Neo-Hittite states

The Neo-Hittite states were a cluster of Iron Age kingdoms in what is now south-eastern Turkey and north-western Syria, which grew up after the fall of the Hittite empire in the twelfth century BCE. Some were ruled by Luwian-speaking dynasties that claimed descent from the Hittite kings, others by Aramean rulers. Over roughly five centuries they preserved and transformed Hittite traditions, until the Assyrian empire absorbed them in the eighth century BCE.

Scholars do not agree on what to call these states. "Neo-Hittite" is the most common label, but critics point out that the Hittite language itself was not written in them. Older works say "Syro-Hittite", and many modern specialists prefer "Luwian-Aramean", which reflects the two languages actually used: Luwian, an Indo-European language of Anatolia, and Aramaic, a Semitic language. Some scholars question whether the states should be grouped together at all.

In the early twelfth century BCE, amid the wider Late Bronze Age collapse, the Hittite kingdom fell and its capital, Hattusa, was destroyed, as were Ugarit, Alalakh and other centres. Large cities gave way to scattered villages and farmsteads, and new regional kingdoms formed in this changed landscape. Continuity was strongest at Carchemish on the Euphrates and at Melid, where the historian David Hawkins traced a dynastic link to the old imperial family. At Carchemish, Kuzi-Teshub, son of a contemporary of the last Hittite king, took the title "Great King" and ruled a small empire across south-eastern Anatolia and northern Syria until around 975 BCE, after which it shrank to a city state. Temples at Aleppo and Ain Dara also show building that carried on without a break.

The states fell into two broad groups. In the north, Luwian dynasties held the Tabal region of central Anatolia, Melid, Kummuh, Gurgum, Hilakku, Hiyawa and Carchemish. Further south, Aramean rulers took over from around 1000 BCE in kingdoms such as Bit Adini, Bit Agusi with Arpad, Sam'al, Hamath and Palistin, probably centred at Tell Tayinat. Many were loose federations of smaller lordships rather than unified states.

The states are known above all through their stone monuments: carved orthostats, gateway lions and long inscriptions in Anatolian hieroglyphs, the script of the Hittite imperial monuments, used to write Luwian. At Carchemish, rulers of the House of Suhi, such as Katuwa around 880 BCE, built palaces lined with reliefs. Inscriptions were often set up in two or three languages, alongside Aramaic, Phoenician or Akkadian, and the period saw alphabetic writing spread across the region.

From the ninth century BCE the rising power of Assyria pressed on the states; Sangara of Carchemish paid tribute to Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III. In the eighth century the pressure became conquest. Tiglath-pileser III took Arpad over 743 to 740 BCE and received tribute from the Tabalian kings. Sargon II captured Carchemish in 717 BCE, ending the reign of its last king, Pisiri, and deported Ambaris of Tabal in 713 BCE, turning his realm into a province. Sam'al had become a directly ruled province by the seventh century. Tabal briefly slipped free after Sargon died fighting there in 705 BCE, but the Luwian-Aramean world as a whole had ended.

Our 1000 BCE map draws the Neo-Hittite states as a single shaded block across south-eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, in today's Turkey and Syria, a simplification of many separate kingdoms. By our 700 BCE map, central Anatolia is drawn as the land of the Phrygians.