Overview
In this book the much-debated problem of political organization in Mycenaean Greece (ca. 1400-1200 BC) is analysed and contextualised through the prism of archaeology and contemporary textual (Linear B, Egyptian and Hittite) evidence. From the early 14th century BC onwards, Hittite texts refer to a land Ahhiya(wa). The exact geographic position of this land has been the focus of academic debate for more than a century, but most specialists nowadays agree that it must have been a Hittite designation for a part, or all of, the Mycenaean world. On at least two occasions, the ruler of Ahhiyawa is designated as LUGAL.GAL –‘Great King’-; a title that was normally reserved for a select group of kings (such as the kings of Egypt, Assyria, Mitanni, Babylon and Hatti itself). The Hittite attribution of this title thus seems to signify the Ahhiyawan King’s supra-regional importance: it indicates his power over other, ‘lesser’ kings, and suggests that his relation to these vassals must have been comparable to the relations between the Hittite King and his own vassal rulers. The apparent Hittite perception of such an important ruler in the Mycenaean world is, however, completely at odds with the prevailing view of the Mycenaean world as a patchwork of independent states, all of which were ruled by a local ‘wanax’ -King. The papers in this volume address this apparent dichotomy and discuss various interpretations of the available evidence, and contextualise the role of the ruler in the Mycenaean world through comparisons with the contemporary Near East.
Full Product Details
Author: Dr. Jorrit Kelder ,
Willemijn J. I. Waal
Publisher: Sidestone Press
Imprint: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 9789088908002
ISBN 10: 9088908001
Pages: 140
Publication Date: 10 October 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Author Information
Jorrit Kelder is an associate at the sub-Faculty of Near and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Oxford (UK), and has published widely on Mycenaean political structures and on connections between the Late Bronze Age Aegean to Egypt, Anatolia and the Balkan. Major publications include his 2010 monograph “The Kingdom of Mycenae. A Great Kingdom in the Late Bronze Age Aegean”, various contributions to the 2018 volume “Beyond the Nile. Egypt and the Classical World” and “The Kingdom of Ahhiyawa: Facts, Factoids, and Probabilities” (in SMEA 4, 2018). Willemijn Waal is a Lecturer in Hittitology at Leiden University (the Netherlands) and has published extensively on Hittite scribal practices, literary and oral traditions in the Ancient Near East, and on the emergence of writing in Anatolia and the Aegean world.
