in any case, sufficient evidence to indicate that the mid- to late 16th century BCE witnessed a major reorganization of the Hittite state that was enhanced by new plans for urbanization and the renovation of administrative institutions. This scenario parallels the reform of the storehouse system that was ordered in roughly the same period by Telipinu in his Edict.

What was then the novelty of Telipinu’s reform? Some interesting clues in this respect may derive from its geographical scope. As observed by Singer (1984:104), none of the several preserved toponyms of arguable location associated with the storehouses can be ascribed with any confidence to Hatti and the Kızılırmak area. Important administrative seats in this core region, such as Ankuwa, Tawiniya, Katapa, and Hattena, either were not implicated in the reform or, as Singer further suggests, were enumerated in a separate list that has not survived. By contrast, several towns listed in § 37, namely Šukziya (iii 20), Hurma (iii 22), and Purušhanda (spelled Paršuhanda, iii 30) were earlier seats of peripheral governors, as attested by the Palace Chronicles and the first lines of Telipinu’s Edict (see above). We would thus propose that the storehouse network devised by Telipinu was an attempt to enforce a uniform bureaucratic system across the entire kingdom under the formal control of the crown, thus making obsolete the earlier partition hypothesized above between the peripheral governmental seats and central cities of the Hatti group.⁴⁹ In summary, the administrative reform set forth by Telipinu testifies to an attempt to place Hattuša at the core of a rationalized and structured dialectic with a composite periphery characterized by diverse political allegiances and identities.

The relationships inferred here between the core and periphery of the early Old Kingdom may perhaps clarify some oft-debated passages of the Hittite Laws, in which Hatti features in opposition to the lands of Luwiya and, in a single instance, Pala. The passages in question, dealing with cases of murder (§ 5), abduction (§§ 19–21), and the seizure of runaways (§§ 22–23), are preserved in the main OH manuscript (A) and, with a few but very important variants, in the NH duplicate B. We reproduce here the formulation of §§ 5, 19a, and 22 to 23:⁵⁰

§ 5 “If anyone kills a merchant, he shall pay 100 minas of silver, and he shall look to his house for it. If it is in the lands of Luwiya or Pala, he shall pay the 4,000 shekels of silver and also replace his goods. If it is in the land of Hatti, he himself shall (also) bring the aforementioned merchant (for burial).”

§ 19a “If a man of Luwiya abducts a free person, man or woman, from the land of Hatti, and leads him/her away to the land of Luwiya (A) /Arzawa (B), and subsequently the abducted person’s owner recognizes him/her, he (i.e., the abductor) shall deliver (arnu-) his own house.”

§ 22 “If a male slave runs away, and someone brings him back, if he captures him nearby, he shall give him (i.e., the finder) shoes. If (he captures him) on the near side of the river, he shall pay 2 shekels of silver. If on the far side of the river, he shall pay him 3 shekels of silver.”

§ 23 “If a male slave runs away and goes to the land of Luwiya, (his owner) shall pay 6 shekels of silver to whomever brings him back. If a male slave runs away and goes into an enemy country, whoever brings him back shall keep him for himself.”

Most scholars tend to take literally the differentiation between Hatti, Luwiya, and Pala suggested in these paragraphs, assigning each toponym to a well-defined geographical entity with neat ethnolinguistic boundaries. In this approach, Luwiya would be the homeland of Luwians, speaking luwili, and Pala the homeland of Palaeans, speaking palaumnili. According to Yakubovich (2010:240), “the ‘men of Hatti’ and ‘men of Luwiya’ were contrasted as ethnic groups whose social status differed rather than inhabitants of distinct geographic areas.”⁵¹ From this perspective, however, the definition of Hatti would remain problematic: was it meant to refer to the Hittites or the Hattians? Yakubovich opts for the first solution (2010:241). Yet, as we have described, the land of Hatti included both Hattians and Hittites, and the name Hattum/Hatti was losing its ethnolinguistic connotation already in the Old Assyrian period (see Chapter 4). Similarly, Luwiya and Pala could have had more general geographic connotations. The two terms are clearly intended as such in § 5, in which the two toponyms are used to label hypothetical scenes of murders of merchants. Logistic considerations obviously implied different penalties for crimes committed far away from Hatti as opposed to those committed in Hatti itself (see Chapter 12). In a similar vein, §§ 19 to 21 make perfect sense when considering Hatti and Luwiya as places rather than ethnonyms.⁵²

Leaving aside the ethnolinguistic implications, we would argue for a more minimalistic interpretation of the Hatti-Luwiya-Pala opposition in the Laws. In § 5, which is the single passage in which the three toponyms appear together, Luwiya and Pala are treated as peers from a legal standpoint. The land of Hatti, on the other hand, is the vantage pointsetting of all of the other dispositions, explicitly in §§ 19 to 21 and implicitly in §§ 22 to 23.⁵³ Seen in this light, the tripartition of the Hittite domain does not reflect a rigid ethnic or territorial differentiation, but a loose distinction between a core, represented by Hatti, and a periphery, represented by Luwiya and Pala as partes pro toto. This minimalistic bipartite scheme is certainly more compatible with the Old Hittite administrative system: Luwiya and Pala would both correspond to areas occupied by governmental towns before Telipinu’s reform, as opposed to Hatti, whose cities were likely subject to different administrative regimes.

The juxtaposition of Hatti and Luwiya to represent the core and periphery is most clearly suggested by §§ 22 to 23 of the Laws, where rewards for the restitution of runaway slaves are classified by distance from an unnamed vantage point, arguably corresponding to Hatti/Hattuša. Luwiya appears here as nothing but a vague land extending between an even vaguer enemy territory and the ‘river.’ The latter, presumably the Kızılırmak, constitutes the limit between the far side (edi) and the near side (ket). The river can thus be interpreted as a boundary separating the inner mainland, that is, the land of Hatti/Hattuša, from the outer peripheries of the Hittite domain to which Luwiya belonged (Fig. 5.2). Following the same logic, Pala would also belong to the outer sphere as it is treated as a peer of Luwiya in § 5. Incidentally, the formulation of §§ 22 to 23 also proves that Luwiya primarily denoted a land rather than the ethnicity of individual people living in the Hittite domain.

