Click to View/Download PDF: The Hittites United
(By P J Crowe – Introducing a new historical framework for the Hittites – the fruits of two centuries of Anatolian Archaeology)
Trojans, Phrygians, and the Hittites United
The Hittites United is a paper presented at a BANEA archaeological conference at Cambridge University on 5 th January 2013. It is based upon the as yet unpublished Hittite studies of Barry Curnock.
My paper presents the case that the two Hittite eras, the Empire Hittites (c17C-12C) and the later Neo-Hittites (c10C to 8C) occupy the same period in history. The Empire Hittites have been dated to the Bronze Age using Egyptian chronology, because of their links with the Amarna era and Ramesses II. The Neo-Hittites are dated primarily from their 9C-8C links with Assyria. Many scholars, including Peter James and David Rohl, have shown over the last 20 years that a strong case can be made that Egyptian chronology needs lowering by several centuries. Barry Curnock’s Hittite studies have shown that when they are overlapped, the two Hittite eras can be perfectly matched through an extensive series of synchronisms. Simple statistics confirm beyond reasonable doubt that the two eras are the same. His study therefore demonstrates, albeit indirectly, that Egyptian chronology can be lowered to facilitate this overlap. The proven links between the Hittites and Egyptians also show that Egyptian chronology needs a much more radical revision than proposed by either James or Rohl.
Homer supports the Hittites United revision.
Homer supports our Hittite revision. He confirms that, at the time of the Trojan War when the Trojans fought the 14C-12C Mycenaeans at the height of their power, the Trojans and Phrygians were neighbours. There is no evidence that the Phrygians were sufficiently well established before c8C to fight wars with the Trojans against the ‘Amazons’ and the Mycenaeans. Little if any trace of them can be found before then across Anatolia.
And thanks to the discoveries of Lascelles, Bittlestone and Crowe, Homer’s credibility as a witness to the past has now been much restored. These discoveries are explained on other pages of this web site. They show that the author of the core poems of the Iliad and Odyssey, known and revered as Homer by the ancient Greeks, had such a detailed knowledge of both sites that he very probably knew them personally. The Homer of the Ancients really did exist. If, as the legends say, he wrote an epitaph for the Phrygian King Midas who died c700, then he was clearly contemporary with them.