ABSTRACT
In south central Turkey and adjacent parts of Syria, Hittite artistic traditions lived on for another five centuries, albeit in a transformed socio-political environment. Aramean and Neo-Hittite elements are mixed in the societies of Syria and Anatolia in the Iron Age that drawing a firm line between Aramean and Luwian cultural entities is problematic. Two innovations of the Hittite Empire were embellished in the Neo-Hittite period, and provides the of what we know from native sources on the archaeology and history of the period. The Carchemish sculptures, can be put into a rough chronological framework to the local inscriptions and Assyrian correlations, can then be used to order works at other sites. Like Carchemish, Malatya became subject to Assyria late in the 8th century, first through local puppets and finally under Assyrian governors who may have ultimately ruled it from another city, Kummuh.
