Customer Reviews

The Kingdom of the Hittites

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For starters, these are not the Hittites of the Bible (who are later, located in Syria and/or Canaan and are only to an unclear extent influenced by the earlier Hittites). No, these are the Indo-European speaking Hittites of second millennium B.C. (1700 to 1200) Anatolia. So if you're not a budding Hittitologist yourself, you can be forgiven for wondering why you should care.

Well, here's why: context. The Hittites were a superpower, and without knowing something about them, you can't get a clear picture of any of their neighbors. The history recounted in _The Kingdom of the Hittites_ interacts with and impacts upon the death of pharaoh Tutankhamen, the Trojan War and the migration of the Sea Peoples, for instance and just for starters.

Beyond that, their history is interesting reading in its own right. The sources available reveal an astonishing wealth of detail, and Bryce is able to recount all kinds of bloody family squabbles and intrigue, quoting from contemporary records and correspondence. Different Hittite monarchs emerge with clearly distinct personalities and character, and the book is an entertaining read.

I can't give it five stars, though, because I think a few small additions would immensely improve it. The book needs more maps. Some illustrations would also be useful. Bryce himself suggests that "a comprehenive, up-to-date treatment of Hittite civilization and society might well provide a valuable complement to the present work." Fair enough: Bryce is writing a history, not an anthropological treatise. Nevertheless, the history would be more accessible and sometimes more interesting if preceded by an introductory chapter on Hittite culture -- marriage patterns, for instance, and religion, are points that recur in the history but are never thoroughly explained.

This book is an excellent read. It's principal strength lies in the use by the author of the ancient sources within the main body of the text, with good translations permitting the reader to see the evidence for the authors interpretations. This puts the reader in a better position to critically assess these interpretations and agree or disagree with them. Normally, access to any ancient sources other than Greek and Roman ones is difficult. In this book they are placed within the main text and so the reader does not even have to keep flipping forwards to appendices. Overall this is an excellent book on Hittite history.

425 Pages of Text, 8.5H x 5.25W (inches). I bought this book because I wanted to read about the Hittites of the Bible. Fortunately, however, this book is about the Kingdom of the Hittites in Asia Minor from about 1650-1200 B.C. The references to the Hittites of the Bible were either to a local Canaanite tribe or to neo-Hittite kingdoms of Syria. This book deals with relations of the Hittite Kingdom with its neighbors, who included the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Mitanni, and the Assyrians among others. It also examines Hittite internal politics and dealings with its vassal states. The book is organized according to the reign of the Hittite kings, but also explores the Kingdom's formation and it's demise. Although it doesn't focus on culture or archeology this book could have used some pictures of artifacts or stelae. How about some computer renderings of Hatti or other major cities based on archeological digs? How about some artist recreations? It certainly could have used a more detailed and a greater number of maps. There are only four black and white maps. Because of the lack of visuals I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. Some of the high points in the book are Mursili I's conquest of Babylon, the Battle of Kadesh between Muwatalli II and Ramesses II, and the overthrow of Urhi-Tesub.

Trevor Bryce's book is the best English language book that one can find on the Ancient Hittites. Bryce gives a comprehensive update on the Hittite kingdom and the historical context for the reattribution of certain important Hittite texts and documents to certain Hittite kings. Bryce notes new evidence which shows that the Assyrian conquest of Hanigalbat must be dated to the reign of the Hittite king Urhi-Teshub--who is called Mursilis III in the historical texts. This event significantly undermined his authority as king and helped to partly bring about his eventual downfall. The author also documents the plotting and mass paranoia that afflicted the Hittite Empire where brothers and uncles competed violently with each other for the throne. Even a great Hittite ruler such as Mursilis I--who destroyed the Babylonian kingdom of Hammurabi's ancestors by seizing Babylon--was eventually assassinated in a palace coup while Suppiluliuma I, who established Hatti as the greatest Empire in the Ancient Near East through his 2 Syrian wars against Mitanni and Carchemish, murdered his older brother Tudhaliya the Younger in order to assume the throne after being passed over in the succession by Tudhaliya III, his father. Hattusilis III, who made peace with Ramses II, was forced to depose his nephew Urhi-Teshub after the latter tried to seize his own domestic bases of support in the Hittite Empire. The result of this turbulent political culture was that few Hittite kings dared to leave their capital of Boghazkoy for fear of a palace coup being hatched in their abscence. In addition, few Hittite vassals kings placed much weight upon the promises of a weak ruler who might be deposed in the blink of an eye. It took strong leadership, years of unrelenting military campaigns and often cruel reprisals by strong Hittite kings such as Suppiluliuma I, Mursilis II and Hattusilis III against rebellions waged by, for instance, the Kaska tribes of central Anatolia who fought a guerilla war against Hittite authority in order to preserved the Empire's unity.

Bryce notes that the Hittite Empire--despite its inherently unstable political system--was the bedrock of stability in the heart of the Ancient Middle East. After its final destruction at the hands of the Sea Peoples in Year 8 of Pharaoh Ramses III (c.1175 BC), Canaan and the Levant was plunged into a state of upheaval by the appearance of local independent states such as the kingdoms of Edom, Moab, Philistia (ancient Gaza), Aram-Damascus and Ammon who competed among one another for control of various parts of this region.

The only major deficiency in Bryce's book is a lack of detailed maps of Turkey and Syria. This is why I give it only 4 stars. But it is certainly worth every penny and and I highly recommend it. Bryce's prose is superb: you manage to see a Hittite king's view of their world from his own vantage point. In my opinion, it is by far the best study of the Hittite Kingdom to date--and one of the most readable, too.

As an Aside, one should note that Bryce commits a small error in limiting king Urhi-Teshub's reign to just 5 years from 1272-1267 BC. (p.xiii) This king definitely ruled Hatti for 7 years and must be dated from 1272-1265 BC; consequently the chronology for all the following Hittite kings must be downdated by 2 years. (ie: Hatusilli at 1265-1235 BC rather than 1267-1237 BC--p.xxiii) As Hatusilli III explicitly states, he tolerated Urhi-Teshub's rule for 7 years until the latter started to seize control of the regions of Hakpissa, which was the seat of Hatusilli's power and Nerik, where he was the chief priest of the storm god (p.286) Once this event occured, Hatusillis rose up against Urhi-Teshub and succesfully overthrew the king claiming the throne in the process. Urhi-Teshub had seized these 2 Hittite regions in order to eliminate Hatusilli as a potential rival to his kingship but instead provoked the latter to rebel against him.

This is probably the most thorough treatment of Hittite history I've found, though I have not looked for this material for some time now. When I was working on my MA in history in the 1970s, I could locate few good texts on the subject, and most of those were in French. The advances in reading the Hittite texts have done much to fill in many of the gaps in their history over the past 3 decades, a good reason to keep current even in a subject that one feels one already knows. In Bryce's book the personalities of the Hittite kings are more defined and their accomplishments better documented. I found especially interesting the correspondence between Tutankhamon's widowed queen, Ankhesenamon, and the great Hittite king Suppiluliuma, documents that contribute to the understanding of the final years of the XVIII Dynasty in Egypt.

This is a good book if you want an introduction to a tribe long forgotten like the Hittites.The book gives you a very good account of the Hittites battles and relations with other people and lands.It also gives you detailed information about its rulers and the way they created an empire, military speaking.However the book lacks information as to their lives in general.The reader is left in the dark as to what was the Hittites religion and beliefs, the way their goverment was run and the like.The book is basically who did the Hittites fought and when.Again, the book is a good introduction to hittite history

This book is one part of what is essentially a duology. Trevor Bryce wrote two books on the Hittites, one dealing with their history and the other with their culture and society. This book is the former. Some people might not like how it never deals with Hittite culture but this makes the history far easier to understand. This book is as close to a straight narrative of the Hittite empire as we are likely to get. The first few chapters cover the period before the the empire, when the region was dominated by Assyrian merchants. After that there's a chapter dealing with the foundation of the kingdom and another with the dynastic problems of the next few centuries. The main core of the book is the last century and a half of Hittite rule because that is the period for which we have the most sources. The final chapter is one that is almost unavoidable for Bronze Age Anatolian studies and includes an analysis of the evidence for the Trojan War. Bryce gives his opinion and backs it up, but everybody who reads up on this subject will have their own opinion on this topic anyway and his opinions are unlikely to change anyone's mind.

This book is by far the most readable and accurate available on this subject. Dr. Bryce has truly outdone himself. It is written in a very readable style and the chapter divisions are intelligently chosen dividing the history into distinct periods. He includes a large number of quotes which both demonstrate his conclusions and give a real feel for the nature of the time. Unlike earlier books where there wasn't enough information available to give more than a brief overview of Hittite history, by this time there has been enough deciphered to make reasonable conclusions and place events in their proper order. The only real problem is the small number of photographs. The maps are adequate and help establish exactly where events were taking place. To fully understand the Hittites I would recommend you get the companion piece. It is more expensive and harder to find, but it is definitely worth it of you can get your hands on it.

I have been studying the kingdom of the Hittites for about the last six months. Professor Bryce's book has by far been the best information available in english. The companion book about the Hittite people is also very well put together, although this one is the most informative. I read the Macqueen book and could not keep track of who was fighting who and when. You really have to keep a score card when working with multiple spheres of influence.
The Hittite Kingdom lasted from circa 1650 BCE till circa 1207, and many people only know the name from a few references in the Bible or from Egyptian history. They, along with the Egyptians, Assryians, plus a few more, were the power players of their time. They are a facinating people and I am sad to be moving on the the next group of ancient people. Professor Bryce knows his subject and can be trusted not to lean too far in unknown territory. Sue Coon

This is a pretty big book of some 400 pages. But I am convinced when I say that none of them are wasted in an empty discussion or useless information. From the beginning to an end, this terse volume talks about the Hittite kingdom using the up-to-date archeological information, and actually very careful observation about things that happened so far off that there is no genuine way of knowing what and how exactly they happened.

Trevor Bryce himself must be a luminary in this field because 1st of all not many people can possess such an abundance of knowledge on a subject so specific. Secondly, as it is common for people in the academic field to have egos that are huge and hardly controlled, Trevor willingly and enthusiastically uses information from his fellow historians, and cheerfully criticizes them in search of a more precise vision of this distant and overwhelmingly interesting subject. All in all i would recommend this book, but be prepared to take this journey as it is definitely not for a novice.

It's a little bit scholarly. But it will let you know everything you ever wanted to know about the Hittites but were afraid to ask. Mr. Bryce does a wonderful job.