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Figure 5.2

Schematic representation of §§ 22–23 of the Hittite Laws

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Interestingly, this continuum between Hatti, the river, and the external dominion, that is, Luwiya/Pala, closely recalls the organization of the Mari kingdom under Šamši-Addu, which staged a similar subdivision between the land of Mari (māt Mari), the Banks of the Euphrates (ah Purattim) and Mari’s domains beyond the Euphrates (namlakātum).⁵⁴

The minimalistic interpretation of Luwiya as a pars pro toto for the periphery of the Old Hittite domain might also provide the simplest explanation for the substitution of Luwiya for Arzawa in the New Hittite version of § 19 (manuscript B). This substitution is often taken as proof that Luwiya and Arzawa were identical, which would support the widespread view that Arzawa was the Anatolian homeland of the Luwians.⁵⁵ In contrast, Yakubovich (2010:239–247) sees the Luwiya/Arzawa alternation as proof of their distinctness and argues for identifying Luwiya with the province known as Lower Land during the Empire period, roughly corresponding to the modern Konya region.⁵⁶ Challenging both perspectives, we instead propose that the relationship between Luwiya and Arzawa—if any—was more functional than strictly geographical: both toponyms were paradigmatic representatives of the ‘Anatolian’ peripheries of the Hittite domain. Arzawa was just more readily understood in this sense during the Empire period and thus slipped in manuscript B version of the Laws in place of Luwiya, by then outdated as a meaningful indicator.

Starting from this minimalistic understanding of the terms Hatti, Pala, and Luwiya in the Hittite Laws, we can now reframe their relevance to the ethnolinguistic geography of the Hittite domain in a more rigorous way. We know from other sources that besides its generic and undefined usage in the Laws, Pala had a more specific geographic meaning: it indicated a town and/or a region on the Pontus ranges to the northwest of Hattuša. The Comprehensive Annals of Muršili II also mention a governor of Pala, thus indicating that this location may have functioned as the seat of an administrative unit.⁵⁷ The toponym Pala forms the root of the adverb palaumnili, meaning ‘in the language of Pala (Palaic).’ Palaumnili would thus be a language designation bound to a politico-geographical reality, on a par with nešili in relation to Kaneš/Neša. Luwiya might also have had a more specific usage, although, unlike Pala, it was not linked to a precise politico-geographical reality: indeed, this toponym is never attested outside the Hittite Laws. In this light, the clear etymological relationship with the adverb luwili ‘in Luwian’ would suggest that Luwiya was in origin a genuine ethno-geographical designation for the Luwians, loosely bound to a region situated beyond the far side of the Kızılırmak/Marraššantiya River. Specifically, a consensus would assign Luwiya to the south and southwestern sectors of this area, with Pala, in contrast, lying to the northwest of Hatti.

The toponym Hatti has a different history, which we have already detailed in part elsewhere in this book (Chapter 4, § 4.2). HATTI is likely to be an Akkadian genitive of a word etymologically related to Old Assyrian Hattum.⁵⁸ Also, Akkadian Hattum and Hatti share a root with the Hittite adverb hattili, designating the Hattian language. Observing that hattili is not attested in Old Hittite texts, Klinger (1996:91) raises the possibility that this adverb was created from the toponym Hatti only at a later stage of Hittite history, when Hattian was no longer dominant in Hatti, if spoken at all (see Chapter 9). Such a posthumous language designation is hardly convincing and, to the best of our knowledge, has no parallels elsewhere.⁵⁹ On the contrary, it is far more logical that the term hattili gained currency during the centuries of interaction between Hittites and Hattians preceding the formation of the archives of Hattuša, when Hattian was spoken in Hatti and recognizable as a local linguistic feature. Kryszeń (2017:219) convincingly proposes a common derivation of Hattum/Hatti and hattili from a stem *hat(t)-, which is also shared by the Hattian toponyms Hattuš and Hatten. This would corroborate the argument presented in Chapter 4, § 4.2, that Hattum, and Hatti with it, originated from an ethno-geographical designation for the Hattians and their land. This, however, was no longer the primary meaning of the word at the point the Old Assyrian records were written, as the Old Assyrian scribes used Hattum in a more general geographic sense. By the Hittite period, Hatti had become a purely geopolitical designation for the core of the Hittite kingdom, synonymous with the city and land of Hattuša. At the time the Old Hittite version of the Laws was composed, the land of Hatti/Hattuša corresponded to the inner side of the Kızılırmak/Marraššantiya bend, as suggested above in the analysis of § 23.

4 The Empire Period: A Historical Outline

The late 15th century, corresponding to the reigns of Tuthaliya I and his son Arnuwanda I, witnessed another major phase of reorganization of Hittite power in Anatolia, accompanied by a novel focus on military expansion. Tuthaliya I engaged in military campaigns in western Anatolia against a loose coalition that included, among other political entities, the land of Arzawa. During the Old Kingdom, the term ‘Arzawa’ referred to the lands and peoples outside the Hittite power network to the west and southwest of the Marrassantiya/Kızılırmak.⁶⁰ From the reigns of Tuthaliya I and Arnuwanda I onwards, ‘Arzawa’ in Hittite could take two distinct but related meanings. In some contexts, this term is used in a narrow sense, indicating one of the several western Anatolian polities confronting the Hittite army. ‘Arzawa’ also functioned as an umbrella term for a group of western polities that included, besides Arzawa proper, the Šeha River Land, Mira, and Hapalla.

