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In contrast to the situation fifty years ago, many ancient societies and cultures are now known, or knowledge has advanced considerably. Thus much more is known of the Hittites than earlier in the twentieth century, likewise of the Hurrians, and of the vassals and satellite states in the Syrian theatre of the Hittite empire. Hence these pages offer discussion of three topics of interest in this general area of research:
1. Links of the Hittite state with Mycenaean Greece, as revealed in the Ahhiyawa references in the Hittite texts,
2. Attestation of ancient Troy in the Hittite texts, which bear on the historicity of the Trojan War,
 3. The light shed on a Hittite frontier town, Emar, which had been a major trading centre in earlier times, but now formed part of a Hittite defence perimeter against the Assyrians to the East. The Emar texts are interesting from a number of aspects: as a fortress city it faced problems of attack from without; Emar had its own monarchy with limited powers, apparently of recent origin; and apart from the usual economic texts there are also lengthy ritual texts which bear on Old Testament interpretation, especially to undermine the classic “Documentary Hypothesis”.
Finally, on another theme, the release of the movie version of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” has indicated that his claims about “history” still mesmerise the millions. Therefore some frames of a PowerPoint presentation of 100 frames are displayed, the full version of which is available from me for AUD$25.00.
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