Hittites and Arzawans: a view from western Anatolia

There has been much recent research in archaeology on the dynamics of imperial systems, and valuable work has been done on the complex relationships between the Hittite state and groups on its imperial periphery. The nature of the available source material means that these relationships are usually studied from a Hittite perspective, and that interactions with the Hittites are often seen as centrally important for these groups. In this paper, however, it is argued that archaeological evidence can be used to gain insight into alternative views – views which may not necessarily privilege relationships with the Hittites over those with other groups. One well-documented example of such a group is Arzawa, a quarrelsome coalition of principalities in western Anatolia. This paper will focus on the western Anatolian site of Beycesultan, caught between the Hittite and Arzawan heartlands. It will show that people at Beycesultan did not define themselves primarily in relation to either the Hittites or the Arzawan confederacy, but had their own dynamic and shifting world-view.