It is generally agreed that the eastern limits of the Arzawa complex, neighboring the Hittite mainland, were marked by Pitašša, in the likely environs of Ilgın (northwestern Konya province),⁶¹ and Hapalla, which lay somewhere between the upper Sakarya (Hittite: Šahiriya) River and the Lake District.⁶² Arzawa proper, the Šeha River Land, and Mira extended west of this limit, along the Meander and Hermos river basins down to the Aegean coast. A fundamental anchor point in this respect is represented by the relief and hieroglyphic inscription of Targaššanawa king of Mira marking the Karabel Pass 25 km east of İzmir.⁶³ The regions south of the Arzawa complex were home to the land of Lukka, a fluid constellation of communities resisting incorporation into the Hittite domain and thus targeted by various military campaigns, especially during the 13th century BCE. In Classical sources this region is known as Lycia (Greek Λυκία), a toponym etymologically related to Hittite Lukka.⁶⁴

The ethnolinguistic composition of the Arzawa complex is currently a controversial topic. No cuneiform document is known to have originated in western Anatolian chanceries except a single letter from El Amarna (EA 32) sent by the Arzawan king Tarthuntaradu to the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (early 14th century BCE). Significantly, this letter is written in Hittite, which was arguably not the Arzawan official language but rather the closest thing to an international language that the senders and recipients could have shared. The western Anatolian rulers and elites had a local Anatolian hieroglyphic tradition, which they used for a few short, monumental inscriptions. Among these, the most famous is the inscription of Targaššanawa, the king of Mira (Karabel A), which accompanies a rock-cut relief overlooking the Karabel pass 25 km east of İzmir. The name Targaššanawa is Luwian/Luwic, and the same holds, with few exceptions, for all other known names borne by Arzawan kings and individuals. The question remains, however, whether Arzawa was a Luwian-speaking area in a narrow sense. Traditional interpretations have held that this was the case, mainly on account of the alternation between Luwiya and Arzawa in manuscripts of the Laws. However, as argued above, this alternation has no real geographical implication but rather a functional one as both terms were non-synchronic proxy definitions for the peripheries of the Hittite domain. Although starting from a different perspective, Yakubovich also split Arzawa from Luwiya (2010:107–111) and argued on a linguistic basis that Arzawa had a mixed Anatolian Indo-European heritage, with proto-Carian the most prominent component (86–96).

Tuthaliya I led military campaigns not only in western Anatolia but also in the east and particularly in Syria if we can credit some indirect evidence.⁶⁵ The main rival of Hatti in this sector was Mittani, a Hurrian kingdom centered on the upper Khabur. Over the 16th and 15th centuries BCE, Mittani had expanded its hegemonic rule from the Upper Euphrates basin to Cilicia and Syria, taking advantage of the political void left in the region by the raids of Hattušili I and Muršili I. One of the main achievements of Tuthaliya I on the southeastern front was to attract on the Hittite side one of the former main allies of Mittani, the kingdom of Kizzuwatna, based in Cilicia. Before Tuthaliya I, political interactions with Kizzuwatna were mostly formalized through parity treaties that chiefly focused on the reciprocal restitution of fugitives. However, Tuthaliya I marked in this respect the beginning of a new era by negotiating a new treaty with the Kizzuwatnean ruler Šunaššura that, despite some reciprocal agreements, placed Kizzuwatna in a position subsidiary to Hatti (CTH 41).⁶⁶ This can be considered the first example of a Hittite subordination treaty, a genre of diplomatic dispositions that would later become the main legal tool for formalizing Hittite hegemonic rule.

By the 15th century, Kizzuwatna was home to a mixed cultural landscape, in which Luwian and Hurrian linguistic and religious contributions were blended. The integration of Kizzuwatna in the Hittite political sphere after the Šunaššura Treaty also led to the adoption of local Luwian and Hurrian cultural features in the Hittite court, whether they were introduced directly or indirectly. Hurrian religious influences became particularly strong, with the integration of Hurrian deities at the top of the Hittite pantheon (see below).

The first interactions between Hittites and the Kaška can also be dated to the late 15th century BCE. The term Kaška, always treated as a toponym in Hittite texts (KUR ^URUKaška), designated a constellation of groups inhabiting the Pontic arch from the northeast to the northwest of the Kızılırmak basin. In the Hittite official narrative, the Kaška are depicted as unruly barbarians, always ready to disrupt the social order on the Hittite northern frontiers. Sometimes Kaška groups formed coalitions and conducted raids that reached as far as Hattuša and the more southern provinces. The cult of the Storm god in the important sanctuary of Nerik was allegedly disrupted after a Kaškean occupation under Arnuwanda I and could not be restored until the reign of Hattušili III (13th century BCE).⁶⁷ Possibly in response to this event, Arnuwanda I negotiated agreements with individual Kaška groups to integrate them into the Hittite power network and prevent the formation of a more united Kaška front (CTH 137–139).⁶⁸

The Šunaššura treaty and Arnuwanda’s agreements with the Kaška can be seen as part of broader diplomatic efforts that were made by Tuthaliya I and Arnuwanda I to stabilize the frontiers of the Hittite domain in all directions. Similar attempts involved Mida of Pahhuwa (CTH 146) in the east and the elders of the harbor city of Ura (CTH 144) to the south. In line with this frontier policy, Tuthaliya I bestowed a large foedus on the unruly leader Madduwatta, designed to be a buffer against western polities.⁶⁹

A normative effect on the internal front corresponded to this engagement at the margins of the Hittite domain. A substantial group of so-called instructions, meant to regulate and place under royal control the activities of various functionaries, are dated to the reigns of Tuthaliya I and, especially, Arnuwanda I.⁷⁰ The most prominent among these relates to the office of the BĒL MADGALTI, which, significantly, is not attested before Arnuwanda I. The BĒL MADGALTI had authority over a broad spectrum of military and civil responsibilities. Chiefly, these involved security management (through the maintenance of fortresses) and the extraction of the necessary staple and labor resources.⁷¹ However, his sphere of action seems to have been limited to the frontier regions, which justifies the conventional translation of the title as ‘governor of the border district’ or ‘frontier governor’ (lit. ‘lord of the watchtower’).

