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95-647: It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is dependent on corresponding Caria and the Carians to the "Karkiya" or "Karkisa" mentioned in the Hittite records. Bronze Age Karkisa are first mentioned as having aided the Assuwa League against the Hittite King Tudhaliya I . Later in 1323 BC, King Arnuwandas II was able to write to Karkiya for them to provide asylum for

190-630: A Luwian ancestry for the Carians and, as such, they would have lost their literacy through the Dark Age of Anatolia . The relationship between the Bronze Age "Karkiya" or "Karkisa" and the Iron Age Caria and the Carians is complicated, despite having western Anatolia as common ground, by the uncertainties regarding the exact location of the former on the map within Hittite geography. Yet,

285-471: A country, and in his hand the great cities prospered. But, when later the princes' servants became corrupt, they began to devour the properties, conspired constantly against their masters, and began to shed their blood." This excerpt from The Edict of Telepinu , dating to the 16th century BC, is supposed to illustrate the unification, growth, and prosperity of the Hittites under his rule. It also illustrates

380-548: A distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family ; along with the closely related Luwian language , it is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language. The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in their former territories, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in the various archives of Assyria , Babylonia , Egypt and

475-511: A king named Labarna renamed himself Hattusili I (meaning "the man of Hattusa") sometime around 1650 BC and established his capital city at Hattusa. Before the archeological discoveries that revealed the Hittite civilization, the only source of information about the Hittites had been the Hebrew Bible. Francis William Newman expressed the critical view, common in the early 19th century, that, "no Hittite king could have compared in power to

570-664: A list in Dares of Phrygia 's epitome of the Trojan War . Classical Greeks would often claim that part of Caria to the north was originally colonized by Ionian Greeks before the Dorians . The Greek goddess Hecate possibly originated among the Carians. Indeed, most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, the father of Mausolus , are attested in Caria. The Carians were often linked by Greek writers to

665-512: A maritime people before being gradually pushed inland. Plutarch mentions the Carians as being referred to as " cocks " by the Persians on account of their wearing crests on their helmets; the epithet was expressed in the form of a Persian privilege when a Carian soldier responsible for killing Cyrus the Younger was rewarded by Artaxerxes II (r. 405/404–359/358 BC) with the honor of leading

760-546: A non- Indo-European people settled along the shores of the Black Sea . The capital once again went on the move, first to Sapinuwa and then to Samuha . There is an archive in Sapinuwa, but it has not been adequately translated to date. It segues into the "Hittite Empire period" proper, which dates from the reign of Tudhaliya I from c.  1430 BC . One innovation that can be credited to these early Hittite rulers

855-514: A part of it. Hittite prosperity was mostly dependent on control of the trade routes and metal sources. Because of the importance of Northern Syria to the vital routes linking the Cilician gates with Mesopotamia, defense of this area was crucial, and was soon put to the test by Egyptian expansion under Pharaoh Ramesses II . The outcome of the Battle of Kadesh is uncertain, though it seems that

950-589: Is believed to have been in use in Central Anatolia between the 20th and 12th centuries BC. The Hittites are first associated with the kingdom of Kussara sometime prior to 1750 BC. Hittites in Anatolia during the Bronze Age coexisted with Hattians and Hurrians , either by means of conquest or by gradual assimilation. In archaeological terms, relationships of the Hittites to the Ezero culture of

1045-546: Is clear from some of the texts included here. For several centuries there were separate Hittite groups, usually centered on various cities. But then strong rulers with their center in Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) succeeded in bringing these together and conquering large parts of central Anatolia to establish the Hittite kingdom. The Hittite state was formed from many small polities in North-Central Anatolia, at

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1140-557: Is evidence of having taken a route across the Caucasus. David Reich, Iosif Lazaridis, Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. have demonstrated that the Hittite route must have been via the Caucasus and not the Balkans, since Yamnaya expansion into the Balkans carried a component of Eastern Hunter Gatherer ancestry that does not exist in any ancient Anatolian DNA samples, which indicates also that Hittites and their cousin groups split off from

1235-519: Is probably incorrect to claim that they are linear descendants of Luwian. It is possible that the speakers of Proto-Carian, or the common ancestor of Carian and Lycian, supplied the elites of the Bronze Age kingdom of Arzawa , the population of which partly consisted of Lydians . An important evidence of the Carians' own belief in their blood ties and cultural affinity with the Lydians and Mysians

1330-536: Is the admittance, apart from theirs, exclusively of Lydians and Mysians to the temple of the "Carian Zeus " in their first capital that was Mylasa . One of the Carian ritual centers was Mylasa , where they worshipped their supreme god, called "the Carian Zeus" by Herodotus. Unlike Zeus , this was a warrior god. It is possible that the goddess Hecate , the patron of pathways and crossroads, originated among

