Coincidiendo con la sequía extraordinaria de este verano en el este del mediterráneo, historiadores turcos han recordado que hay que retrotraerse a la época del fin del imperio hitita para encontrar registros de una sequía semejante. En una conferencia, cuyo extractó fue publicado el 18 de agosto de este año en el periódico Zaman de Konya (titulado Drought in Anatolia brought the end of the Hittites), el profesor Hasan Bahar, titular del departamento de historia de la Facultad de Ciencias y Letras  de la Universidad de Selçuk, afirmó que la sequía sufrida este año fue similar a la que causó el fin del imperio hitita. Si bien la sequía constituye un elemento que han tenido que soportar todas las civilizaciones que han ocupado Anatolia, en el caso hitita resultó especialmente severa en época de Tudhaliya IV, cuando el imperio se encontraba en su máximo apogeo (“In this period –of Hattusil III-, the Hittites were so powerful that no other state could challenge them and while the Hittites were enjoying the height of their power, during the reign of Tuthalia IV, who was son of Hattuşiliş III, an intense drought hit Anatolia.”).

Según Bahar, los hititas fueron los más afectados por la sequía del mediterráneo oriental entre el 1240 y el 1150 AC, una sequía persistente y prolongada (that persistent and prolonged drought plagued it. The devastation wrought by the shortage of water was incalculable.

“According to the famous archeologist Peter Ian Kuniholm, who discovered the method of calculating the age of trees by counting the rings, the intensity of the drought can be seen in the trees of that era, which did not grow because of the lack of precipitation. The trees had tiny rings because of the drought.”).

Para Bahar, los suministros egipcios de cereales resultaron insuficientes, y la sequía condujo a una crisis económica y política que acabó con el imperio hitita (The drought brought political and economic ruin, and the Hittite empire collapsed in 1200 B.C.)

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=119737

Sin embargo, la actual sequía turca resulta excepcional por su dureza como por su duración. En febrero de 2001, el Ministro de Agricultura y Asuntos Rurales, Husnu Yusuf Gokalp, declaró al periódico Sabah que Turquía se enfrentaba a un serio desafío con la sequía, y advirtió que Turquía podría convertirse en Afganistán. Gokalp añadió que debía crearse un Consejo del Agua urgentemente.

http://www.hri.org/news/turkey/anadolu/2001/01-02-13.anadolu.html

Un informe del Instituto de meteorología turco indica que el año hidrológico 2006-2007 ha significado un 22% menos de lluvia en Anatolia, pero hasta un 49% menos en la costa occidental turca y un 35% menos en la capital

An assessment was made of rainfall in the October 2006-September 2007 period: According to this, rain decreased by 16.8 percent overall, with individual figures showing a decline of 44 percent in the Aegean region, 33 percent in the Marmara region and 22 percent in the Central Anatolian region. On a provincial basis, İzmir and İstanbul saw 49 percent less precipitation, while Ankara experienced 35 percent less precipitation.

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=119519

Lo que indudablemente demuestra la sequía turca de los últimos años es que esta situación de falta de precipitaciones prolongada y aguda es un episodio periódico en la meseta anatólica y costa turca, y que no resulta improbable que ocurriese una situación semejante entre el 1240 y el 1150 AC.

Bahar no constituye la única opinión en favor de la hipótesis “climatológica” como justificación del colapso hitita. Es conocida la política hidráulica sistemática desarrollada por Tudhaliya IV tras el 1240 AC, como puso de manifiesto el arqueólogo Aykut Cinaroglu, director de las excavaciones en Alakahöyuk, al reinaugurar en 2006 la presa de 30.000 m3 que los hititas habían construido en esa población, y que los turcos han vuelto a poner en funcionamiento, tras descubrirla en 2002: "After a drought Anatolia suffered in 1200 B.C., Tudhaliya IV imported  wheat from Egypt so that his subjects would not suffer a famine. Following  this, the king ordered numerous dams to be built in central Anatolia, in  1240 B.C.All but one of them became dysfunctional over time. The one in Alacahöyük has survived because the water source is located inside the dam's reservoir.”

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=54393

Ya en 1959, MacQueen había subrayado la importancia que la climatología representaba para los hititas, al analizar la oración dedicada al Dios del clima de Nerik, cuyo inicio interpretaba que parecía decir que la prosperidad se alejaba del país, a pesar de faltar partes de la oración en la tablilla K.U.B XXXVI 8g+88, y cuyo significado consideraba debía ceñirse a un simple intento por recuperar el favor de una habitualmente reticente diosa del agua en tiempos de sequía: “It is simply an attempt to win back a rather stubborn water-deity in time of drought” (J. G. Macqueen, Hattian Mythology and Hittite Monarchy Anatolian Studies, Vol. 9, 1959 (1959), pp. 171-188).

La propia Stefanie A. H. Kennell, directora del Instituto canadiense de Arqueología de Atenas y miembro de la American School of Classical Studies en Atenas, subrayaba en 2006 como defecto de la nueva edición revisada del libro de Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites. New Edition. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 554. pág), el hecho de minusvalorar o incluso ignorar los últimos descubrimientos en Hattusas y otros centros hititas, como Yalburt, de grandes almacenes al aire libre para el cereal y de importantes depósitos de agua, cuyo carácter meramente ceremonial queda totalmente excluido visto el tamaño y características constructivas de los depósitos. Y está  documentado que la construcción de estas cisternas gigantes se efectuó en los tiempos finales del imperio (Tudhaliya IV- Suppiluliuma II).

