joined together from time to time for military or commercial
operations, but probably retained their political independence from
one another. The kingdom whose ruler established a base in
Anatolia and had dealings with the king of Hatti must have been
one of these. Mycenae itself is a favoured candidate. But there are
other possibilities, including Thebes further to the north, or even
Pylos on the western side of the Peloponnese (southern Greece).
We’ll have more to say about Ahhiyawa later. But for now let’s
just add one further detail which is actually of considerable
importance in the history of writing. One of the Ahhiyawa texts
found in Hattusa is a letter which appears to have been written by a
king of Ahhiyawa to his counterpart in Hatti.^3 Dating to the early–
mid thirteenth century, it refers to an earlier dispute between the
Ahhiyawan and Hittite kings over possession of some islands which
probably lay just off Anatolia’s western coast. The copy we have is
in Hittite, but if the letter is of Greek origin, it is profoundly
significant. For it would be the very earliest written document we
have in the history of European literature, even though it survives
only in a Hittite translation. Indeed, the original letter may also
have been written in Hittite, dictated by the Greek king or his
representative to a bilingual scribe.
THEHITTITE WORLD IN REVIEW
My map of the Hittite world is based partly on (a) established fact,
(b) fairly strong circumstantial evidence and (c) guesswork –
thoughinformedguesswork. We can but hope that with ongoing
investigations items in the (c) category can be pushed into (b) and
that some if not all (b) items can be promoted to the (a) category.
That may be wishful thinking. Indeed, we cannot rule out the
possibility that future research will force us to downgrade some of
our items into a (d) category–i.e.‘completely wrong’.
But provided you bear all these qualifications in mind, my map
will give you an overall idea of the general layout of the Hittite
empire and its neighbours at the height of its power.
Administratively, the empire consisted of (i) core territory, the
land within the Marassantiya basin which we have called the Hittite
THE SETTING FOR AN EMPIRE 55