1425-545: Is the practice of conducting treaties and alliances with neighboring states; the Hittites were thus among the earliest known pioneers in the art of international politics and diplomacy. This is also when the Hittite religion adopted several gods and rituals from the Hurrians. With the reign of Tudhaliya I (who may actually not have been the first of that name; see also Tudhaliya ), the Hittite Kingdom re-emerged from

1520-580: The Amorite rulers of the Old Babylonian Empire in the process. Rather than incorporate Babylonia into Hittite domains, Mursili seems to have instead turned control of Babylonia over to his Kassite allies, who were to rule it for the next four centuries. Due to fear of revolts at home, he did not remain in Babylon for long. This lengthy campaign strained the resources of Hatti, and left

1615-471: The Anitta text, begin by telling how Pithana the king of Kussara conquered neighbouring Neša ( Kanesh ), this conquest took place around 1750 BC. However, the real subject of these tablets is Pithana 's son Anitta ( r.  1745–1720 BC), who continued where his father left off and conquered several northern cities: including Hattusa, which he cursed, and also Zalpuwa. This was likely propaganda for

1710-458: The Carians , according to Herodotus , was the brother of Lydus and Mysus . He was regarded as the eponymous and ancestral hero of the Carians who would have received their name from the king. He may or may not be the same as Car of Megara Herodotus mentions Car, brother of Lydus and Mysus ; the three brothers were believed to have been the ancestral heroes and eponyms of the Carians ,

1805-536: The King of Judah ...". As the discoveries in the second half of the 19th century revealed the scale of the Hittite kingdom, Archibald Sayce asserted that, rather than being compared to Judah, the Anatolian civilization "[was] worthy of comparison to the divided Kingdom of Egypt", and was "infinitely more powerful than that of Judah". Sayce and other scholars also noted that Judah and the Hittites were never enemies in

1900-648: The Leleges , but the exact nature of the relationship between Carians and Leleges remains mysterious. The two groups seem to have been distinct, but later intermingled with each other. Strabo wrote that they were so intermingled that they were often confounded with each other. However, Athenaeus stated that the Leleges stood in relation to the Carians as the Helots stood to the Lacedaemonians . This confusion of

1995-563: The Lydians and the Mysians respectively. This Car was credited by Pliny the Elder with inventing the auspicia . Car was also said to have founded the city Alabanda , which he named after Alabandus , his son by Callirhoe (the daughter of the river god Maeander ). In turn, Alabandus's name is said to have been chosen in commemoration of his Car's victory in a horse fight— according to

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2090-558: The Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean , and continuing all the way to Canaan, founding the state of Philistia  – taking Cilicia and Cyprus away from the Hittites en route and cutting off their coveted trade routes. This left the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, and Hattusa was burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BC following a combined onslaught from new waves of invaders:

2185-543: The "t", may be Cretans ). They are also named as mercenaries in inscriptions found in ancient Egypt and Nubia , dated to the reigns of Psammetichus I and II . They are sometimes referred to as the "Cari" or "Khari". Carian remnants have been found in the ancient city of Persepolis or modern Takht-e-Jamshid in Iran . The Greek historian Herodotus recorded that Carians themselves believed to be aborigines of Caria but they were also, by general consensus of ancient sources,

2280-566: The 13th century BC into the 12th century BC with drought for three consecutive years in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC. By 1160 BC, the political situation in Asia Minor looked vastly different from that of only 25 years earlier. In that year, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I was defeating the Mushki (Phrygians) who had been attempting to press into Assyrian colonies in southern Anatolia from

2375-734: The Anatolian highlands, and the Kaska people, the Hittites' old enemies from the northern hill-country between Hatti and the Black Sea, seem to have joined them soon after. The Phrygians had apparently overrun Cappadocia from the West, with recently discovered epigraphic evidence confirming their origins as the Balkan "Bryges" tribe, forced out by the Macedonians. Car (King of Caria) In Greek mythology , Car or Kar ( Ancient Greek : Κάρ) of

2470-488: The Arzawans. This was the first recorded use of biological warfare . Mursili also attacked a city known as Millawanda ( Miletus ), which was under the control of Ahhiyawa . More recent research based on new readings and interpretations of the Hittite texts, as well as of the material evidence for Mycenaean contacts with the Anatolian mainland, came to the conclusion that Ahhiyawa referred to Mycenaean Greece , or at least to

2565-462: The Assyrians under his son-in-law, and he defeated Carchemish , another Amorite city-state. With his own sons placed over all of these new conquests and Babylonia still in the hands of the allied Kassites , this left Šuppiluliuma the supreme power broker in the known world, alongside Assyria and Egypt, and it was not long before Egypt was seeking an alliance by marriage of another of his sons with

