Kınık Höyük and south Cappadocia after the end of the Hittite empire: new results and a reassessment

Recent works on post-Hittite Central Anatolia once again insist on its profound discontinuity in social structure, political complexity, economic organization and cultural/artistic expression compared to the previous period of Hittite hegemony. In this interpretive framework, any form of political complexity and technological, cultural or artistic expressions related to the Hittite legacy re-emerging during the Middle Iron Age are considered secondary and derived by contacts – either peaceful or hostile – with the northern Mesopotamian world, that is the Syro-Hittite principalities and the Assyrian empire. This contribution aims to provide a response to this interpretation based on relevant archaeological evidence excavated at the site of Niğde-Kınık Höyük, as well as on an evaluation of the the early use of Anatolian Hieroglyphic in central Anatolia after the fall of the Hittite empire. We will offer a critical synthesis on past investigations on the LBA/IA transition at Niğde-Kınık Höyük, and present novel results from a deep sounding excavated in 2020. This evidence shows that, notwithstanding major breaks after the LBA, political complexity and its visual and material expression had an early development disentangled from the contacts with northern Mesopotamia. Finally, on considering recent developments in the Anatolian Hieroglyphic paleography and the suggested backdating of important IA inscriptions, the last section raises the possibility of a localized independent resilience of hieroglyphic writing traditions in Central Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite empire.