The late 15th century, or early 14th at the latest, also witnessed the formation of two important regional provinces, named the Lower and Upper Land. They were governed by high-ranking officers and lay in buffer zones near lands inhabited by the Arzawa and Kaška, respectively. The Lower Land included some of the town-districts forming the administrative basis of the Old Kingdom southwest of the Kızılırmak River and thus occupied part of the region defined as Luwiya in the Hittite Laws.⁷² The Upper Land was centered at Šamuha, on the modern site of Kayalıpınar, on the upper Kızılırmak (Sivas province). The creation of these provinces, in conjunction with the diplomatic initiatives described above, can be interpreted as part of a general reorganization of the Hittite territories that was informed by an incipient regionalization and formalized frontiers with external polities. In this respect, it is relevant that documents dating from the late 15th century onwards make frequent reference to administrative offices linked to regional compounds (EN KUR-TI), while institutions that gravitated around single towns (EN ^URUGN) become increasingly marginalized.⁷³ It is also in light of these innovations that the designation of the late 15th to early 14th centuries as the Early Empire or, as preferred here, the proto-imperial period, can be justified.

Arnuwanda I and his wife Ašmunikkal issued the last known LSU. Contrary to all its predecessors in the same genre, this text was written in Hittite, with Akkadian used only in the standard formulas. By the late 15th century, Hittite had definitively become the official scribal language of the Hittite state, used to compose political texts, treaties, edicts, royal grants, prescriptive documents, letters, administrative records, prayers, mantic texts, and, above all, the descriptions of festivals and rituals that constitute the bulk of the Hittite written legacy. Akkadian remained in use in scholarly texts serving the cuneiform scribal curriculum (lexical lists, Mesopotamian literary texts, etc.) and as the language of diplomatic communication with extra-Anatolian partners (see Chapter 8, § 3.3), but no longer featured in political texts addressed to an internal audience.⁷⁴

Another important development in Hittite literacy that began in the late 15th century was the growing use of Anatolian hieroglyphs. First attested only on seals to render the name(s) and title(s) of the owner(s), through the late 14th and especially the 13th century BCE this script found its way onto monumental inscriptions in the main Hittite centers and extra-urban contexts across Anatolia. Many such monumental inscriptions were short, but others displayed long, public, commemorative accounts of the accomplishments of the Hittite kings. Significantly, the chronological distribution of these longer inscriptions, which appeared from the reign of Tuthaliya IV onwards, complements that of celebrative historiographic compositions in cuneiform, which are not attested after Hattušili III.⁷⁵ This might reflect a changing target audience for official narratives, perhaps no longer addressed only to the court and the few cuneiform literati but to a wider audience that comprised at least those lower-level administrators and priests who used the Anatolian hieroglyphic script in their seals.⁷⁶

Notwithstanding Tuthaliya I and Arnuwanda I’s efforts to stabilize the frontiers, their successor Tuthaliya III (early 14th century) faced a dramatic political instability, depicted in later sources as a consequence of hostile pressures from the Kaška, Arzawa, Hurrians, and other enemies. The letters and administrative records from the archive of Maşat Höyük (Hittite Tapikka), mostly dating to this period, document the difficulties faced by local officials in organizing military posts and securing regular revenues on the frontier with the Kaška.⁷⁷ Based on some fragmentary hints contained in a later document (Deeds of Šuppiluliuma, CTH 40), it is possible that Tuthaliya III temporarily resided at Šamuha, from there leading his forces on the reconquest of the lost domains.⁷⁸ This move was perhaps a strategic retreat from the capital after the Kaškean occupation, an event later recalled in the so-called account of the ‘concentric invasions’, that features in an edict issued by Hattušili III (KBo 6.28 obv. 6–15). Notwithstanding the general military crisis, Tuthaliya III is also credited with having founded the royal city of Šapinuwa (nowadays Ortaköy), to which he moved his main residence and court. The activity of Tuthaliya III and his wife, Queen Taduheba, at this site is best represented by an important corpus of Hurrian rituals (see below).

The reign of Šuppiluliuma I, the son and successor of Tuthaliya III (mid-14th century BCE), inaugurated the phase termed the Empire period. At this time, the Hittite power network began to incorporate extra-Anatolian regions in a more systematized fashion, formalizing their submission through structured hierarchical protocols. On the international stage (Fig. 5.3), the Hittite kings became universally acknowledged as ‘great kings,’ on a par with the rulers of hegemonic polities such as New Kingdom Egypt, Mittani and, later, Assyria.

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Figure 5.3

The Near East in the 14th century BCE

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Most military endeavors of Šuppiluliuma are known from the account offered by his son and successor Muršili II in the so-called Deeds of Šuppiluliuma (CTH 40). As an army commander under Tuthaliya III, Šuppiluliuma committed himself to reconquering most of the regions that the Hittites had lost in central Anatolia. He launched attacks in various directions, especially against the Kaška and Arzawa. After attaining kingship, Šuppiluliuma I turned his focus to the east. Here, he inflicted a definitive blow on Mittani by subtracting from its hegemonic rule all the dependencies west of the Euphrates and eventually turned Mittani itself into a sort of Hittite protectorate. A major achievement in Syria was the conquest of the city of Karkemiš, on the middle Euphrates, which Šuppiluliuma I bestowed to his son Piyaššili, also known as Šarri-Kušuh. A dynasty branching out from the Hittite royal family thus took off at Karkemiš, and attained a prominent position within the Hittite power network, acting as the de facto supervisor and overlord of most of the Hittite dependencies in Syria. Another son of Šuppiluliuma I, Telipinu, was installed on the throne of Aleppo, which thus became another appanage kingdom formally under Hittite rule.

