Priam first kills Priam's son Polites in front of his father as he seeks sanctuary on the altar of Zeus. Priam rebukes Neoptolemus, throwing a spear at him, harmlessly hitting his shield. Neoptolemus then drags Priam to the altar and there kills him too. It has been suggested by Hittite sources, specifically the Manapa-Tarhunta letter, that there is historical basis for the archetype of King Priam. The letter describes one Piyama-Radu as a troublesome rebel who overthrew a Hittite client king and thereafter established his own rule over the city of Troy (mentioned as Wilusa in Hittite). There is also mention
2260 Neoptolemus by Pan-STARRS, while in the Tholen classification the body's spectral type is ambiguous, closest to a D-type and somewhat similar to a T-type asteroid, with a spectrum flagged as unusual and moderately noisy (DTU:). In August 1995, and in March 2002, two rotational lightcurves of "Neoptolemus" were obtained from photometric observations by Italian astronomer Stefano Mottola using the Bochum 0.61-metre Telescope at La Silla Observatory, Chile, and the 1.52-meter Loiano Telescope at the Observatory of Bologna, Italy, respectively. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 8.180 hours and a brightness variation of 0.20 and 0.32 magnitude, respectively (). Follow-up