Ugarit. But others survived and gained a new lease of life, like
Byblos and Tyre in the Levant. In southeastern Anatolia and
northern Syria there also emerged a number of kingdoms whose
rulers preserved distinctive features of the old Hittite empire. For
example, the ruling class of these kingdoms used the hieroglyphic
Luwian script for recording on public monuments their military
and building achievements, and their devotion to the gods. (The
cuneiform script used for official Hittite documents now
disappeared entirely.)
Some of the rulers of these kingdoms assumed the names of
former illustrious Hittite kings – like Labarna, Suppiluliuma,
Muwattalli, Hattusili and Tudhaliya. Elements of imperial Hittite
art and religion were often embedded in the culture and material
civilisation of the lands over which they held sway. For all these
reasons, we commonly refer to these Iron Age states as the Neo-
Hittite kingdoms.^8 Apart from Carchemish on the Euphrates,
where a collateral branch of the Hittite royal family ruled for at
least several generations in the Iron Age, we know very little about
how these states emerged, and how close their connections really
were to the Bronze Age Hittite world. But we cannot rule out the
possibility that one of these states originated as thefinal place of
refuge of the last Great King of Hatti.
Maybe one day we willfind key information including written
records, about what actually dealt thefinal blow to the Hittite
empire, why the capital was abandoned by its last king, and where
he set up his new capital. Archaeological and written records with
answers to these questions may still exist. All we need to do is to
find out where.
DEATH OF AN EMPIRE 267