{"id":1298,"date":"2009-10-03T23:35:53","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T03:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2018-08-10T01:39:45","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T05:39:45","slug":"the-hittites-ornek-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"(\u00d6rnek 2003) The Hittites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fea\u00adture length doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary on the Hit\u00adtites, nar\u00adrat\u00aded by Jere\u00admy Irons! I find it dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to believe that there\u2019s a com\u00admer\u00adcial mar\u00adket for this. I always liked the Hit\u00adtites, and read what lit\u00adtle was avail\u00adable about them when I was a kid. But the name of this ancient civ\u00adi\u00adliza\u00adtion usu\u00adal\u00adly draws a blank stare, even among well-edu\u00adcat\u00aded peo\u00adple. The Hit\u00adtites carved out an empire that, for sev\u00ader\u00adal cen\u00adturies, con\u00adtest\u00aded dom\u00adi\u00adnance of the Near East with Egypt and Baby\u00adlon. It\u2019s exis\u00adtence remained unknown until 1806, when Hugo Winck\u00adler unearthed its roy\u00adal archive of 10,000 tablets. These revealed chron\u00adi\u00adcles of a major pow\u00ader, whose prin\u00adci\u00adple lan\u00adguage was the ear\u00adli\u00adest record\u00aded form of Indo-Euro\u00adpean. Their legal his\u00adto\u00adry is par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly inter\u00adest\u00ading, as it embod\u00adies the ear\u00adli\u00adest known exam\u00adples of record\u00ading case law along with records of amend\u00adments, with a clear under\u00adstand\u00ading of law as evolving.<\/span><\/p>\n

Much is made of the Indo-Euro\u00adpean sta\u00adtus of the Hit\u00adtites in this doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary. Not sur\u00adpris\u00ading, as the Hit\u00adtite Empire was locat\u00aded in Ana\u00adto\u00adlia \u2014 what is now Turkey. That coun\u00adtry is engaged in an effort to enter the Euro\u00adpean Union. Any\u00adthing that sym\u00adbol\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly ties Turkey to Europe, and dis\u00adtances it from the vio\u00adlent Mid\u00addle East is empha\u00adsized. There is cer\u00adtain\u00adly no audi\u00adence in the gen\u00ader\u00adal pub\u00adlic pant\u00adi\u00adng to learn more about the Hit\u00adtites, whose art is not very strik\u00ading, whose reli\u00adgious pan\u00adtheon is sim\u00adply con\u00adfus\u00ading, and who left only mild\u00adly cool-look\u00ading ruins. Some\u00adbody was inter\u00adest\u00aded enough in this sym\u00adbol\u00adism to lay out the cash nec\u00ades\u00adsary to pro\u00adduce this doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary, and hire a pres\u00adti\u00adgious actor to nar\u00adrate it. But of course, this is all entire\u00adly irrel\u00ade\u00advant to the Hit\u00adtites, for whom the con\u00adcepts of \u201cEurope\u201d and \u201cMid\u00addle East\u201d were unknown. Until recent\u00adly, it was assumed that Indo-Euro\u00adpean lan\u00adguages orig\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded in Europe (some\u00adwhere north of the Black Sea), and that the Hit\u00adtites were war\u00adrior invaders of Ana\u00adto\u00adlia. But there is a grow\u00ading alter\u00adna\u00adtive view that Indo-Euro\u00adpean lan\u00adguages actu\u00adal\u00adly orig\u00adi\u00adnat\u00aded in Ana\u00adto\u00adlia and spread in the oppo\u00adsite direc\u00adtion. This is still a minor\u00adi\u00adty view, but I incline to it. This view is not men\u00adtioned in the documentary.<\/span><\/p>\n

[\u2026 and now I\u2019ve become dis\u00adin\u00adclined to the view. David W. Anthony\u2019s The Horse, the Wheel, and Lan\u00adguage \u2015 How Bronze-Age Rid\u00aders from the Steppes shaped the Mod\u00adern World<\/em> reviews all the old and new evi\u00addence on the issue, and con\u00advinc\u00adingly demol\u00adishes Renfrew\u2019s the\u00adory of Ana\u00adto\u00adlian ori\u00adgins for Indo-European.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fea\u00adture length doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary on the Hit\u00adtites, nar\u00adrat\u00aded by Jere\u00admy Irons! I find it dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to believe that there\u2019s a com\u00admer\u00adcial mar\u00adket for this. I always liked the Hit\u00adtites, and read what lit\u00adtle was avail\u00adable about them when I was a kid. But \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-dr-viewing-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8130,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/8130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}