For example, the discussion of the final centuries of the Hittite empire and the probable causes of its downfall, particularly the theory that drought and consequent crop failure may have led to destabilizing famine (322, 340-41) or that the empire was doomed by "systems collapse" (342-44), would be considerably enriched by considering what is already known about the place of water and the storage of agricultural products in the Hittite world.

First, to take water. At Hattusha, basins/reservoirs have been found in and near the palatial area of Büyükkale on the city's east side, where a cultic function has been imputed to them. More recently (2000-2001) however, excavations in the southwestern area of the city have uncovered the so-called South Ponds (Südteiche), which are too numerous (five) and large (the four oblong ones are c. 38-70 m long, 14-18 m wide, and c. 6-8 m deep; the circular one is c. 16 m across and 5.6 m deep) to be mistaken for Kultteiche (religious ponds). In the estimation of the excavators, the elevated siting (only 20 m below Hattusha's highest point) of the spring-fed South Ponds and their remarkable depth, intended to minimize evaporation loss, indicate their function as a reservoir complex that could supply the entire city with water Outside the capital, bodies of water with religious functions are known at several Hittite sites, including the Huwasi sanctuary with its Suppitassu spring in the hills south of the city of Sarissa (mod. Kusakli), near Sivas, and the massive masonry "basin" constructed in the reign of Tudhaliya IV at Yalburt (Ilgin), northwest of Konya. The latter is mentioned simply as "a hieroglyphic inscription" that tells of "military operations conducted by Tudhaliya against the Lukka Lands and Wiyanawanda" (304 and 475 n 47). But more ought to be said. The "rectangular stone basin" of Yalburt is a hydraulic installation. It has distinct structural affinities to Eflatun Pinar near Lake Egridir, a spring sanctuary of extraordinary scale and sculptural embellishment, that suggest the latter may also be attributed to Tudhaliya IV.  In the reign of Tudhaliya IV, the region in which Eflatun Pinar is situated was part of the kingdom of Tarhuntassa. Kurunta, a cousin and sometime rival of Tudhaliya, was ruler of Tarhuntassa, and on the strength of some seal impressions from Hattusha and an inscribed relief at Hatip, B hypothesizes (319-21) that Kurunta usurped Tudhaliya's throne as Great King in 1228-1227, although Tudhaliya then regained and kept the kingship until his death in 1209. Thus, given that the Yalburt basin was patently constructed for Tudhaliya IV, one of two conclusions may be drawn: either Tudhaliya IV had Eflatun Pinar built as well, to symbolize his dominance over Tarhuntassa and its water resources (before or after his difficulties with Kurunta), or Kurunta himself commissioned it as a sign of his kingly power, surpassing Tudhaliya's commemorative basin in its magnificence and splendor. Either way, these projects demonstrate the importance of water not only for its own sake, in connection with thirst, drought, and crop failure, but also as an instrument by which Hittite rulers expressed their power in the final decades before the collapse of their imperial state.

Likewise, turning to the subject of food supply and the fall of the Hittite empire, it is disappointing that Jurgen Seeher's work on grain storage, alluded to in KHNE's preface and included in the bibliography, was not successfully incorporated. While the biochemical factors bearing on the subterranean storage of cereals need not occupy the political historian, Seeher communicates the relevant practical fact that at Hattusha there were at least 11 silos on Büyükkaya alone, some of them used down into the 13th century, plus the complex of 16 massive chambers built next to the Poternenmauer in the 15th/14th century, the storage pithoi of Temple 1, and several other potential granary sites; this count does not include the silo between Ponds 3 and 5 on the southwestern heights of Hattusha that was decommissioned sometime before the reservoirs were constructed, probably not later than the 15th century. Any city as large as Hattusha would have needed more grain than its immediate neighborhood could produce, but Seeher's study shows that Hattusha had the facilities to store quantities of cereals large enough to feed thousands of people for multi-year periods. It is quite possible that some or all of these facilities were allowed to fall into disrepair or were emptied and not replenished as a result of crop failure or mismanagement, but their construction history and probable use should in any case figure in the debate about the factors that contributed to the collapse of Hittite power, for the alimentation of the empire and its capital (cf. 331-32) was an inescapable concern of every king.

Todo ello a pesar de señalar que en su nueva edición, Bryce abandona la tesis de la destrucción violenta y bélica de Hattusas en favor de un abandono gradual, organizado y progresivo –entre varios meses y varios años-, siguiendo las tesis de Seeher, uno de los arqueólogos alemanes que excava Hattusas (B has rewritten his account of the end of Hittite rule at Hattusha (345-47) to reflect Seeher's revised view of events, which discards the scenario of a massive conflagration in favor of gradual abandonment and dereliction, with some destruction and squatting, over a period of a few months to a few years in the early 12th century.)

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2006/2006-11-34.html

Al parecer, con los acontecimientos meteorológicos de los últimos años, la tesis del desastre pluviométrico cobra auge frente a la invasión de pueblos del mar, como desencadenante del fin del imperio hitita y la crisis de oriente medio de finales del segundo milenio AC….lo que en todo caso acredita es que no se ha producido un cambio climático en la región, sino que la misma se caracteriza por ciclos de sequías persistentes, desde hace cuando menos 3 milenios.

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