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In the 14th century BC the Hittites became the supreme political and military power in the Near East. How did they achieve their supremacy? How successful were they in maintaining it? What brought about their collapse and disappearance? This comprehensive history of the Hittite kingdom seeks to answer these questions. It takes account of important recent advances in Hittite scholarship, including some major archaeological discoveries made in the last few years. It also features numerous translations from the original texts, so that on many issues the ancient Hittites are given the opportunity to speak to the modern reader for themselves. The revised edition contains a substantial amount of new material, as well as numerous other revisions to the first edition.
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T H E K I N G D O M OF TH E H I T T I T E S This page intentionally left blank The Kingdom of the Hittites New Edition T R EVO R B RYC E 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Trevor Bryce 2005 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn ISBN 0-19-927908-x ISBN 0-19-928132-7 978-0-19-927908-1 (hbk) 978-0-19-928132-9 (pbk) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 UXORI MEAE CARISSIMAE Acknowledgements In the Wrst edition of this book, I expressed my gratitude to Professor Silvin Kosˇak for his most useful comments on the book in its draft form, particularly in relation to the passages in translation. His valuable contribution to the preparation of that edition continues to be reXected in the new edition. For its infrastructural support in the preparation of this new edition, my thanks are due to the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland. I am also grateful to Wolfson College, Oxford, for providing me with a congenial environment in which to live and to work during various visits to Oxford while both editions were being researched and written. Finally I wish to express once again my gratitude for the advice which Professor Gurney, unfortunately now deceased, gave me over many years on a wide range of matters relating to the Hittite world. He did much to stimulate my initial interest in this world and was always most generous in sharing his ideas on many of