assorted articles

Hallager, a palace without sealings
regular string nodules
irregular nodules (about 2/3 of all Mycenaean sealing findings)
combination nodules
clay stoppers

regular string nodules are the ones Linear B is found on
no irregular strong nodules at Tiryns despite heavy excavations
irregular too insecurely attached to be meant for transportation
Hallager thinks they were attached in their place of storage, i.e. the palaces

AJA 1989 Sarah Morris
LH IIIC Troy VIIa
SubMycenaean Troy VIIb

concludes that Trojan War is Troy VI

But Mountjoy in Mycenaean Seminar (1997-1998) says Troy VIIa is LH IIIB
Troy VIh is LH IIIA:2
says Blegen surely correct about earthquake
VId tentatively LH IIA
Trojan War might have been Troy VIIa, if that took place in mid-LH IIIB
alternative is LH IIIC (not early, because that was a period of recovery) perhaps VIIb2
Some scholars have assigned certain sherds of VIIa to LH IIIC, such as those decorated with wavy lines, with wiggled stemmed spirals, and with untidy spirals. These pieces are not LH IIIC. Examples of all these motifs have been found alongside typical LH IIIB pottery in the recent excavations, confirming Blegen's dating.

Hawkins (still in BICS)
Tudhaliya IV inscription and treaty confirm the location of Tarhuntassa and Lukka.
Karabel establishes location of Mira, and places Ephesus in it.
Seha River Land, known to have shared a border with Mira, is confirmed in its location.
SRL was interested in Lesbos, so must have controlled the Caicos valley, and its connections with Wilusa push that back to the Troad
Now it may be argued more strongly that there remains no place for Ahhiyawa on the mainland, and that Ahhiyawa "lying across the sea" impinges mostly mainly on the Anatolian west coast, above all at Millawanda-Miletos.

OJA8
Arzawan king fled "to the islands", implication is that the islands belonged to the king of Ahhiyawa

Between 1320 and the middle of the 13th century, Millawanda must have passed from Hittite to Ahhiyawan control. Hittite king acknowledges it as sovereign territory.
No evidence of a treaty, so maybe informal understanding
Reference to Land of Ahhiyawa as though it were on the Anatolian mainland, but Hittites also did this when referring to "Egypt" by which they meant Egyptian-controlled territory in Syria
reference to an attack by somebody on Wilusa
maybe Ahhiyawans set their sites on Wilusa (same general timeframe as the Tawagalawa letter 1265-1240)
Bryce thinks the exclusion of Ahhiyawa from the list of kings he considered his equal was because writing that list was a diplomatic maneuver, and the H king didn't think Ahhiyawa presented a problem in his maneuverings against Egypt (this is around the time of Qadesh) -- This is from the treaty with Alaksandus
Theeen we get the Sausgamuwa treaty made by Tudhaliya IV, with the erasure
Tudhaliya IV very likely the author of the Milawata letter, which indicates Ahhiyawan loss of Milawata

The earliest known reference to an Ahhiyawan presence in the Hittite world dates to the second half of the 15h century when the Ahhiya(wa)n Attarsiya established a base in western Anatolia whence he conducted military operations both on the Anatolian mainland and in Cyprus (if Alasiya = Cyprus). Althought it is evident that he had quite substantial land and sea forces at his disposal, he is not accorded the status of a LUGAL in the Hittite texts, and may well have operated quite independently of his land of origin. No doubt, however, his enterprises helped pave the way for more extensive involvement by Ahhiyawans in the Anatolian region the following century.

By the last quarter of the 13th century, Ahhiyawan control seems to have extended to a number of islands in the eastern Aegean off the Anatolian coast, thus providing the opportunity for the extension of Ahhiyawan influence to the Anatolian mainland.

By the third year of Mursili's reign, attempts were being made by at least two western Anatolian states, Millawanda and Arzawa, to break from Hittite overlordship and form an alliance with the king of Ahhiyawa. Although prompt Hittite action aborted these attempts, Ahhiyawan sovereignty was eventually established over Millawanda, probably by the early 13th century. This may have been the result of an agreement between the Hittite and Ahhiyawan kings, and perhaps involved an undertaking by the Ahhiyawan king not to extend his activities beyond the borders of Millawanda, and to cooperate in keeping the peace within the region as a whole.

During the 13th century, however, further inroads were made into the Hittites' western vassal states, primarily by ambitious and enterprising Anatolians, with the support of the Ahhiyawan king. They succeeded in establishing control, temporarily, over the Seha River Land, and Hittite overlordship seems to have been threatened in at least two other states - Wilusa and Mira.

Finally, in response to repeated incursions into Hittite subject territory, Tudhaliya IV attacked and conquered Millawanda, deposed its Ahhiyawan vassal, and restored it to Hittite control. This must have been a devastating setback to Ahhiyawan enterprise on the Anatolian mainland. And as far as we can determine, Ahhiyawa no longer figures in the Hittite texts, at least as a power of any significance within the context of Near Eastern affairs.

