Hittites and Anatolian Ethnic Diversity 139by its Luwian name “Adanawa” in one text and “Hiyawa” in another (as well as by the
name Que in Assyrian texts, which may in fact derive from Hiyawa) remains uncertain.
However, it does raise the possibility that the royal house of a Neo-Hittite kingdom in
the region later called Cilicia was founded by Greek immigrants. This would tie in well
with Herodotos’ claim (7.91) that the Cilicians were originally known as Hypachaians
(“sub-Achaians”).
The most important of the Hittites’ Iron Age successors in Anatolia were a people
called the Phrygians, immigrants from Macedon and Thrace. Homer has them already
established in Anatolia at the time of the Trojan War (probably early thirteenth century,
if there was such a war), listing them seven times in theIliadamong Troy’s allies. How-
ever, more likely, the Phrygian migration to Anatolia took place during the widespread
upheavals associated with the demise of the Bronze Age kingdoms. A Phrygian state,
centered on the city of Gordion on the Sakarya River, had probably begun to evolve in
the last decades of the second millennium, reaching its peak in the second half of the
eighth century under the rule of a king called Midas in Greek sources, Mita in Assyrian.
Strengthened by an amalgamation with an eastern Anatolian group called the Mushki
in Assyrian records, the Phrygians at their peak held sway over an empire that extended
through much of central and western Anatolia. Midas’ reign, along with his kingdom,
came to an end ca. 695, when the kingdom was attacked and destroyed by a group of
northern invaders called the Cimmerians. From the two surviving groups of (only partly
intelligible) Phrygian inscriptions, we know that the Phrygians, similar to their Hittite
predecessors, spoke an Indo-European language. However, that seems to be all they had
in common with those who preceded them as the overlords of Anatolia.
The most closely related Iron Age successors of the Late Bronze Age Hittites were
almost certainly the inhabitants of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms of southeastern Anatolia.
A number of these kingdoms belonged to the land called Tabal in Assyrian texts. The
region encompassing these lands extended southward from the Halys River through
what was called the Lower Land in Hittite texts into the eastern part of the Konya
Plain. South of Tabal along the Mediterranean coast lay the kingdoms of Hilakku and
Adanawa/Hiyawa/Que. Linked with the Late Bronze Age Hittites through their mainte-
nance of the hieroglyphic Luwian tradition, the populations of southeast Anatolia almost
certainly contained a significant Luwian component throughout the Neo-Hittite period
(twelfth–late eighth centuryBC). Luwian elements may also have persisted in these lands
through the Hellenistic and perhaps the Roman imperial periods. However, throughout
the first millennium, Greek elements probably made up an increasing proportion of the
populations in many traditional Luwian-speaking areas, particularly in the southern Ana-
tolian coastal regions, and largely as a result of Greek colonizing enterprises. Indeed, the
royal house of one of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms, Adanawa in eastern Cilicia, may well
have been Greek in origin.
Concluding Comments
Throughout its history, the Anatolian peninsula has been a meeting place of many peoples
and a melting pot of many civilizations and cultures. From its Late Bronze Age ethnic
and cultural mix, the Hittite kingdom arose, a kingdom that achieved and maintained