The Kaska and the Northern Frontier of Hatti.

Abstract

This dissertation is about the Kaska people of the central Black Sea region and their interactions with the Hittite Empire in the empire’s contested northern frontier during the Late Bronze Age. Modern scholarship views the Kaska as a distinct ethnic group and the most formidable and persistent enemy of the Hittite state. Based on a comprehensive study of the primary sources consisting of Hittite texts pertaining to the Kaska and archaeological data from the Black Sea region, the present study undertakes a reevaluation of the Kaska and their role in Hittite history. The main part of the dissertation consists of philological editions of the most important Hittite sources on the Kaska, a group of documents that have been referred to as the “Kaska corpus.” The analytical chapters investigate 1) Hittite depictions of the Kaska, 2) the types of interactions between the Hittites and the Kaåka, and 3) the methods through which the Hittites implemented and maintained their authority over the contested northern frontier from the beginning of the Empire Period through the downfall of the Hittite state (c. 1450-1200 BCE). This study questions the prevalent view that the designation “Kaåka,” attested primarily in Hittite sources, corresponded to an ethnic group under that name. It suggests instead that in Hittite sources the name “Kaska” denoted diverse groups of people who inhabited the northern frontier of the Hittite homeland and whose definitive characteristic was that they were never subject to direct Hittite imperial control.