The activities of Ahhiyawa, or Ahhiyawans, cover a period of some 200 years in the Hittite texts, roughly from the last quarter of the 15h century to the last quarter of the 13th century, reach their peak in the first half of the 13th century.

colonization was not the motivation
probably access to resources, slaves, horses, metals

Texts:
1. Indictment of Madduwatta (about Attarssiya)
2a. Detailed annals of Mursili II
2b. Ten-year annals
ca 1320, earliest reference to Ahhiyawan LUGAL (my brother, my equal)
3. Tawagalawa letter (neither writer nor addressee's name preserved)
might be Hattusili III, 1265-1240
Millawanda conquered by Hittites 1320
now Ahhiyawan sovereign territory
4. Alaksandu treaty
1296-1272 (Qadesh is 1274)
no reference to Millawanda and Ahhiyawa
5. Letter from Manapa-Tahunda, king of Seha River Land to an unidentified Hittite king
same general time frame as Tawagalawa letter
6. Milawata letter, Tudhaliya IV (1237-1209)
Milawata in the hands of the Hittites
7. Sausgamuwa Treaty, Tudhaliya IV
the one with the erasure

Mountjoy 1998
Major, detailed discussion of pottery
Sea retreated from Troy as Scamander silted up
By Late Troy VI/VII would have been a kilometer or two away
Dickinson suggests that in Thessaly you get not Mycenaean colonists but the adoption of burial practices just as in South Greece
Mountjoy suggests the same for the east Aegean
maybe the southern part of the Anatolian west coast absorbed Mycenaean the more easily because it had already been exposed to Minoan influence
The most powerful single kingdom in the west was Arzawa until Mursili II defeated and dissolved it in LH IIIA2

1196-91 Ugarit
1176 defeat of Sea Peoples in year 8 of Ramesses III

Ephesus, like Miletus and Troy, was a coastal town in the time of Attarssiya

The new join made by Hoffner in 1980 shows that Millawanda did not become a Hittite vassal at some point after the Tawagalawa Letter as was thought; rather it was the
object of raids by the Hittite king and the addressee. Indeed, Singer states that as far as can be seen from the Hittite texts the Hittites never ruled Millawanda.
2 options for Ahhiyawa:
Mainland (Pylos on the wrong side, Mycenae an obvious choice, Thebes too, Iolkos should not be disregarded--but these are too far for quick communication and escaping to Ahhiyawa implied in the texts)
South Interface
Without Miletos, the South Interface with only Rhodes as an emporium would not have been of sufficient stature for its ruler to be a Great King.
Mountjoy thinks a maritime kingdom, not centered at Miletos but controlling it at some point
Mountjoy thinks the Sea Peoples might have been responsible for Troy VIIa if in later LH IIIB, as seems likely

The language spoken would presumably have been Luvian

Bryce Historia 38
The presence of Mycenaean settlers is clearly indicated in Miletos by Mycenaean burials and domestic architecture
Achaiwia appears on Knossos tablets. What it refers to is uncertain, and probably had a more restricted application than in Homer
It should be remembered that in Homer the name for the homeland was not Achaiia but Achaiis
It is also conceivable that Homer preserves the Anatolian name for the Mycenaean Greeks, just as Lykia comes from the Hittite Lukka, not the native Trmmisa (ethnic Trmmili)
Bryce thinks it is most plausible to locate the nucleus of the kingdom in mainland Greece
Mycenae best candidate, also Orchomenos and Argos (?!)
Alaksandu is obligated to provide help against potential trouble spots in Western Anatolia: Masa, Karkisa, Warsiyalla, Lukka, also against kings of Egypt, Sanhara (Babylonia), Hanigalbat, and Assyria. Ahhiyawa not mentioned
Bryce places Wilusa adjacent to Miletos (this must be before the Karabel inscription)
No indication that Millawanda was wrested by force from the Hittites
probably conceded in return for curbing his territorial ambitions and some help in maintaining the peace
The Hittites for much of their history maintained only a tenuous hold on their vassal states in western Anatolia
Bryce thinks the Mycenaeans were likely to have controlled vassal states much as Near Eastern rulers did. In his other article, OJA, says the Mycenaeans may not have organized things the way Near Eastern rulers did. The fact that Miletus looks like a vassal state is because it was already organized that way by the Hittites and the Mycenaeans just took it over as it was
believes they granted refuge in the mainland
tradition credits building of Tiryns walls to giants from Lycia
Since Lukka was near Millawanda, maybe Lycians did work on building projects for Mycenaeans, even on the mainland
it has been claimed that the LH III architecture ideas come from Anatolia, and that Miletus was the link
From the Linear B tablets it is clear that western Anatolia was one of the regions from which labor was recruited for the Mycenaean palace workforces
treaty with Sausgamuwa, ruler of the Syrian state of Amurru, Tudhaliya IV placed a ban on any traffic between Ahhiyawa and Assyria (a sworn enemy of Hatti) via the harbors of Amurru. This is the same text where the Ahhiyawa king gets erased (could have been a scribal error, but even this implies the king of Ahhiyawa was pretty important) Guterbock notes that it's certainly a draft, full of erasures and insertions
Bryce still thinks it was the loss of control over Miletos
Maybe the Trojan War was because Ahhiyawa lost Miletos and needed trade somewhere, focused on the Troad
But Bryce still thinks Troy was destroyed by the Sea Peoples

Embargo, Cline, Historia 40
The Hittites of Central Anatolia are the only major Near East/Eastern power not well represented by objects in the LBA Aegean
The Mycenaeans are the only major Aegean/Eastern Mediterranean power not well represented by objects in central Anatolia
Mycenaeans...not well attested with regard to trade in Central Anatolian Hittite texts
Hittites not mentioned in the Linear B texts
neither Homer nor later writers ever mention the Hittites
Hittites did enact embargoes: against Assyria, and forbade Ahhiyawans to trade with them
Minoans did trade with the Hittites

Climate Change 3rd Millennium
Manning
evidence of erosion in the Argolid in the mid 3rd millennium
Cyclades may have had a prestige goods economy, which are almost inherently boom-and-bust
Further hierarchy developed in EMIII. The hierarchy was now becoming historically permanent. The bones of ancient chiefs were revered (Soles 1992).