200 FORUM ARTICLE Jorrit M. Kelder THE KINGDOM OF AHHIYAWA: FACTS, FACTOIDS AND PROBABILITIES It is now widely accepted that the Hittite toponym Ahhiyawa must refer to a part, or parts, of the Mycenaean world. Various localities within the Aegean have been suggested as likely candidates, of which Mycenae and ebes stand out in terms of material wealth, size, and evidence for foreign contacts. Professor Bryce’s argument for Pylos in Messenia as the centre of Ahhiyawa thus is a stimulating new take on the matter. I will take this opportunity to review the available archaeological and literary evidence on which any identification of Ahhiyawa, including the one proposed by professor Bryce, must be based, and discuss the limitations and possibilities of these various different datasets. e Limitations of the Archaeological Data e study of the Mycenaean palatial world is marred by a series of unfortunate misconceptions and a conflation of ideas with facts. One of the most problematic ‘factoids’ that has haunted the field is the notion that, as Trevor Bryce summarized in this volume, “We [..] know that while these principalities had close cultural and ethnic affinities, they remained politically independent from one another.[…]...there never was a paramount king of the Myce- naean world, and thus never a paramount king of Ahhiyawa...”. I must be blunt here: there simply is no evidence whatsoever for such a notion of political independence, neither from the archaeological data nor from the Linear B texts. Yet this idea of political independence has been propagated by so many illustrious academics for so long and with such vigour, that it is now often taken as a point of departure for further, in-depth study of the Mycenaean world and interpretation of related data-sets, such as the Hittite ‘Ahhiyawa Texts’. For the purposes of this forum, I will scrutinize this particular factoid and, in doing so, hope to propose an alternative view (which I first proposed in 2005 and elaborated upon in 2010 and 2013) of the Mycenaean world along far more cohesive, unified, lines. As Bryce already noted, there are essentially two distinct data sets that have been used to support the notion of a politically fragmented Mycenaean world, namely the archaeological data and evidence from the Linear B texts. e archaeological data suggest that, from the 17th century BC onwards, Minoan material culture made a profound impact on various mainland communities, especially in the Peloponnese and in Boeotia. e emergence of mainland elites appears to have coincided with this ‘Minoanization’, most vividly illustrated by the marvellous objects discovered in the Shaft Graves at Mycenae and in various roughly contemporary graves elsewhere, such as the recently discov- ered, 15th century BC, Tomb of the Griffin Warrior at Pylos (Davis, Stocker 2016). Over time, Minoan influence on mainland arts (and society) changed, doubtlessly according to local preferences and requirements, giving rise to what has been dubbed a ‘Mycenaean koiné’. As is the case with any ‘blanket designation’, the concept of a Mycenaean koiné has attracted criticism, mostly because it fails to capture significant local variations in material culture, e.g., in the production of pottery, in burial customs and in funerary architecture, such as tholoi, chamber tombs, pit and cist graves (for pottery, Mountjoy 1999, 822; for funerary costumes, Cavanagh, Mee 1998, 77). As a result, some academics have rejected the notion of a ‘Mycenaean koiné’. However, to argue that the “im- pression of uniformity is in fact a mirage” (e.g. Cavanagh, Mee 1988, 77) seems to overstress the available evidence and to ignore important general tendencies. Indeed, Petrakis (2009, 18) observed that regional features do not oppose but rather support the notion of a Mycenaean koinè: “Koiné appears to be an appropriate term to describe ‘islands’ of uniformity in a sea of heterogeneity.” In my view, the existence of a Mycenaean koinè during LH IIIA-B1 (ca. 1400- 1250 BC) cannot realistically be denied, and is especially evident in and around the Mycenaean palatial centres. I agree with Oliver Dickinson (forthcoming) that this koiné was not always a deeply rooted phenomenon. Indeed, as I noted in my 2010 monograph, the fall of the palaces around 1200 BC appears to have coincided with a return to many older (Middle Helladic) traditions and the disappearance of many ‘Mycenaean’ features (pottery shapes [most notably the kylix], seals, frescoes and the iconography typical for these media), suggesting that these cultural trappings were closely related to palace life and not necessarily anchored in a broader (non-palatial) society. is could well be explained as an “imperial veneer” (Kelder 2010, 113-114), though I am quite willing to accept estratto