By Madison Nef
(If you haven’t read part 1, please read that first.)
Picking up where we left off at the end of the last paper, after the battle for the Levant between the Hittites and the Egyptians, we begin to see more Hittite documents, showing that they were learning more about writing and creating the tablets. The first types of documents we see are the treaties- and often these were long preambles or just religious justifications. The Hittites were very compulsive and orderly, so among their legal documents you will often find population numbers, soldier counts, and resources.
There were also religious documents, often telling about the different rituals and how they were performed. Upon entering a Hittite temple, there was a washroom off to the right as the Hittites believed that there had to be purification to go in front of the Gods. Their ceremonies were very long and precise, as they ALSO believed that if you messed up one word that the Gods would get mad at not just you, but your whole village. The punishment would vary depending on the God you had managed to anger: if you angered Teshab (the weather god) you might get heavy thunderstorms with a lot of lighting (which could ruin crops). If you angered the sun god, there was fear of drought.
The third and final type of document was the ones containing the Hittite myths and legends. A well known myth is the one about Telepinu, the god of Vegetation, or “The Myth of the Missing God”. In the story, Telepinu gets mad at the Hittites for worshipping him incorrectly and puts his right foot into his left boot (or something strange like that) and storms off, leaving the vegetation to die while he is gone and a poor harvest to be had. Finally, he is brought back when Arinna (the sun goddess) sends an eagle to fine him. If you look at Greek myths, a lot of them can be traced back to the Hittites, including the famous story of Demeter and Persephone.
The Hittites have always been good at art and architecture, often adapting the aesthetics from the Middle East. The aesthetics they adapted slowly turned into their own, and if you look at artwork coming straight up to catholic art you can see that it is based off of the Hittite aesthetics.
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| The Lion Gate |
The reasoning for this was to make Hattusas a ritual capital- Hattusalis wanted to take all of the different gods and relocate their main temples to the one capital, that way when other kings came to visit him, they had to pass by all the temples to get to the citadel- and they couldn’t help but be impressed by all the culture. With all the building of the temples, there was a large increase in architectural skills, and in the great wall you can see impressive stone masonry- the wall was built to last through a siege of battering rams, towers, and other impacts of war. While Hattusas was seized and taken over at least 3 times in its history, it is thought to have been through treachery as all the walls are completely intact to this day.
Hattusalis III’s Background
Hattusalis was the fourth son of Mursilis II and Queen Gassulawiya. Mursilis appointed Hattusalis as a priest of Sausga (or Ishtar) of Samuha- to which Hattusalis worshipped and thought of as his patron goddess ‘til his death. He ended up marrying a priestess of Ishtar, Queen Pudahepa. Hattusalis’ older brother moved his brother to Tarhuntassa and appointed him the governor of Hattusas. From there, Hattusalis became a commander for the Hittite forces and led them during the infamous Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptians in 1274 BC. He conquered Nerikand, and became the High Priest of its storm god. He named his first son Nerikkaili in honor of this.
Hattusalis’ nephew, Mursilis II, moved his capital back to Hattusas, removing Hattusalis as the governor. He then deposed Hattusalis from his title of High Priest, which sparked a vicious civil war. In the end, Hattusalis won and exiled his nephew. Being the last born son in his family, Hattusalis was never in line for the throne, and was only able to secure his position as king by defeating his nephew and showing his appreciation for art and the “1000 god of Hatti”. He is well known for signing a written peace treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites- which has become the earliest known treaty in history.
Hattusalis went on to write an apology after overthrowing his son, explaining his actions. His reasoning for the apology was to stay on the good side of his patron goddess (who, ironically, is the goddess of oaths and love). He also renamed the gods, calling them by their Hurrian names (as Pudahepa was a Hurrian) - the weather god was named Teshab, and the sun goddess of Arinna was renamed Hepatu. The Hittites, as mentioned above, were very dedicated to their gods and didn’t want to offend them in any way, and they felt that by calling the gods by a pronounced name it was profane. The Hurrians, on the other hand, had names for all their gods, and used them on a regular basis.
Ancient Greek Civilizations
The first known civilization in Greece sprouts from the island Crete- by 2800 BC an unknown civilization had appeared on the island. They left writings behind, but they are in an unknown language named Linear A and in the form of sylabri- symbols that represent syllables. There have been many tries to link the language to modern linguistics, but there are so few of the documents that it is hard to decipher and is still a mystery to this day. However, it IS known that the people living on the island of Crete DID NOT speak Greek- they likely spoke a non-Indo-European tongue.
By 1903, much of the palace had been dug up and showed signs of Cnossus being a very advanced city, as the findings exhibited a lot of artwork and writing. In 1905, Evans finished his excavations on the palace and moved on to the so-called “throne room” (called so because of the large throne in the middle of the room). The room was recreated by artists Emile Gillierons Jr. and Sr. While the recreations were based off of Evans’ archeological findings, the best known frescoes from the throne room were almost entirely due to the Gillierons.
The Minoans were traders, and actually had established trading posts on the shores of Asia Minor by the year 2100 BC. Judging by the trade winds of the Mediterranean, the Minoans likely ended up trading with Syria and Egypt if they used the sea as their way of transport (which research findings suggest they did). What’s more, the Minoan rulers were suspected to have had a firm control on the sea surrounding Crete, as excavations found no signs of walls or any type of fortification. Either the Minoans were idiots leaving their island unprotected, or they had good control over what happened in their territory.