Among the other Syrian acquisitions of Šuppiluliuma I, one of the most important was Ugarit (modern Ras Šamra), a harbor city and the capital of a canton state that lay on the coast close to modern Latakia (Syria). During the 15th century, Ugarit had flourished as a major hub of commercial interactions that spanned the eastern Mediterranean from the Aegean to Cyprus and Egypt. After being annexed to the Hittite hegemonic sphere following its spontaneous submission, Ugarit continued to pursue its previous economic role. The local dynasty also maintained some autonomy, gained through the promise to pay regular tribute to Hatti and offer military support when required.

The era of Šuppiluliuma in Anatolia is known in the wider Near East as the ‘Amarna Age’ after the Egyptian site of El Amarna/Akhetaten, a city founded by pharaoh Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten, after a major religious reform. A large corpus of cuneiform tablets from El Amarna dating to this period, mostly written in Akkadian, document the intensive diplomatic contacts that the Egyptian court entertained with various Near Eastern partners, including the Hittites.

Muršili II succeeded his father Šuppiluliuma I at a very young age after the short-lived reign of his brother Arnuwanda II. He inherited a vast kingdom, which was, however, afflicted by an epidemic and a series of upheavals and unrest. In his extensive historiographic work (Ten Years and Comprehensive Annals, CTH 61.I–II), Muršili II claimed to have fought against the Kaška in the north to prevent the formation of an alliance that was about to emerge among different groups. Uprisings also took place in Arzawa and nearby polities that still controlled large swathes of western and southwestern Anatolia. Muršili II claimed that he led several campaigns in this direction and eventually defeated Arzawa, resulting in mass deportations of local populations toward the Hittite mainland. Through subordination treaties, Muršili II partitioned and reorganized the former Arzawa lands into several client kingdoms, the Šeha River Land (CTH 69), Mira-Kuwaliya (CTH 68), and Hapalla (CTH 67). In the meantime, in Upper Mesopotamia, Assyria was growing stronger, supplanting Mittani as the main political player and rival of Hatti on its eastern frontiers.

During the reigns of Šuppiluliuma I and Muršili II, tensions mounted with Egypt, which had entered a new expansive phase in the Levant with the advent of the 19th dynasty. After the death of Muršili II and the accession to the throne of his son Muwattalli II, Hittito-Egyptian tensions reached an apex. In 1275 BCE Pharaoh Ramses II and Muwattalli II gathered massive armies and faced one another near the upper Orontes River in the famous Battle of Kadeš. They fought to a draw, with major human losses on both sides and no significant territorial advances on either. The frontier between the two empires was maintained and consolidated at Kadeš.

In terms of internal politics, the most important deed attributable to Muwattalli II was the relocation of the Hittite capital from Hattuša to Tarhuntašša, a still undiscovered site in the Lower Land (Fig. 5.1).⁷⁹ This event was not a mere repositioning of the royal residence, akin to those that occurred decades earlier toward Šamuha and Šapinuwa, but a more encompassing endeavor that involved the transference of the entire religious apparatus that legitimized power for the Hittites. Scholars agree that this move was ideologically sanctioned by a religious reform through which Muwattalli II promoted his personal god, the Storm god of Lightning (pihaššašši), to the head of the Hittite pantheon (Great Prayer of Muwattalli II—CTH 381).⁸⁰ However, economic-strategic considerations had a role in Muwattalli’s choice because the land of Tarhuntašša offered access to several routes leading to both Arzawa and the eastern Mediterranean.⁸¹

In the west, the situation seems to have remained relatively peaceful after the reorganization imposed by Muršili II. Muwattalli II seems to have expanded the range of allegiances by negotiating a treaty with Alakšandu, ruler of the kingdom of Wiluša (the Hittite name of Ilion/Troy).⁸² Endemic clashes with the Kaška continued in the north, accompanied by major repopulation programs carried out under the supervision of Muwattalli’s brother, Hattušili, who was then the viceroy of the northern region of Hakmiš.

Although Muwattalli II intended the relocation to Tarhuntašša to be permanent, events took a different direction. Muwattalli’s son and successor, Urhi- Teššub/Muršili III, left Tarhuntašša and—likely pressed by his uncle, Hattušili—restored Hattuša as the Hittite capital. Subsequent struggles within the Hittite ruling family had a profound impact on territorial and political developments in Anatolia. Hattušili grew more and more influential within the Hittite court and, with a pretext, declared war on Urhi-Teššub, who was ruling as the legitimate king.

In his Apology (CTH 81), Hattušili depicted his final victory over Urhi-Teššub as an ordeal and claims that he triumphed with the help of his patron goddess, Ištar. However, Hattušili III could not have won without the support of the elites, including not only client-rulers but also members of the royal family. One of these supporters was probably Kurunta, another son of Muwattalli II and thus a possible claimant to the throne. Once king, Hattušili III bestowed the vacant throne of Tarhuntašša on Kurunta as both a reward for his support against Urhi-Teššub and a means of checking Kurunta’s legitimate aspirations to kingship in Hatti. Like Karkemiš in Syria, Tarhuntašša thus became a subsidiary seat of the Hittite royal family (Sekundogenitur), with borders carefully defined through treaties (CTH 106).

Hattušili III is particularly well known for the peace he signed with Pharaoh Ramses II in the so-called Eternal Treaty, which is known from both an Akkadian tablet found at Hattuša and monumental Egyptian inscriptions in the Ramesseum and Temple of Karnak (CTH 91). This act inaugurated a period of relative stability in the eastern Mediterranean, aptly termed the Pax Hethitica by Itamar Singer (1999:646). Throughout his reign, Hattušili III shared much of his power with his wife, the queen Puduheba, who was the daughter of the Kizzuwatnean priest Bentipšarri. Thanks to this union, a second wave of Hurrian influence, after the one of the late 15th century, reached the Hittite court. Puduheba outlived her husband, continuing to rule as the queen mother during the reign of her and Hattušili’s son Tuthaliya IV.

