A feature length documentary on the Hittites, narrated by Jeremy Irons! I find it difficult to believe that there’s a commercial market for this. I always liked the Hittites, and read what little was available about them when I was a kid. But the name of this ancient civilization usually draws a blank stare, even among well-educated people. The Hittites carved out an empire that, for several centuries, contested dominance of the Near East with Egypt and Babylon. It’s existence remained unknown until 1806, when Hugo Winckler unearthed its royal archive of 10,000 tablets. These revealed chronicles of a major power, whose principle language was the earliest recorded form of Indo-European. Their legal history is particularly interesting, as it embodies the earliest known examples of recording case law along with records of amendments, with a clear understanding of law as evolving.
Much is made of the Indo-European status of the Hittites in this documentary. Not surprising, as the Hittite Empire was located in Anatolia — what is now Turkey. That country is engaged in an effort to enter the European Union. Anything that symbolically ties Turkey to Europe, and distances it from the violent Middle East is emphasized. There is certainly no audience in the general public panting to learn more about the Hittites, whose art is not very striking, whose religious pantheon is simply confusing, and who left only mildly cool-looking ruins. Somebody was interested enough in this symbolism to lay out the cash necessary to produce this documentary, and hire a prestigious actor to narrate it. But of course, this is all entirely irrelevant to the Hittites, for whom the concepts of “Europe” and “Middle East” were unknown. Until recently, it was assumed that Indo-European languages originated in Europe (somewhere north of the Black Sea), and that the Hittites were warrior invaders of Anatolia. But there is a growing alternative view that Indo-European languages actually originated in Anatolia and spread in the opposite direction. This is still a minority view, but I incline to it. This view is not mentioned in the documentary.
[… and now I’ve become disinclined to the view. David W. Anthony’s The Horse, the Wheel, and Language ― How Bronze-Age Riders from the Steppes shaped the Modern World reviews all the old and new evidence on the issue, and convincingly demolishes Renfrew’s theory of Anatolian origins for Indo-European.]
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