Hittite Scribal Schools Outside of Hattusa?

The article investigates the meagre textual evidence for Hittite scribal schools outside of Hattusa against the background of new excavations and the questions they raise about the social context of Hittite cuneiform writing. The use of the term é.dub.ba(.a) in Late Bronze Age Anatolia by contrast to Middle Bronze Age Babylonia is briefly touched on, and the institution of the é giš.kin.ti at Karahna is compared with that at Hattus

After the Hittites: The Kingdoms of Karkamish and Palistin in Northern Syria

The disappearance and weakening of the Late Bronze Age territorial empires in the Eastern Mediterranean shortly after 1200 BC is traditionally held to be followed by a so-called Dark Age of around 300 years, characterized by a lack of written sources. However, new sources are appearing, mainly in the medium of Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions, which help us to understand events and, more importantly, political and geographical power constellations during the period. The new sources are briefly situated within the framework of the current debates, with special regard given to the territories of Karkamish and Palistin. Emphasis is laid on the apparent continuation of local idioms for the articulation of power, largely persisting from the Hittite Empire, in spite of any changes in population, social structure, or political institutions that may have occurred

Review of H. Marquardt, Hethitische Logogramme. Funktion und Verwendung. (DBH 34, Wiesbaden, 2011).

A review of H. Marquardt's book on the function and use of logograms in Hittite cuneiform, which isolates two main motivations for logogram-use: tachygraphy and the avoidance of varying syllabic writings. Broad agreement is found with these results. A slightly different statistical model for interpretation of results relating to the chronological aspects of logogram-use in Hittite texts is suggested

Poetry and War among the Hittites

The Hittites ruled a kingdom and then an empire in central Anatolia from the 17th to the 12th centuries BC. Their language is attested on thousands of cuneiform tablets from their capital city Hattusa from at least the 15th century BC, if not before, and is the earliest written Indo-European language. Identification of poetry is difficult, not least because of the intricacies of the writing system, but advances have been made of late. Long known is the so-called Soldier's Song, which is embedded in a tale of military adventure and stands out for its repetetive, chant-like structure. Further military stories also contain highly vivid imagery and poetic themes, acting as a mythico-poetic re-enactment of episodes from Hittite history. Heavy use of dialogue may point to a performance context for some of these. Some of these narratives do not contain entirely favourable perspectives on the shared past. Hittite rituals also contain incantations of a clearly poetic nature, often phrased in the closely related language known as Luwian. Many of the rituals have an explicit military context. Mention should be made of an obscure group of songs in this language which is held by some scholars to contain elements of a Luwian poem about the Trojan war, a so-called Wilusiad, although this is rather unlikely. Beyond native material the Hittites also imported a great deal of literature from the neighbouring Hurrians in northern Syria, as well as from the Babylonians in Mesopotamia. One such piece, preserved in Hurrian with a Hittite translation, is clearly poetic and appears to contain a narrative on the siege of a Syrian city transposed into an analogy with a myth concerning the detention of the Storm-god in the underworld. These items will be considered in the context of a discussion of the functions of ancient poetry in a warlike context. These functions range from the practical aspect of achieving influence on history through ritual, to the not always positive construction of community identity through historical narrative and the reception of foreign belles lettres in a scholastic environment