The Coming of the GreeksIron Age, did the Hittite nation suddenly die out? Such are the
questions that arise if one accepts the reality of the "Hittite
nation" conjured up early in this century.
In order to keep our concepts straight, we must begin by
recalling that Hittite is one of several second-millennium lan-
guages, descended from an earlier, single Proto-Anatolian lan-
guage, that in one way or another was related to Proto-Indo-
European (although with manifold borrowings from other
language communities). Specifically, Hittite seems to be de-
rived from that Proto-Anatolian dialect spoken here and there in
Hatti in the late third and early second millennium (other and
more widespread Proto-Anatolian dialects in other areas, one
assumes, eventually gave rise to Luwian and Palaic). The
Proto-Anatolian language, for all we know, may have been
dominant in most parts of Asia Minor ca. 2000 B.C., but in
Hatti itself it was possibly spoken by only a minority, most of
whose members very likely could also speak Hattic. At any
rate, the presence of Proto-Anatolian speakers in Hatti in the
twentieth century B.C. cannot, as we have seen, testify to an
"invasion" of Hatti by a Proto-Indo-European nation.
Much less can a "Hittite invasion" be invoked in connection
with the creation of what is called the Hittite Old Kingdom,
in the second half of the seventeenth century B.C. That event,
it is now quite clear, involved no ethnic conflict at all. Not
long after 1650 B.C., the king of Kushshara, whose name may
have been Labarnas, conceived the much larger ambition of
making himself an imperial king. He seized the strong but
abandoned fortress of Hattusas and thereupon became known
throughout Hatti as "Hattusilis" ("The Man of Hattusas"). It
is our good fortune that the annals of Hattusilis I were discov-
ered at Boghazkoy in 1957, shedding much light on the dark
age of the late seventeenth century B.C. 29 One of the most- For the text and a thorough commentary, see P.H.J. Houwink
ten Gate, "The History of Warfare according to Hittite Sources: The Annals
of Hattusilis I," Anatolica 11 (1984): 47—83.
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