2660-491: The Balkans and Maykop culture of the Caucasus had previously been considered within the migration framework. Analyses by David W. Anthony in 2007 concluded that steppe herders who were archaic Indo-European speakers spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BC, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe . He thought their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of

2755-480: The Bronze Age are derived from" meteorites . The Hittite military also made successful use of chariots . Modern interest in the Hittites increased with the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. The Hittites attracted the attention of Turkish archaeologists such as Halet Çambel and Tahsin Özgüç . During this period, the new field of Hittitology also influenced the naming of Turkish institutions, such as

2850-476: The Carians. Herodotus calls her Athena and says that her priestess would grow a beard when disaster pended. On Mount Latmos near Miletus , the Carians worshipped Endymion , who was the lover of the Moon and fathered fifty children. Endymion slept eternally, in the sanctuary devoted to him, which lasted into Roman times. There is at least one named priestess known to us from this region, Carminia Ammia who

2945-534: The Greeks, "This was particularly the case with the Carians, for, although the other peoples were not yet having very much intercourse with the Greeks nor even trying to live in Hellenic fashion or to learn our language ... yet the Carians roamed throughout the whole of Greece serving on expeditions for pay. ... and when they were driven thence [from the islands] into Asia, even here they were unable to live apart from

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3040-552: The Greeks, I mean when the Ionians and Dorians later crossed over to Asia." (Strabo 14.2.28) Indeed, the term barbarian was coined by Homer in reference to the Carians speaking an unintelligible language. According to Herodotus, the Carians were named after an eponymous Car , a legendary early king and a brother of Lydus and Mysus , also eponymous founders respectively of Lydians and Mysians and all sons of Atys . Homer records that Miletus (later an Ionian city), together with

3135-659: The Hebrew texts; in the Book of Kings , they supplied the Israelites with cedar, chariots, and horses, and in the Book of Genesis were friends and allies to Abraham . Uriah the Hittite was a captain in King David 's army and counted as one of his "mighty men" in 1 Chronicles 11. French scholar Charles Texier found the first Hittite ruins in 1834 but did not identify them as such. The first archaeological evidence for

3230-537: The Hellenic sea and ruling over the Cyclades. In doing so, Minos expelled the Carians, many of which had turned to piracy as a way of life. During the Athenian purification of Delos , all graves were exhumed and it was found that more than half were Carians (identified by the style of arms and the method of interment). According to Strabo, Carians, of all the "barbarians", had a particular tendency to intermingle with

3325-607: The Hittite Empire period the kingship became hereditary and the king took on a "superhuman aura" and began to be referred to by the Hittite citizens as "My Sun". The kings of the Empire period began acting as a high priest for the whole kingdom – making an annual tour of the Hittite holy cities, conducting festivals and supervising the upkeep of the sanctuaries. During his reign ( c.  1400 BC ), King Tudhaliya I, again allied with Kizzuwatna, then vanquished

3420-532: The Hittite confederation. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite and Anatolian artifacts. The Hittite kingdom was centered on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša (Kültepe), known as "the land Hatti" ( Ha-at-ti ). After Hattusa was made the capital, the area encompassed by the bend of the Kızılırmak River (Hittite Marassantiya, Greek Halys )

3515-468: The Hittite script is quite different from that of the preceding Assyrian colonial period. The Hittites entered a weak phase of obscure records, insignificant rulers, and reduced domains. This pattern of expansion under strong kings followed by contraction under weaker ones, was to be repeated over and over through the Hittite Kingdom's 500-year history, making events during the waning periods difficult to reconstruct. The political instability of these years of

3610-640: The Hittites appeared in tablets found at the karum of Kanesh (now called Kültepe ), containing records of trade between Assyrian merchants and a certain "land of Hatti ". Some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European . The script on a monument at Boğazkale by a "People of Hattusas" discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo and Hama in Northern Syria . In 1887, excavations at Amarna in Egypt uncovered

3705-652: The Hurri-Mitanni and Assyrians. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC, the Hittites were one of the dominant powers of the Near East , coming into conflict with the New Kingdom of Egypt , the Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of Mitanni . By the 12th century BC, much of the Hittite Empire was annexed by the Middle Assyrian Empire , with the remainder sacked by Phrygian newcomers to

3800-468: The Hurrian states of Aleppo and Mitanni, and expanded to the west at the expense of Arzawa (a Luwian state). Another weak phase followed Tudhaliya I, and the Hittites' enemies from all directions were able to advance even to Hattusa and raze it. However, the kingdom recovered its former glory under Šuppiluliuma I ( c.  1350 BC ), who again conquered Aleppo. Mitanni was reduced to vassalage by

3895-469: The Kaskians, Phrygians and Bryges . The Hittite Kingdom thus vanished from historical records, much of the territory being seized by Assyria. Alongside with these attacks, many internal issues also led to the end of the Hittite Kingdom. The end of the kingdom was part of the larger Bronze Age Collapse . A study of tree rings of juniper trees growing in the region showed a change to drier conditions from

