The Kingdom of the Hittites

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on the Hittites
Review: Trevor Bryce's book is the best English language book that one can find on the Ancient Hittites. Bryce gives a comprehensive update on the Hittite kingdom and the historical context for the reattribution of certain important Hittite texts to previous kings. Bryce also documents the unstable and mass paranoia that afflicted the Hittite Empire where brothers and uncles competed violently with each other for the throne. Even great Hittite rulers such as Mursilis I--who destroyed the Babylonian kingdom of Hammurabi's ancestors by seizing Babylon--was eventually assassinated in a palace coup while Suppiluliuma I, who established Hatti as the greatest Empire in the Middle east through his 2 Syrian wars against Mitanni and Carchemish, murdered his older brother Tudhaliya the Younger to assume the throne after being passed over in the succession by Tudhaliya III, his father. Hattusilis III, who made peace with Ramses II, deposed his nephew Urhi Teshub after the latter tried to seize his own power bases of support in the Hittite Empire. The result of this turbulent political culture was that few Hittite kings dared to leave their capital of Boghazkoy for fear of a palace coup being hatched in their abscence.

Bryce notes that the Hittite Empire--despite its unstable political system--was the bedrock of stability in the heart of the Ancient Middle East. After its final destruction at the hands of the Sea Peoples in Year 8 of Pharaoh Ramses III(c.1175 BC), this area was plunged into a state of constant upheaval by the appearance of various local independent states such as the kingdoms of Edom(Ancient Negev & Southern Jordan), Moab, Philistia(Ancient Gaza) and Ammon who all competed among one another for control of parts of this region. It should be noted that Professor Russell Adams of McMaster University has dated the creation of the kingdom of Edom by applying high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to the copper mining and smelting site in an area of Jordan(Ancient Edom) called Khirbat en-Nahas, which constitutes the largest copper-production site in the region. The results firmly show that the site was evidently occupied in the 11th Century BC by the Edomites and establish that a monumental fortress was built here in the 10th century BC thereby supporting the existence of an Edomite state here at least 200 years earlier than previously thought. This recent archaeological discovery in 2004--published in the British Journal 'Antiquities' 78:pp. 863-876--validates the Biblical records which state that King David fought a succesful battle between 1000 and 980 BC against the Edomite Kingdom, and demolishes current theories by certain Biblical 'Minimalists' who contend that Edom did not come into existence until the 8th Century BC.

The only major deficiency in Bryce's book is a lack of detailed maps of Turkey and Syria. This is why I give it only 4 stars. But it is certainly worth every penny and and I highly recommend it. Bryce's prose is superb: you manage to see a Hittite king's view of their world from his own vantage point. In my opinion, it is by far the best study of the Hittite Kingdom to date--and one of the most readable, too.


Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: (...)The only deficiency suffers from is a lack of detailed maps of Turkey and Syria. This is why I give it only 4 stars. But it is certainly worth every cent of one's money and I highly recommend it. In my View, it is by far the best study of the Hittite Kingdom in English and one of the most readable too.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed the int. & ext. politics, 4/5 because of no visuals
Review: 425 Pages of Text, 8.5H x 5.25W (inches). I bought this book because I wanted to read about the Hittites of the Bible. Fortunately, however, this book is about the Kingdom of the Hittites in Asia Minor from about 1650-1200 B.C. The references to the Hittites of the Bible were either to a local Canaanite tribe or to neo-Hittite kingdoms of Syria. This book deals with relations of the Hittite Kingdom with its neighbors, who included the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Mitanni, and the Assyrians among others. It also examines Hittite internal politics and dealings with its vassal states. The book is organized according to the reign of the Hittite kings, but also explores the Kingdom's formation and it's demise. Although it doesn't focus on culture or archeology this book could have used some pictures of artifacts or stelae. How about some computer renderings of Hatti or other major cities based on archeological digs? How about some artist recreations? It certainly could have used a more detailed and a greater number of maps. There are only four black and white maps. Because of the lack of visuals I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. Some of the high points in the book are Mursili I's conquest of Babylon, the Battle of Kadesh between Muwatalli II and Ramesses II, and the overthrow of Urhi-Tesub.

