From the BBC, curators of the ancient world, comes the best documentary I have seen in a while. The Hittites proved important to my study of the origins of ancient boxing, and long dead geeks like Binkler made my bookwork possible. What makes an excellent documentary on extinct civilizations is the weaving in of the story behind the discovery of said civilization. A hundred and more years ago discovery was an adventure, not merely a discussion of the material discovered by others.
As to the theories concerning the location of the Hittite capital, their power was in iron, found in their homeland. There was also the question of the Sea Peoples, among them the Philistines, the Sickels and Danyen, who, according to the Egyptions, “where in their isles.” Despite the precautions of the Hittites to keep their centers of power beyond easy reach of the sea, did not help them on the battlefield. The Sea Peoples were like the Vikings of the ancient world, fast Vikings, runners who ran up into the back of the Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian and Cretan chariots.
Just like the Chinese Great Wall, the Maginot Line, Tyre, and the seven-walled city of Constantinople, upon which J.R.R Tolkien based the principal city of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings, an impregnable fortress indicates an unbeatable enemy and tolls the bell of doom for the builders before they even lay the foundations. In many ways the monuments to the masters of the ancient battlefield where built by those they preyed upon.
Most fascinating about this treatment of the subject was the delving into the Indo-European language. The Hittites were invaders from Europe, which was not at all unusual. There is an area in Anatolia known as Galatia in the Roman world, based on the fact that an army of immigrating Celts [Gauls] settled there in the 200 B.C. The defeat of these Gauls inspired some of the greatest tragic works of Hellenistic art in sculpture.
I do have a problem with the way the producers make the Hittites out to be the only ruthless conquerors in the ancient world. The evidence presented in this documentary indicates that the Hittites were not expansionist by modern standards, rather they seemed technologically innovative on the battlefield, inclined to kill and leave rather than stay and conquer and also obsessed with defensive works at home. The Hittite civil war certainly hastened the fall of the Hittite empire. However, their soldiers served as mercenaries in Egypt in later times, renowned with the sword, and it is unlikely that they died out, but rather reduced their political commitments and moved on. In any case, the empires that relied on the chariot were on the wane and would fall. To this viewer, the big question is what wandering band of barbarians did the Hittites become when they gave up their experiment with empire.
Did they return to what had originally been a nomadic existence?
