Ancient History - Part 55: A Deeper Look Into The Sea Peoples

Let us take an introspective look upon when this troublesome mass migration from the westerners began, leading up to Egypt's successful battlefield engagements against them. The Pisidians who dwelt from Sagalassos along with the feather-crested battle-armored Lycians of Lycia and Carians of Caria (all geographically located throughout modern day Turkey) gathered and pushed southwestward.

According to Egyptian record, no land could stand against this massive horde, and upon their departure from Anatolia, one-by-one the Syrian city-states began to fall. There were two notable divisions amongst this threat to the Near East: 

The shipmen and the land-horde.

First it was Alashiya that was attacked, overrun by shipmen who assaulted from the sea. Upon victory, the migrant fleet next completely overtook the Syrian Gulf of Issus, permanently circling its coastline in its callous occupation. 

The land-horde however marched into Syria en masse. Arvad, Cappadocia, and of course the legendary historic city of Carchemish were not spared. These places of import, their beauty first desecrated, were largely destroyed by this land-horde, with many citizens likely losing their lives as foreign invasions of this nature rarely offer much in the ways of mercy.

The Amurru kingdom (Palestine) was next attacked and leveled, and it was here that the massive push was halted. We know what came next with the battles between Egypt and the Sea Peoples, but massive damage had been done to Egypt's subjects, and the Near East now bore a literal culture war on its hands between the native kingdoms and the invaders.

When you fear nothing, doubt is eliminated. If your enemies project weakness, then the time to attack is immediate. Thusly, the doubtless hordes of the west immediately attacked the Syrian princes, who'd in the past always relied upon the protections of either the Hittites or the Egyptians, themselves noticeably possessing no desire to fight. And it all fell apart. Trade was displaced and there was no preventing the trail that was blazed right through their land. 

This is not to overshadow the achievements of Egypt in defeating the Sea Peoples when it eventually came to thwarting direct attack, but if one thing can be ascertained about Ancient Egypt it is that defending her subjects was not one of her strengths, if the Upper Levant region is any indication.

[THE FORTRESS OF ARVAD]

Ancient History - Part 51: The Iron Age Is Born

The aforementioned horde that consumed Hatta was restricted to Cappadocia, including the Hittites' capital city, Hattusa. All of Syria was left untouched by this damning incursion. The Egyptian records state that other nations who stood before this horde included the Amorite and the Kedi people, but like the Hattans before them, fell underfoot to this bloody conquest, any survivors press-ganged into the invading army's frontline.

Due to the outside nature of Egypt's perspective, the genetic and cultural identity of this horde remains an unknown. There is speculation that this was a maritime tribe whose warriors landed in the northwestern Anatolia region, newly discovering a weakened force of natives to oppose them. Others theorize that this horde was none other than a conglomeration of north Cappadocian people, who simply decided to march from their steep lands while the Hattic lands were undefended and ripe for plundering hands.

Whether they came from the west or the north, as well as the composition of soldiers, those details make little difference in the final result: Imperial Hatta as Asia Minor knew it ended by 1200 B.C.

Microregions broke apart following the collapse of this once great empire, where warlords and other would-be leaders raced to make their claim for power amongst the ashes of Hatta, but none of these client-states would amount to anything worthy of being called an empire until the days of Sargon II many centuries ahead.

Prior to his death, king Hattushil II ushered large deposits of iron shipments into Egypt, and thereby the Near East, as a whole. This is a monumental achievement that the Hittites do not receive enough credit for because in doing this, they birthed the beginning of the Iron Age. While their civilization and history is long dead and ended, this final act of the Hittites and their last great king is something very much alive and still felt by the modern world today.