groups in the Hittite world, occupying extensive areas of central,
southern and western Anatolia. During the succeeding Iron Age,
they continued to be a major presence in Anatolia, especially in the
south, and in northern Syria as well. They were a basic component
of what we call the Neo-Hittite kingdoms.
It’s time now to start reconstructing our history of the Hittite
world, using texts found mainly in the Hittite capital’s archives.
We’ll begin with one commonly referred to as the‘Proclamation of
Telipinu’.^4 It was issued by a late sixteenth-century king called
Telipinu, and I’ll explain later what its main purpose was. Suffice it
here to say that its long historical preamble is our most important
source of information on the early history of the Hittite kingdom.
It begins by telling us of the military exploits of a king called
Labarna. Two or more members of this man’s dynastymayhave
been kings before him, but he’sthefirst one whose reign we know
anything about.^5 In thefirst half of the seventeenth century (by my
reckoning), he ruled over one of many small kingdoms in north-
central Anatolia. These had emerged after the collapse of the earlier
kingdoms in the region around the end of the colony period.
Conquer or be conquered. That was the rule of survival in the
new era. The only way to ensure you would not be swallowed up by
your neighbours was to beat them to it–by striking pre-emptively
and swallowingthemup. That’s what Labarna did. According to the
‘Proclamation’, one country after another fell to his troops until he
commanded a large swathe of territory extending south of the Kızıl
Irmak river (we’ll henceforth call it by its Hittite name – the
Marassantiya) to the Mediterranean Sea. He probably expanded his
kingdom by military force north of the river as well, into the region
later to become core Hittite territory–the Hittite homeland. The
unity of the land and the unconditional loyalty of its subjects to their
king, from the troops to all members of the royal family, were the key
ingredients of Labarna’ssuccesses– at least according to the
Proclamation.
Telipinu had good reason to stress these qualities. For faction
strife and rebellion seem to have plagued the last years of Labarna’s
reign. His son and likely designated successor, also called Labarna
(according to my reconstruction of the royal dynasty), fell victim to
THE DAWN OF THE HITTITE ERA 25