From Hittite to Homer

The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic

Mary R. Bachvarova

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780521509794
• eBook ISBN: 9781316396858
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book provides a groundbreaking reassessment of the prehistory of Homeric epic. It argues that in the Early Iron Age bilingual poets transmitted to the Greeks a set of narrative traditions closely related to the one found at Bronze-Age Hattusa, the Hittite capital. Key drivers for Near Eastern influence on the developing Homeric tradition were the shared practices of supralocal festivals and venerating divinized ancestors, and a shared interest in creating narratives about a legendary past using a few specific storylines: theogonies, genealogies connecting local polities, long-distance travel, destruction of a famous city because it refuses to release captives, and trying to overcome death when confronted with the loss of a dear companion. Professor Bachvarova concludes by providing a fresh explanation of the origins and significance of the Greco-Anatolian legend of Troy, thereby offering a new solution to the long-debated question of the historicity of the Trojan War.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• List of maps
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Notes on the text
• Maps
• Additional material
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Hurro-Hittite narrative song at Hattusa
• 3 Gilgamesh at Hattusa: written texts and oral traditions
• 4 The Hurro-Hittite ritual context of Gilgamesh at Hattusa
• 5 The plot of the Song of Release
• 6 The place of the Song of Release in its eastern Mediterranean context
• 7 The function and prehistory of the Song of Release
• 8 Sargon the Great: from history to myth
• 9 Long-distance interactions: theory, practice, and myth
• 10 Festivals: a milieu for cultural contact
• 11 The context of epic in Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Greece
• 12 Cyprus as a source of Syro-Anatolian epic in the Early Iron Age
• 13 Cultural contact in Late Bronze Age western Anatolia
• 14 Continuity of memory at Troy and in Anatolia
• 15 The history of the Homeric tradition
• 16 The layers of Anatolian influence in the Iliad
• Appendix: Contraction and the dactylic hexameter
• References
• Subject index
• List of Hittite texts by CTH number
• Index of tablets and inscriptions
• Concordance of tablets from Ugarit