Luwian kingdoms and Western Anatolia before the Catastrophe

[lionheartrjc]

The kingdoms of Western Anatolia (such as Arzawa) are first mentioned in Hittite records c. 1630 BCE.  Histories often seem to just lump them into the Hittite Empire but it seems unclear how much control the Hittites actually held over these kingdoms.  At least two sites (Troy and Miletus) seem to have suffered damage during the Bronze Age Catastrophe.

There doesn't seem to be much material about them specifically or has it just been lumped into the Hittite Empire?

Thoughts?

[Jim Webster]

There's a bit on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p6ROIGt6_Q

James Osborne and Michele Massa | A New Iron Age Kingdom in Anatolia
But actually, get to that and look at the other suggestions youtube makes and there is all sorts of stuff, a lot from academics

[Duncan Head]

There seems to be a fair amount of academic work done on the Western Anatolian kingdoms - such as:

https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/6861677/the-arzawa-letters-in-recent-perspective-british-museum

https://www.academia.edu/1098135/WILUSA_WILIOS_TROIA_CENTRE_OF_A_HITTITE_CONFEDERATE

Nothing I have seem has very much military information, though - except for those works on the Trojan War that have a perspective wider than just the Greeks. There is one book - The Luwians of Western Anatolia: Their Neighbours and Predecessors - which I haven't read,but you might find worth looking at.

[lionheartrjc]

Thanks for these suggestions.

Richard

[DBS]

I would be inclined to consider probable "Mycenaean" characteristics in some areas, given the Ahhiyawa debate as to whether the Hittites mean by that mainland Greece or Anatolian west coast entities such as Miletos/Milawata.  They certainly talk of chariot forces being used by Ahhiyawa and their proxies.

Hawkins favours the recipient of Tudhaliya's "Milawata letter" being Tarkasnawa of Mira, the chap memorialised at Karabel near Izmir.  Bryce thinks Ahhiyawa certainly controlled Miletos at times, but is agnostic as to whether they were still in control when Tudhaliya and Tarkasnawa, or whoever was the Hittite ally, took the city.