In fact, there is PROOF that the Minoans traded with Egypt- they are referenced in old Egyptian documents as the Keftiu, strange traders from Cnossus. But exactly what were the Minoans trading? Records show that their main export was perfumed oil, made from the olive oil and wild flowers. Aside from that they also traded timber, metals, and textiles with the Egyptians which they would then use to make pottery and jewelry. The perfumed oils were the biggest export because of all the sacrificial rights and rituals that were going on in this time period- the oils were often used after sacrificing an animal to one of the gods, to sanitize the altar so that bug and rodent infestations were small. The perfumed oil was also used for bathing and was used in place of soap.
In 1400 BC, The Palace of Minos was destroyed. How it happened remains a mystery today- archaeologists have looked into the possibility of a volcanic eruption, but there is no evidence of it. However, the find did give rise to the myth of Theseus and Ariadne. The myth is that Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, and she fell in love with Theseus (Theseus was going to kill the minotaur). To aid him with the slaying of the minotaur, she gave him a sword and a ball of yarn to help him find his way out of the labyrinth.
The palace was rebuilt, more beautiful and precise than ever with four doorways rather than two- however, it wasn’t long before Cnossus was sacked by Greeks from the mainland. This civilization is thought to be the first Greek speakers of the time, and they completely took over Cnossus. The palace was the only thing spared, and the Greeks took over Minoan trading posts and goods. They seemed to spring up at about 1900 BC and moved their way through Greece, and by 1600 BC there were 12-15 different empires along the coast of Greece, a few of the notable ones being Athens, Sparta and Mycenae.
In 1600 BC, Cnossus was lost again when a volcano erupted on the nearby island of Thera, destroying the city (and many others surrounding it) in flames. There is speculation among scholars if this was the end of the culture or not though, as the Mycenaean language, Linear B, continued to be found after the eruption. There is evidence showing that the Greeks may have rebuilt the palace once again, but no one knows for sure.
While the Greeks adapted well to Minoan culture, they were quite a different people. They were elite warriors, basing most of their power on chariots and horsepower. The Greeks also constructed the first fortified citadel in 1600 BC- it was very small, basically a palace with a few extra rooms for servants. Still, it showed very good architecture for the time period. The Greek language, Linear B (mentioned above) was actually an edited form of Linear A. A man by the name of Michael Ventis managed to decode it in the early 1950’s using the same technique used in World War II to decode German messages, and Linear B turned out to be one of the earliest forms of Greek writing, or “east Greek”.
The language was printed on the baked tablets of clay, and they are readable enough where they can supply us now with naval positions. We have also learned from the tablets that the ancient Greek rulers went by the term “wanax” or “anax”, which means “lord”. As the timeline progressed, such titles would only be used to refer to the gods and Zeus, but in the Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC) “lord” referred to the ruler/owner of the nearby citadel. Many of the early Greek documents were found in the city of Pylos, but they only gave obscure and miscellaneous information- lists of the king’s favorite bulls, lists of how many wagon wheels were available, but no king lists, diplomatic records and definitely no poetry or high literature that could have been found in the Hittite empire.
Many of the Aegeans living in the Greek empires did not speak Greek. They still spoke the old, unidentified language and were referred to by the Greeks as pelasgians or pre-Greek inhabitants. Miletus was a small island just off of the shore of Asian Minor, and was one of the main Achaean trading posts. It was proved to have Greek inhabitants on it when Linear B tablets were found on it just a few years ago. It was also proved to have its own lord and palace.
Now, if you controlled the trading posts, you were considered a lord, and the lord lived in the palace. The palace was a very important place, so this was only fitting- the palace was often the only place of literature and culture within an empire and was also the place where the trading goods and slaves came in. The slaves were often Anatolian women who were brought to the Greek empires for their pottery and architectural skills. The Greek people adapted to the Anatolian way quickly and this may be why we see Anatolian trends in the Greek empires.
Finally, we arrive at the Collapse of the Bronze Age, which took place between 1225 and 1100 BC. It was in this time period that both the Hittite AND the Greek Empire collapsed- for an unknown reason. The evidence researchers DO have on the collapse is very scrambled and miscellaneous, as the only text we have from the collapse are whatever happened to be in the clay when the palace/empire got torched. Scholars have suggested many-a-theory as to what may have happened, but when checked into none of them seem to fit. Illness, natural disaster, and other theories have been sought after but none make sense according to the records that survived the collapse (for both empires).The only semi-logical theory is that the costs of war got to be too much for both sides and they ended up being taken over by the peltast (lightly armed infantrymen). There are old theories that suggest barbarians with iron weapons sacked the empires, but the smithing of iron weapons wasn’t discovered until decades later so this was ruled out. There were no records of plagues or natural disasters among the records known to us, so it is unlikely that that was the case either. However, plague cannot be ENTIRELY ruled out as many armies fighting in Syria caught the plague and brought it back into the cities- the plague was actually what killed the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II.
As the Bronze Age came to a close, a new time was beginning- the Iron Age, which would last from 1150 BC to 550 BC. The Iron Age would bring about new weapons, religious beliefs and rituals, new agricultural AND architectural wonders, and of course the avid use of iron weapons and eventually armor. This brings to a close part 2 of The Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor.
