AHC: The Hittites survive as a distinct ethnicity

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Hittites won't have the same geographic advantages as the Egyptians, but I suppose that adds to the "challenge" aspect.

There's also the question of who we're counting as part of the Hittite "ethnicity;" are we limiting it to the inhabitants of the core area along the Halys, or are more far-flung "Hittites" like the Neo-Hittite successor states in Syria eligible as well?

In any case, the most straightforward approach would be to avert the Bronze Age Collapse, or at least the migration of the Phrygians into Anatolia. Barring that, it might help to weaken the Assyrians; my impression has been that they were a homogenizing influence on the lands they controlled, which included those Neo-Hittite cities like Carchemish...
 
Make the Hittites survive as a distinct culture and ethnicity in the same way the Egyptians have.

Do you mean into the present day? because modern Egyptians are culturally Arab.

Do you mean like a really, really long time? have them somehow repel all invaders or at least culturally assimilate the new comers.
 
How many cultures from that time period really exist as a distinct ethnic entity today? The Greeks, the Egyptians (although, as noted they seem mainly Arab in terms of self-identification), the Chinese and who else?

(Honest question, this is way outside my knowledge area)
 
Do you mean into the present day? because modern Egyptians are culturally Arab.

Do you mean like a really, really long time? have them somehow repel all invaders or at least culturally assimilate the new comers.

Copts are considered the cultural descendants of the Ancient Egyptians.
 
Minor quibble: "Hittite" wasn't an ethnic identity. It was the Bronze Age equivalent of a national identity.

If you want "Hittites" to still exist today, you need to find a way to have the kingdom of Hatti endure. Kaiphranos has already pointed out that limiting the power of the Phrygians and Assyrians is a good starting point. Then Hatti has to weather every other nomadic group that likes to stomp through the area (this is theoretically possible - it happened in Babylonia multiple times, with the invaders simply inserting themselves into the framework of the Babylonian state).

If you want the Nesites (the dominant ethnicity in Hatti during the apogee of the Hittite Empire) to survive, keeping Hatti as a stable, enduring polity may easily contribute towards that... The question is, how much Luwian influence is acceptable? Because OTL saw the Nesites essentially Luwianized (while still maintaining the separate Hittite identity).
 
How many cultures from that time period really exist as a distinct ethnic entity today? The Greeks, the Egyptians (although, as noted they seem mainly Arab in terms of self-identification), the Chinese and who else?

(Honest question, this is way outside my knowledge area)

The Hindus go way back.
 
How many cultures from that time period really exist as a distinct ethnic entity today? The Greeks, the Egyptians (although, as noted they seem mainly Arab in terms of self-identification), the Chinese and who else?

(Honest question, this is way outside my knowledge area)

Persians, Armenians, Georgians, Arabs, Ethiopians, Tamils, Vietnamese, Koreans... Ossetians are descendants of the Scythians by way of the Sarmatians by way of the Alans.
 
Basque and Berbers maybe- I'm not sure what their DNA is like.

But Greeks are definitely not very much in continuity with Classical Greeks, except through 19th C nationalist revival.

But to derails some, we must be carefull around this - Turkish nationalists seem to LOVE harping this to trash the 'authenticity' of greeks. So, if we must not overpush this continuity, we should not underpush it.
 
Basque and Berbers maybe- I'm not sure what their DNA is like.

But Greeks are definitely not very much in continuity with Classical Greeks, except through 19th C nationalist revival.

We're also not talking about classical Greece. There's plenty of continuity there through the Byzantine empire. It's the Bronze Age Greeks. Which is really more proto Greek and which underwent a massive shift from era to era.
 
I also assume the many Anatolian colonists bought to Greece proper in the Byzantine Empire undoubtedly either had some Greek blood, or were even majority or fully ethnically Greek due to centuries of migration from antiquity (the west and north Turkish coasts), and Alexander's and the Roman Empire's times (inland Anatolia).

Not denying Greeks got a lot, maybe even a LOT of admixturing, but I'd still assume if the Greeks still identified as Greek, spoke Greek, many Greeks still lived in Greece...yada yada.

This is guesswork tho', so take it with a grain of salt.
 
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top