As king Tuthaliya IV signed a treaty with Kurunta of Tarhuntašša, expanding the territorial extent and political prerogatives of the Sekundogenitur. Given his status as the son of a usurper, Tuthaliya IV was constantly preoccupied with ensuring that the court remained loyal to him and his descendants as opposed to other possible lines of succession. In this context, the presence of a semi-independent Anatolian kingdom in the hands of an heir of Muwattalli II and thus legitimate claimant to the throne of Hattuša certainly represented a thorn in the side of Tuthaliya IV. It is not yet ascertained, however, whether Kurunta and Tuthaliya IV ever engaged in open warfare.⁸³

In the lengthy hieroglyphic inscription of Yalburt in the northern Konya province, Tuthaliya IV claimed to have campaigned in the lands of Lukka. On the international front, tensions grew stronger with Assyria, which bordered Karkemiš on the Euphrates after annexing the former territory of Mittani. Eventually, Tuthaliya IV lost the battle of Nihriya, a town on the Euphrates, against Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria, but there was little change in the territorial holdings of either party in the Euphrates area.

Tuthaliya IV was succeeded by his son Arnuwanda III, who, however, died shortly after, leaving little to no trace in extant records apart from his sealings.⁸⁴ The throne then passed to the other son of Tuthaliya IV, Šuppiluliuma II, who is the last known Hittite king to have ruled from Hattuša. The documentation available on Šuppiluliuma II is also scarce and fragmentary. Although this king authored the monumental hieroglyphic inscription of Nişantaş/Nişantepe at Hattuša, which is the longest imperial Hittite document of this kind discovered to date, the inscription is badly eroded due to its long exposure to atmospheric events. From the few signs preserved, we learn that Šuppiluliuma II conducted a naval expedition against Alašiya (i.e., Cyprus). This topic reconnects Nişantepe with the cuneiform tablet KBo 12.38(+), which narrates similar events. It is now generally agreed that Šuppiluliuma’s endeavors were meant to re-establish connections with the island and its copper resources after the disruptions caused by the seaborne raids of the so-called Sea People. The reality behind the vague term ‘Sea Peoples’ is controversial. Nonetheless, several pieces of evidence, including epigraphic information from Ugarit and Egypt and violent destruction events along the coast, are suggestive of increasing instability in the eastern Mediterranean area around the end of the 13th century BCE (Volume 2).

Most scholars would also attribute to Šuppiluliuma II the long hieroglyphic SÜDBURG inscription, which was found a short distance from Nişantaş in a chamber underneath a sacred pool complex.⁸⁵ However, some scholars have objected to this attribution, proposing instead to associate the inscription with Šuppiluliuma I.⁸⁶ The SÜDBURG inscription tells of military expeditions and construction works in various locales of Anatolia. The toponyms involved in this context include Lukka and Ikuna, that is, Ikkuwaniya (modern Konya). In addition, the text tells of actions involving a city named with the logographic form TONITRUS^URBS, whose identification with Tarhuntašša, once subscribed to by many, has since been called into question.⁸⁷

The view that the final demise of the Hittite monarchy at the turn of the 13th century was accompanied by violent destruction at Hattuša is now dismissed and is not supported by any archaeological evidence. Rather, it seems that the monarchs, their entourage, and their institutional apparatus relocated elsewhere after emptying the buildings of any objects of value, probably including portions of the tablet archives.⁸⁸

5 Shaping the Cultural Landscape of Hittite Anatolia

The array of military, political, and economic interactions unfolding in the four documented centuries of Hittite history inevitably had a considerable impact on Anatolian cultural landscapes. We have mentioned that an intense exchange affecting the very core of Hittite ideological conceptions was already occurring during the formative stages of the Hittite polity. Furthermore, extra-Anatolian foreign influences on Hittite cultural milieus were already strong at the time of Hattušili I, and continued with varying intensity and effects until the end of the Hittite period. Dealing with the countless variables of cultural interaction in this evolving historical scenario and their manifold relationships with documented events would far exceed the scope of this chapter. There are, however, some major catalysts of cultural contact connected with documented historical processes that it is worth to sum up here as a framework for the linguistic interactions detailed in the next chapters.

To begin with, the imperial expansion and endless conflicts in which Hittite monarchs and their armies engaged had broad cultural effects that reached well beyond accidental consequences. The raids of Hattušili I contributed to the (re)introduction of cuneiform literacy and Syro-Mesopotamian traditions within the Hittite court (Chapter 6, § 2.2). But dynamics of cultural exchange could work in more subtle, bottom-up mechanisms. The mobilization of the Hittite army from several different districts of the Hittite domain resulted in the forced socialization of individuals who came from diverse cultures and spoke a variety of languages. The Egyptian records of the Battle of Kadeš offer an iconic portrait of the multicultural kaleidoscope of Muwattalli II’s army:

(The Hittite) had come and had collected together all the foreign countries so far as the end of the sea. The entire Land of Hatti had come, that of Mittani (lit.: Nahrin) likewise, that of Arzawa, Dardany, that of the Kaška, those of Maša, those of Pitašša, that of Arawanna, that of Karkiša, Lukka, Kizzuwatna, Karkemiš, Ugarit, Kedy, the entire land of Nuhašše, Musanet, Kadeš.⁸⁹

If this description is worth any credit, anyone walking among the soldiers deployed at Kadeš would have heard a representative sample of all of the languages spoken across the Hittite domain. Kadeš was certainly an exceptional case, which can hardly be generalized as a standard for the composition of the Hittite army.⁹⁰ Some Hittite texts, however, provide a realistic template for the linguistic interactions that could occur daily along the military chain of command. Famous examples are the O/MH protocols for the Palace Gatekeeper (CTH 263) and the Royal Bodyguard (CTH 262), which provided instructions in Hittite that officers and functionaries had to transmit in Hattian or Luwian to their subordinates.⁹¹ The sociolinguistic implications of such interactions can hardly be overestimated. For example, we know that various dialects of Luwian were spoken in Anatolia and can reasonably assume that Luwians composed a large contingent, if not the bulk, of the Hittite army, at least from the 15th century onwards. Therefore, communications between officers of any native language and their Luwian subordinates could create the conditions for the emergence of a shared Luwian code that could span across different linguistic affiliations. This could have been one among several mechanisms that led to the formation of the so-called Empire Luwian koiné employed in the Hittite capital (cf. § 6.2. and Chapter 11, § 3).

