Life and Society in the Hittite World [Paperback]

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 inThe Kingdom of the Hittites(OUP, 1998). 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.

Introduction
Synopsis
1. King, Court, and Royal Officials
2. The People and the Law
3. The Scribe
4. The Farmer
5. The Merchant
6. The Warrior
7. Marriage
8. The Gods
9. The Curers of Diseases
10. Death, Burial, and the Afterlife
11. Festivals and Rituals
12. Myth
13. The Capital
14. Links across the Wine-Dark Sea

Trevor Bryce has written a beautiful and informative book about how people lived in the Hittite kingdom. The book is reliable and accurate in its content. The text is extrememly well-written. At times the language is almost lyrical I have no reservation about recommending his book not only to the general public, but also to university students and even to my fellow specialists. I wish this book a wide reading. -Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.Journal of Near Eastern Studies

What is...needed is a readable and up-to-date synthesis which can introduce the wider public to the Hittites as a human society, and the author has provided this in a masterly way.... Bryce gets behind the mask of the official records, and gives us the Hittites' inner thoughts. It is a world both humane and grim.... We may be closer heirs to the Kingdom of the Hittites than we imagine. Here is one more reason to study this thoughtful and informative book. --Times Literary Supplement

Trevor Bryce is the most successful--and responsible--popularizer of Anatl!