Luwians

The Luwians /ˈluːwiənz/ were an ancient people in Anatolia who spoke the Luwian language. During the Bronze Age, Luwians formed part of the population of the Hittite Empire and adjoining states such as Kizzuwatna. During the Hittite New Kingdom, Luwian replaced Hittite as the empire's dominant language. In the early Iron Age, a number of Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite states arose in northern Syria. The Luwians are known largely from their language, and it is unclear to what extent they formed a unified cultural or political group.

History

Luwian storm god Tarḫunz in the National Museum of Aleppo.

Origins

There is no consensus on the origins of the Luwians. Armenia, Iran, the Balkans, the Pontic–Caspian steppe have all been suggested.

Their route into Anatolia is unknown. Linguist Craig Melchert suggested they were related to the Demirci Hüyük culture, implying entry into Anatolia from ancient Thrace circa 3000 BC. More plausible is a westward migration route along the Aras river toward Cilicia by proto-Luwians of the rapidly expanding Kura–Araxes culture. Luwian was probably spoken over a larger geographic region than Hittite.

Middle Bronze Age

Luwians first appear in the historical record around 2000 BC, with the presence of personal names and loan words in Old Assyrian Empire documents from the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, dating from between 1950 and 1700 BC (Middle Chronology), which shows that Luwian and Hittite were already two distinct languages at this point. The Luwians most likely lived in southern and western Anatolia, perhaps with a political centre at Purushanda. The Assyrian colonists and traders who were present in Anatolia at this time refer to the local people as nuwaʿum without any differentiation. This term seems to derive from the name of the Luwians, with the change from l/n resulting from the mediation of Hurrian.

Hittite period

Statue from the Post-Hittite period, representing king Šuppiluliuma, ruler of the Luwian state of Pattin (Unqi)

The Old Hittite laws from the 17th century BC contain cases relating to the then independent regions of Palā and Luwiya. Traders and displaced people seem to have moved from one country to the other on the basis of agreements between Ḫattusa and Luwiya. It has been argued that the Luwians never formed a single unified Luwian state but populated a number of polities where they mixed with other population groups, though a minority opinion holds that the Luwians formed a unified socio-political group.

During the Hittite period, the kingdom of Kizzuwatna had its own dialect of Luwian, distinct from that spoken in Hattusa. Kizzuwatna was the Hittite and Luwian name for ancient Cilicia. The area was conquered by the Hittites in the 16th century BC. Around 1500, the area broke off and became the kingdom of Kizzuwatna, whose ruler used the title of "Great King", like the Hittite ruler. The Hittite king Telipinu had to conclude a treaty with King Išputaḫšu, which was renewed by his successors. Under King Pilliya, Kizzuwatna became a vassal of the Mitanni. Around 1420, King Šunaššura of Mitanni renounced control of Kizzuwatna and concluded an alliance with the Hittite king Tudḫaliya I. Soon after this, the area seems to have been incorporated into the Hittite empire and remained so until its collapse around 1190 BC at the hands of Assyria and Phrygia.

Western Anatolian kingdoms such as Seha, Arzawa, and Wilusa may have had at least partially Luwian-speaking populations, though current evidence leaves room for doubt, and this is a matter of controversy in contemporary scholarship.

Petra Goedegebuure of the Oriental Institute has argued that Luwian was spoken from the eastern Aegean coast to Melid and as far north as Alaca Hoyuk during the Hittite Kingdom.

Post-Hittite period

Various Luwian (Post-Hittite) and Aramean (orange shades) states in the 8th century BCE

Main article: Syro-Hittite states

After the collapse of the Hittite Empire c. 1180 BCE, several small principalities developed in northern Syria and southwestern Anatolia. In south-central Anatolia was Tabal which probably consisted of several small city-states, in Cilicia there was Quwê, in northern Syria was Gurgum, on the Euphrates there were Melid, Kummuh, Carchemish and (east of the river) Masuwara, while on the Orontes River there were Unqi-Pattin and Hamath. The princes and traders of these kingdoms used Hieroglyphic Luwian in inscriptions, the latest of which date to the 8th century BC. The Karatepe Bilingual inscription of prince Azatiwada is particularly important.

These states were largely destroyed and incorporated into the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) during the 9th century BC.