Besides the deployment of force, Hittites could obtain or maintain control over conquered territories through a network of diplomatic and political relationships.⁹² This would have compelled Hittite scribal schools to maintain a training in Akkadian, which was necessary for international communications with Syrian subordinates and other Near Eastern polities. Political relationships across the Hittite Empire also entailed the movement of people in multiple directions. Representatives of Hatti were dispatched to provincial seats and client courts that in turn sent representatives to Hattuša. Client courts could also entertain diplomatic relations with third parties within the Hittite domain. This was most prominently the case of Karkemiš, whose rulers sent representatives to various Syrian courts on behalf of the Hittite monarchs. Interdynastic marriages were another important aspect of diplomatic transactions. Through such marriages Hittite monarchs established bonds with both foreign and subordinate courts. To be sure, the circulation of people entailed by diplomatic relations concerned only a minority of individuals—those gravitating around the ruling elites and the latter’s institutions. These, however, are the same environments in which extant written records were produced. Therefore, sociolinguistic scenarios determined by politico-diplomatic relations are generally more visible to us despite their limited impact on the general population. As we shall discuss in a moment, this was the case of the Hurrian influence, which reached the Hittite court mainly through interdynastic marriages and determined important changes in official religious and ideological expressions even though it did not spread beyond the inner circles of the ruling elite.

Hittite military campaigns into hostile territories typically resulted in the capture and transportation of sizable numbers of civilians, who were sent to be used as workers or specialized craftspeople in the home provinces. Hittite texts designate this category of people with the logogram NAM.RA, which corresponds to the Hittite arnuwala ‘transportees’. Those sources that provide information on the numbers of deportees mention as many as several thousand.⁹³ In his Ten Years Annals (KBo 3.4 iii 32–33), Muršili II claimed that, after a campaign in Arzawa, he transported to Hatti no fewer than 66000 captives.⁹⁴ This is an astounding figure, especially if we consider that the entire population of Hattuša hardly exceeded a third of that number.⁹⁵

Most episodes of deportation are attested in extant sources in connection with Hittite military campaigns against foreign polities, chiefly the lands of Arzawa and Kaška. However, deportations were not only a demonstration of brutal force in times of war but also a structural component of the Hittite economy. Bronze Age Anatolian agriculture was highly reliant on precipitations, but this was subject to extreme variations due to the endemic climatic instability characterizing the region. In such conditions, agricultural yields in Anatolia were very low compared to those obtained in contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. Without a supplementary infrastructure, farming could support little more than a subsistence economy. Acquiring more arable land was not a sufficient solution without the manpower necessary to till the new fields. For this reason, preserving and, whenever possible, increasing the supply of labor was a primary concern of the Hittite state.⁹⁶ The forced mobilization of people could also take place independently of wars, especially in conjunction with particular settlement policies. Forced mobilization could be used to populate towns that were founded ex novo, such as Kuşaklı/Šarišša (see above), expand existing settlements, or repopulate (Hittite ašeš-) locales that had been deserted for various reasons.⁹⁷

War captives were not equated to slaves but were transported in Hatti to (re)populate the land in which they were forced to reside. In most cases, the crown assigned them fields and/or other means of production so that they could contribute to the state economy.⁹⁸ We can imagine that some of the captives tried to run away as is suggested by the stipulations on the restitution of fugitives included in treaties and other legal documents. Many others may have perished during deportations or did not survive long after being transplanted to foreign lands. However, many captives settled down and integrated to varying degrees into the Hittite socioeconomic environment. Over time, the forced transfers of war captives must have resulted in the presence of multiple ethnolinguistic groups, variably assimilated to the cultural facies of their host communities, in the Hittite core region.

Alongside deportations, individuals were forced to move from region to region to perform specific duties or because they were hired by central institutions. These situations, of course, involved scattered numbers of people yet could still produce interesting sociolinguistic data. The Luwian ritual practitioners who moved to the Hittite court to perform religious services and, above all, helped Hittite scribes to record Luwian language incantations, constitute a case in point. One of these peculiar specialists was the ‘attendant woman’ Kuwattalla (see below), who received land in Hatti from Arnuwanda I and Ašmunikkal.⁹⁹

Trade is one last factor to consider among the catalysts of cultural contacts, although its implications on the sociolinguistic make-up of Anatolia are not clearly evident in the Hittite textual corpus. Compared with the Old Assyrian period, for which almost all of the records that we have were produced by merchants, very little is known about trade in Hittite Anatolia.¹⁰⁰ The increasing presence of Anatolian merchants in the Old Assyrian records raises the possibility that at least the inner Anatolian circuits of trade continued to work independently after the last Assyrian firms had left. The Hittite term for city, happira-, is etymologically related to the noun happar- (price) and the verb happirai- (to sell, conduct business).¹⁰¹ This would suggest that commerce had an important role in Hittite emic conceptions of social life.¹⁰² Hattuša might have risen to power because of its continued role and increasing importance in Anatolian trade.¹⁰³ The localization of merchants in Hatti, Luwiya, and Pala that was foreseen by § 5 of the Laws (see above) may reflect an organization of early Hittite trade into three broad circuits that centered on the Kızılırmak bend, Pontic area, and south-central Plateau, respectively. If so, this subdivision may have perpetuated the organization of the Anatolian branch of the Old Assyrian network, which had nodes in Kaneš, Durhumit, and Purušhattum (Chapter 4, § 4).