Rating:
Summary: Why Should You Care About The Hittites?
Review: For starters, these are not the Hittites of the Bible (who are later, located in Syria and/or Canaan and are only to an unclear extent influenced by the earlier Hittites). No, these are the Indo-European speaking Hittites of second millennium B.C. (1700 to 1200) Anatolia. So if you're not a budding Hittitologist yourself, you can be forgiven for wondering why you should care.

Well, here's why: context. The Hittites were a superpower, and without knowing something about them, you can't get a clear picture of any of their neighbors. The history recounted in _The Kingdom of the Hittites_ interacts with and impacts upon the death of pharaoh Tutankhamen, the Trojan War and the migration of the Sea Peoples, for instance and just for starters.

Beyond that, their history is interesting reading in its own right. The sources available reveal an astonishing wealth of detail, and Bryce is able to recount all kinds of bloody family squabbles and intrigue, quoting from contemporary records and correspondence. Different Hittite monarchs emerge with clearly distinct personalities and character, and the book is an entertaining read.

I can't give it five stars, though, because I think a few small additions would immensely improve it. The book needs more maps. Some illustrations would also be useful. Bryce himself suggests that "a comprehenive, up-to-date treatment of Hittite civilization and society might well provide a valuable complement to the present work." Fair enough: Bryce is writing a history, not an anthropological treatise. Nevertheless, the history would be more accessible and sometimes more interesting if preceded by an introductory chapter on Hittite culture -- marriage patterns, for instance, and religion, are points that recur in the history but are never thoroughly explained.

Rating:
Summary: Why Should You Care About The Hittites?
Review: For starters, these are not the Hittites of the Bible (who are later, located in Syria and/or Canaan and are only to an unclear extent influenced by the earlier Hittites). No, these are the Indo-European speaking Hittites of second millennium B.C. (1700 to 1200) Anatolia. So if you're not a budding Hittitologist yourself, you can be forgiven for wondering why you should care.

Well, here's why: context. The Hittites were a superpower, and without knowing something about them, you can't get a clear picture of any of their neighbors. The history recounted in _The Kingdom of the Hittites_ interacts with and impacts upon the death of pharaoh Tutankhamen, the Trojan War and the migration of the Sea Peoples, for instance and just for starters.

Beyond that, their history is interesting reading in its own right. The sources available reveal an astonishing wealth of detail, and Bryce is able to recount all kinds of bloody family squabbles and intrigue, quoting from contemporary records and correspondence. Different Hittite monarchs emerge with clearly distinct personalities and character, and the book is an entertaining read.

I can't give it five stars, though, because I think a few small additions would immensely improve it. The book needs more maps. Some illustrations would also be useful. Bryce himself suggests that "a comprehenive, up-to-date treatment of Hittite civilization and society might well provide a valuable complement to the present work." Fair enough: Bryce is writing a history, not an anthropological treatise. Nevertheless, the history would be more accessible and sometimes more interesting if preceded by an introductory chapter on Hittite culture -- marriage patterns, for instance, and religion, are points that recur in the history but are never thoroughly explained.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, made better by prolific use of primary sources.
Review: This book is an excellent read. It's principal strength lies in the use by the author of the ancient sources within the main body of the text, with good translations permitting the reader to see the evidence for the authors interpretations. This puts the reader in a better position to critically assess these interpretations and agree or disagree with them. Normally, access to any ancient sources other than Greek and Roman ones is difficult. In this book they are placed within the main text and so the reader does not even have to keep flipping forwards to appendices. Overall this is an excellent book on Hittite history.

Rating:
Summary: Good book, made better by prolific use of primary sources.
Review: This is probably the most thorough treatment of Hittite history I've found, though I have not looked for this material for some time now. When I was working on my MA in history in the 1970s, I could locate few good texts on the subject, and most of those were in French. The advances in reading the Hittite texts have done much to fill in many of the gaps in their history over the past 3 decades, a good reason to keep current even in a subject that one feels one already knows. In Bryce's book the personalities of the Hittite kings are more defined and their accomplishments better documented. I found especially interesting the correspondence between Tutankhamon's widowed queen, Ankhesenamon, and the great Hittite king Suppiluliuma, documents that contribute to the understanding of the final years of the XVIII Dynasty in Egypt.