This monumental book provides the first comprehensive history of Asia Minor from prehistory to the Roman imperial period. In this English-language edition of the critically acclaimed German book, Christian Marek masterfully employs ancient sources to illuminate civic institutions, urban and rural society, agriculture, trade and money, the influential Greek writers of the Second Sophistic, the notoriously bloody exhibitions of the gladiatorial arena, and more.

The Hittites were an Anatolian people living in what is now Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. The empire started in the 18th century BCE, peaking in the 14th century BCE and finally trailing off around 1180 BCE with the collapse of the Bronze Age. Author Sayce traces the history of the Hittite people, attempting to demonstrate that this was an empire of significance that is not afforded the credit it deserves. The book begins with an analysis of the references to the Hittite people in The Bible, which is an oft-cited source of information throughout Sayce's work. Divided into chapters, the book goes on to explore topics such as Hittite monuments, the Hittite Empire, Hittite cities, Hittite religion and art, and the trade and industry of the Hittities, amongst other topics. Several illustrations are included, primarily of Hittite artifacts. The book concludes with a detailed index.

In this lively survey, Guy D. Middleton critically examines our ideas about collapse - how we explain it and how we have constructed potentially misleading myths around collapses - showing how and why collapse of societies was a much more complex phenomenon than is often admitted.

In dealing with a wide range of aspects of the life, activities, and customs of the Late Bronze Age Hittite world, this book complements the treatment of Hittite military and political history presented by the author in The Kingdom of the Hittites (OUP, 1998). It aims to convey to the reader a sense of what it was like to live amongst the people of the Hittite world, to participate in their celebrations, to share their crises, to meet them in the streets of the capital or in their homes, to experience the sights, sounds, and smells of a healing ritual, to attend an audience with the Great King, and to follow his progress in festival processions to the holy places of the Hittite land. Through quotations from the original sources and through the word pictures to which these give rise, the book aims at recreating, as far as is possible, the daily lives and experiences of a people who for a time became the supreme political and military power in the ancient Near East.

Translations from the original texts are a particular feature of the book. Thus on many issues the Hittites and their contemporaries are allowed to speak to the modern reader for themselves."--BOOK JACKET.

The war at Troy has raged for ten years. Its final throes will echo through eternity… 1258 BC: Surrounded and outnumbered by the army of Agamemnon, King Priam and his Trojan forces fight desperately to defend their city. In the lulls between battle, all talk inevitably turns to the mighty ally that has not yet arrived to their aid. Agamemnon will weep for mercy, the Trojans say, when the eastern horizons darken with the endless ranks of the Hittite Empire. King Hattu has endured a miserable time since claiming the Hittite throne. Vassals distance themselves while rival empires circle, mocking him as an illegitimate king. Worst of all, the army of the Hittites is but a memory, destroyed in the civil war that won him the throne. Knowing that he must honour his empire’s oath to protect Troy, he sets off for Priam’s city with almost nothing, praying that the dreams he has endured since his youth – of Troy in ruins – can be thwarted. All the way, an ancient mantra rings in his head: Hittites should always heed their dreams.

In the 14th century BC the Hittites became the supreme political and military power in the Near East. How did they achieve their supremacy? How successful were they in maintaining it? What brought about their collapse and disappearance? This comprehensive history of the Hittite kingdom seeks to answer these questions. It takes account of important recent advances in Hittite scholarship, including some major archaeological discoveries made in the last few years. It also features numerous translations from the original texts, so that on many issues the ancient Hittites are given the opportunity to speak to the modern reader for themselves. The revised edition contains a substantial amount of new material, as well as numerous other revisions to the first edition.