See also

• Luwian language
• Luwian religion
• Hieroglyphic Luwian
• Luwian Studies
• Luwian-Aramean states

Sources

• Hartmut Blum. “Luwier in der Ilias?”, Troia – Traum und Wirklichkeit: Ein Mythos in Geschichte und Rezeption, in: Tagungsband zum Symposion im Braunschweigischen Landesmuseum am 8. und 9. Juni 2001 im Rahmen der Ausstellung “Troia: Traum und Wirklichkeit”. Braunschweig: Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, 2003. ISBN 3-927939-57-9, pp. 40–47.
• Bryce, Trevor R. (2002). Life and Society in the Hittite World. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199241705.
• Bryce, Trevor R. (2005) [1998]. The Kingdom of the Hittites (2nd revised ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199279081.
• Bryce, Trevor R. (2012). The World of The Neo-Hittite Kingdoms: A Political and Military History. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191505027.
• Bryce, Trevor R. (2016). "The Land of Hiyawa (Que) Revisited". Anatolian Studies. 66: 67–79. doi:10.1017/S0066154616000053. JSTOR 24878364. S2CID 163486778.
• Billie Jean Collins, Mary R. Bachvarova, & Ian C. Rutherford, eds. Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and their Neighbours. London: Oxbow Books, 2008.
• Gilibert, Alessandra (2011). Syro-Hittite Monumental Art and the Archaeology of Performance: The Stone Reliefs at Carchemish and Zincirli in the Earlier First Millennium BCE. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110222258.
• Hawkins, John David (1982). "The Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia". The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 372–441. ISBN 9780521224963.
• Hawkins, John David (1994). "The end of the Bronze age in Anatolia: New Light from Recent Discoveries". Anatolian Iron Ages. Vol. 3. London-Ankara: British Institute of Archeology at Ankara. pp. 91–94. ISBN 9781912090693.
• Hawkins, John David (1995a). "Karkamish and Karatepe: Neo-Hittite City-States in North Syria". Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 2. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan. pp. 1295–1307. ISBN 9780684197210.
• Hawkins, John David (1995b). "Great Kings and Country Lords at Malatya and Karkamiš". Studio Historiae Ardens: Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul. pp. 75–86. ISBN 9789062580750.
• Hawkins, John David (1995c). "The Political Geography of North Syria and South-East Anatolia in the Neo-Assyrian Period". Neo-Assyrian Geography. Roma: Università di Roma. pp. 87–101.
• H. Craig Melchert, ed. The Luwians. Leiden: Brill, 2003, ISBN 90-04-13009-8.
  • also in: Die Hethiter und ihr Reich. Exhibition catalog. Stuttgart: Theiss, 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1676-2.
• Melchert, Craig (2020). "Luwian". A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 239–256. ISBN 9781119193296.
• Osborne, James F. (2014). "Settlement Planning and Urban Symbology in Syro-Anatolian Cities". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 24 (2): 195–214. doi:10.1017/S0959774314000444. S2CID 162223877.
• Osborne, James F. (2017). "Exploring the Lower Settlements of Iron Age Capitals in Anatolia and Syria". Antiquity. 91 (355): 90–107. doi:10.15184/aqy.2016.254. S2CID 164449885.
• Osborne, James F. (2020). The Syro-Anatolian City-States: An Iron Age Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199315833.
• Simon, Zsolt (2019). "Aramaean Borders: the Hieroglyphic Luwian Evidence". Aramaean Borders: Defining Aramaean Territories in the 10th–8th Centuries B.C.E. Leiden-Boston: Brill. pp. 125–148. ISBN 9789004398535.
• Ilya S. Yakubovich. Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language. Leiden: Brill, 2010. ISBN 978-90-04-17791-8.
• Eberhard Zangger. The Luwian Civilisation: The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age. Istanbul: Yayinlari, 2016, ISBN 978-605-9680-11-0.

External links

• Luwian Studies.org
• Urs Willmann: Räuberbanden im Mittelmeer. In: Zeit Online, 2016
• "The Luwians: A Lost Civilization Comes Back to Life" keynote lecture by Dr. Eberhard Zangger given at Klosters' 50th Winterseminar, 18 January 2015 (online at Luwian Studies YouTube Channel)
• Eberhard Zangger and Serdal Mutlu, Putting the Luwian Culture on the Map American Society of Overseas Research January 2023