Hittite involvement in long-distance exchange is relatively better documented during the Empire period. Two parallel circuits existed and must be kept distinct. An upper circuit, which is the best documented, functioned along the channels of diplomatic relations between the Hittite court and other great powers, namely, Egypt, Kassite Babylon, and Assyria. This system was conceived of as a reciprocal exchange of gifts rather than proper trade among rulers, with the gifts being luxury goods, valuable metals, and specialized personnel. Associated with this but designed for the sole benefit of the Hittite court was the inflow of tribute demanded from subordinate polities.¹⁰⁴ The lower circuit of long-distance exchange involved the regular trade run by commercial firms, who could be hired by state institutions as specialized personnel. This second layer is less well documented in Hittite textual records. The overall impression, nonetheless, is of a general shift of the Anatolian trade from the eastern, Mesopotamian trajectory that had characterized the Kārum period to a more southerly focus on the Levant and the Mediterranean. During the Hittite Empire period, documented direct exchange between Anatolia and Mesopotamia mostly involved the upper (gift) circuit. The archaeological record from Anatolia and Mesopotamia also gives this impression, because most of the imports in either direction were luxury goods and seals.¹⁰⁵ Some direct commercial interactions with Middle Assyria involved Hittite subordinate polities in Syria, chiefly Karkemiš, Emar, and Ugarit, but not Hatti itself.¹⁰⁶

The harbor of Ugarit, annexed by Šuppiluliuma I around the mid-14th century BCE, was a major focus of Hittite commercial interests in the south. Through its control over maritime trade, Ugarit granted indirect access to all of the eastern Mediterranean markets from the Levant to Egypt, Cyprus, and the Aegean.¹⁰⁷ Texts dating to the 14th and 13th centuries, from both Ugarit and Hattuša, witness that commercial interactions between Ugarit and Hatti were mainly mediated through the Anatolian port of Ura, which was probably situated in Rough Cilicia at the mouth of the Göksu River (the classical Kalykadnos).¹⁰⁸ The treaty of Arnuwanda I with the elders of Ura (CTH 144) marks the first Hittite attempt to establish forms of control in this area.¹⁰⁹ Interestingly, this document features an oath ritual in honor of the Luwian god Yarri (obv. 9: ⸢^d⸣Ya-ar-ri), and the Luwian element muwa- (‘might’) occurs in the name of an elder (obv. 3: ^mMu-w[a-).¹¹⁰ This might suggest that the port of Ura was located in a Luwian-speaking area. The name Ura itself might be etymologically related to the Luwian ura- ‘great’, but this is per se not diagnostic: there was another Ura in the territory of Azzi-Hayaša, in the eastern Pontic area, where Luwian had hardly any influence.¹¹¹

Areal contacts between Anatolia and the Aegean during the LBA will be detailed in a dedicated chapter of Volume 2. Here it suffices to emphasize the very meager evidence for direct trading relations along this trajectory, which are represented, if anything, by scattered finds of Mycenaean ceramic wares (Late Helladic IIIA–B) and other objects in central Anatolian sites. This contrasts with the situation in Cilicia and, above all, the Levant, where LBA Aegean imports were relatively more abundant.¹¹²

Having outlined the general mechanisms of interregional and cross-cultural contacts operating in Hittite Anatolia, we will discuss and contextualize some of them in the frame of two specific cases that are particularly important for their broader historical implications: Hurro-Hittite and Luwo-Hittite interactions.

6 Concluding Remarks

The web of socio-cultural interactions analyzed in this chapter knit together an extremely diverse landscape that shaped in various and unpredictable ways the circulation of ideas, worldviews, objects, people, and languages. Some recurring patterns allow the identification of at least two types of interfaces that, when crossed, had different implications for the Hittite cultural legacy. The first, more elusive, type of interface was genuinely cultural and was mainly reflected in the interactions occurring between the various ethnolinguistic groups cohabiting in central Anatolia. At least one such cultural interface, between the Hittites and Hattians, was crossed quite early, probably centuries before the formation of the archives of Hattuša. This produced an intricate blend of religious traditions and ideological conceptions, if not mutual linguistic interferences (see Chapter 9). Geographically, this blend was summarized in the territorial definition of Hatti, which encompassed, with no apparent distinctions, both Hittite and Hattian milieus. Another cultural interface, which informed areal relations between Hittites and Luwians, resisted for somewhat longer. During the Old Kingdom, this interface was reflected in a core-periphery opposition between the lands of Hatti and Luwiya. This opposition was subsequently eliminated or reshaped by successive reforms: first the uniform application of the storehouse system throughout central Anatolia in the late 16th century BCE and then the creation of the Lower Land in the late 15th century. Significantly, it is at this last juncture that the Hittite-Luwian interface was definitively crossed from a cultural standpoint, producing the close cultural-linguistic interference summarized here, in § 5.2., and detailed in Chapter 11.

The second type of interface was marked by a natural frontier, namely the Taurus mountain chain, which separated the central plateau from southeastern Anatolia, Cilicia, Syria, and Mesopotamia. The first remarkable effect of interactions across this natural interface was the (re)introduction of cuneiform literacy and Syro-Mesopotamian traditions in Anatolia, which was followed by waves of ‘Hurrianization.’ It is worth emphasizing that these contacts, although at times intensive, had their main impact on the ruling elites, with few echoes in the larger society. However, in certain places, more pervasive cultural interactions crossed the same natural interface—for example, between the south-central plateau and Cilicia. Intense contacts between those two regions go back to at least the third millennium BCE (Chapter 3). It is probably this long-lasting intercommunication that produced the condition for the formation of the dialectal continuum between Lower Land and Kizzuwatna Luwian.