That was in 1932. The debate between Forrer and his critics
became bitter and acrimonious and deeply personal–without any
resolution. Since then, discussion has continued in a more
restrained way, about the identity and location of Ahhiyawa, and
whether or not it had anything to do with the Greek world. Over
the years, Cyprus, Rhodes, mainland Greece, and somewhere on
the western coast of Anatolia have all been suggested as candidates
for the land of Ahhiyawa. At present, most scholars support the
Ahhiyawan-Mycenaean Greek identification, but purely on the
basis of circumstantial evidence. This is their line of reasoning: If a
western land called Ahhiyawa, whose kings appear to have had peer
status with contemporary Hittite kings, and which, as we know
from Hittite texts, was closely involved in western Anatolian affairs,
wasnota Late Bronze Age Greek land, what else could it be? There
is no other feasible candidate thatfits the requirements. But we
have not yet found one piece of hard evidence–in the form, say, of
some Hittite tablets at Mycenae or any other Late Bronze Age
Greek site–to verify it.
In the absence of any other plausible possibility, I believe we
have to go with Forrer’s identification, though we may reject all or
many of his specific name-equations. If so, then‘Ahhiyawa’in
Hittite texts seems to refer on some occasions to Bronze Age Greece
in a very broad sense, as a kind of ethno-geographical term. But on
other occasions, it refers quite specifically to a land ruled by a king
who had at least political dealings, and perhaps also commercial
and military dealings, with the Hittites and the lands of western
Anatolia. Indeed, one thing that strongly favours the identification
is the Bronze Age city of Miletos, if this is Hittite Milawata. As I’ve
noted, we have clear evidence from archaeological excavations of a
substantial Mycenaean presence in the city in the late fourteenth
century and part of the following century–at precisely the same
time Hittite records indicate that an Ahhiyawan king was in control
of the city and its peripheral territories.
But within the broad context of the world of Ahhiyawa, what
precisely was the Ahhiyawan kingdom whose ruler was accorded
peer status in Hittite texts with the Great King of Hatti? Mycenaean
Greece consisted of a number of kingdoms, which might have
54 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA