Archaeology Research

Congratulations to Dr Claudia Glatz for the publication of her new book 'The Making of Empire in Bronze Age Anatolia: Hittite Sovereign Practice, Resistance, and Negotiation'.

This book is an attempt to complicate the narration of ancient empires as a politically responsible act in the present, drawing out the complex intersections of sovereign practice, resistance, and negotiation in different landscapes and material spheres of interaction.

Claudia Glatz reconsiders the concept of empire and the processes of imperial making and undoing of the Hittite network in Late Bronze Age Anatolia. Using an array of archaeological, iconographic, and textual sources, she offers a fresh account of one of the earliest, well-attested imperialist polities of the ancient Near East. Glatz critically examines the complexity and ever – transforming nature of imperial relationships, and the practices through which Hittite elites and administrators aimed to bind disparate communities and achieve a measure of sovereignty in particular places and landscapes. She also tracks the ambiguities inherent in these practices  -- what they did or did not achieve, how they were resisted, and how they were subtly negotiated in different regional and cultural contexts.

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First published: 12 November 2020