Hittites and Arzawans: a view from western Anatolia

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

doi:10.1017/s0066154600000995

Abstract

AbstractThere has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery. The nature of the available source material means that these relationships are usually studied from a Hittite perspective, and that interactions with the Hittites are often seen as centrally important for these groups. In this paper, however, it is argued that archaeological evidence can be used to gain insight into alternative views – views which may not necessarily privilege relationships with the Hittites over those with other groups. One well-documented example of such a group is Arzawa, a quarrelsome coalition of principalities in western Anatolia. This paper will focus on the western Anatolian site of Beycesultan, caught between the Hittite and Arzawan heartlands. It will show that people at Beycesultan did not define themselves primarily in relation to either the Hittites or the Arzawan confederacy, but had their own dynamic and shifting world-view.

Highlights

There has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery
The last decade has seen an upsurge of archaeological interest in marginal areas, peripheral regions and border zones, in tune with new movements in postcolonial theory and the anthropology of cultural contact. This is a trend which has been popular in Mediterranean archaeology, and which has made itself felt in the recent research undertaken on the Hittite Empire
The territory of Arzawa seems to have encompassed most of the Anatolian peninsula west of the plateau, excluding the Troad in the far north and the Lycian highlands in the far south (Gurney 1975: 16; Hawkins 1998; Bryce 1999: 73−74)

Summary

Introduction

There has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery. Some scholars contend that Arzawa would, have been a cultural unit if not a political one, basing their arguments on the idea that western Anatolia was populated by a single ethnolinguistic group − the Luwians (for example, Lloyd 1956: 154; Beekes 2003; Bryce 2006: 117) Such claims of Luwian unity have been overturned by recent linguistic studies (Yakubovich 2008), and do not fit well with recent archaeological research, which suggests that there was a high degree of micro-regionalism and diversity within western Anatolia in terms of both cultural traits and social practice (Mellaart, Murray 1995: 105; Mountjoy 1998; Bayne 2000; Basedow 2002; Cline 2008). Arzawa emerges as a geographical region composed of several different political, social, cultural and linguistic groups

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion