Mark Weeden

Tuwati and Wasusarma. Imitating the Behaviour of Assyria

This essay reviews the evidence concerning the Tabalian king Wasusarma and his father Tuwati, who appear in Neo-Assyrian and Urartian annals. The context for the removal of Wasusarma (Uassurme) from power by the Assyrian king is assumed to have lain in the events depicted in the large inscription of TOPADA. The historical and geographical import of this inscription is explored through a close reading of its historical portion, concluding that its background is set in a local struggle for power over north-western Cappadocia.

Spelling, phonology and etymology in Hittite historical linguistics

This review article addresses the representation of glottal stops in Akkadian and Hittite cuneiform.

Names on Seals, Names in Texts. Who Were These People?

The chapter reviews some of the criteria for successfully reading names on hieroglyphic seals from Hattusa and for distinguishing between Hittite and Luwian names among these. As quickly becomes apparent through a review of published Hieroglyphic seal-impressions from Hattusa, there are many more Luwian names than there are Hittite ones, the Hittite names sometimes being associated with the semantics of prestige. This distribution fits the model of Hittite being a language belonging to a receding ruling class, while the majority of the population identifies with Luwian nomenclature.

A Hittite trioTheo van den Hout. The elements of Hittite . xvi+204 pages, 13 illustrations. 2011. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 978-0-521-11564-3 hardback

The Hittites inhabited central Anatolia over much of the second and first millennia BC, ruling an empire that included almost all of Anatolia and northern Syria during the Late Bronze Age. Their descendants ruled smaller kingdoms and chiefdoms spread over southern central Anatolia and northern Syria during the Iron Age (Neo-Hittites). They were in lively contact with most of the great powers of the time, Babylonia and Assyria to the east, Egypt to the south and Mycenaean Greece to the west, and are credited, somewhat erroneously, for having concluded with Egypt the first ever bi-lateral peace-treaty, a copy of which now hangs at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.

99 & £ 60; 978-0-521-13300-5 paperback

Abstract The article investigates the meagre textual evidence for Hittite scribal schools outside of Hattusa against the background of new excavations and the questions they raise about the social context of Hittite cuneiform writing. The use of the term é.dub.ba(.a) in Late Bronze Age Anatolia by contrast to Middle Bronze Age Babylonia is briefly touched on, and the institution of the É GIŠ.KIN.TI at Karahna is compared with that at Hattusa.