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3990-576: The Late Bronze Age collapse, and subsequent Iron Age , seeing the slow, comparatively continuous spread of ironworking technology across the region. While there are some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia , the number is comparable to that of iron objects found in Egypt , Mesopotamia and in other places from the same period; and only a small number of these objects are weapons. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry suggests "that most or all irons from

4085-530: The Mitanni and Hurrians were duly appropriated by Assyria, enabling it to encroach on Hittite territory in eastern Asia Minor , and Adad-nirari I annexed Carchemish and northeast Syria from the control of the Hittites. While Šuppiluliuma I reigned, the Hittite Empire was devastated by an epidemic of tularemia . The epidemic afflicted the Hittites for decades and tularemia killed Šuppiluliuma I and his successor, Arnuwanda II . After Šuppiluliuma I's rule, and

4180-553: The Old Hittite Kingdom can be explained in part by the nature of the Hittite kingship at that time. During the Old Hittite Kingdom prior to 1400 BC, the king of the Hittites was not viewed by his subjects as a "living god" like the Pharaohs of Egypt, but rather as a first among equals. Only in the later period from 1400 BC until 1200 BC did the Hittite kingship become more centralized and powerful. Also in earlier years

4275-460: The Old Kingdom, Telepinu, reigned until about 1500 BC. Telepinu's reign marked the end of the "Old Kingdom" and the beginning of the lengthy weak phase known as the "Middle Kingdom". The period of the 15th century BC is largely unknown with few surviving records. Part of the reason for both the weakness and the obscurity is that the Hittites were under constant attack, mainly from the Kaskians,

4370-593: The Persian army with a golden cock on the point of his spear. According to Thucydides , it was largely the Carians who settled the Cyclades prior to the Minoans. The Middle Bronze Age (MMI–MMII) expansion of the Minoans into this region seems to have come at their expense. Intending to secure revenue in the Cyclades, Minos of Knossos established a navy with which he established his first colonies by taking control of

4465-581: The Proto Indo Europeans before the formation of the Yamnaya which did admix with Eastern Hunter Gatherers. The dominant indigenous inhabitants in central Anatolia were Hurrians and Hattians who spoke non- Indo-European languages . Some have argued that Hattic was a Northwest Caucasian language , but its affiliation remains uncertain, whilst the Hurrian language was a near- isolate (i.e. it

4560-661: The Submycenean remains at Asarlik and the Mycenaean remains at Miletus and near Mylasa . Archaeologically, there was nothing distinguishing about the Carians since the material evidence so far only indicated that their culture was merely a reflection of Greek culture. During the 1970s, further archaeological excavations in Caria revealed Mycenean buildings at Iasus (with two " Minoan " levels underneath them), as well as Protogeometric and Geometric material remains (i.e. cemeteries and pottery). Archaeologists also confirmed

4655-408: The Zalpuwan/Hattusan family, though whether these were of the direct line of Anitta is uncertain. Meanwhile, the lords of Zalpa lived on. Huzziya I , descendant of a Huzziya of Zalpa, took over Hatti. His son-in-law Labarna I , a southerner from Hurma usurped the throne but made sure to adopt Huzziya's grandson Ḫattušili as his own son and heir. The location of the land of Hurma is believed to be in

4750-473: The appearance of Hittite, was related to later migrations of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamnaya culture into the Danube Valley at c. 2800 BC, which was in line with the "customary" assumption that the Anatolian Indo-European language was introduced into Anatolia sometime in the third millennium BC. However, Petra Goedegebuure has shown that the Hittite language has borrowed many words related to agriculture from cultures on their eastern borders, which

4845-438: The banks of the Kızılırmak River , during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1900–1650 BC). The early history of the Hittite kingdom is known through four "cushion-shaped" tablets, (classified as KBo 3.22, KBo 17.21+, KBo 22.1, and KBo 22.2), not made in Ḫattuša, but probably created in Kussara , Nēša , or another site in Anatolia, that may first have been written in the 18th century BC, in Old Hittite language, and three of them using

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4940-402: The brief reign of his eldest son, Arnuwanda II, another son, Mursili II , became king ( c.  1330 BC ). Having inherited a position of strength in the east, Mursili was able to turn his attention to the west, where he attacked Arzawa. At a point when the Hittites were weakened by the tularemia epidemic, the Arzawans attacked the Hittites, who repelled the attack by sending infected rams to

5035-414: The broader Middle East ; the decipherment of these texts was a key event in the history of Indo-European studies . Cultural links to prehistoric Scandinavia have also been suggested. Scholars once attributed the development of iron- smelting to the Hittites, who were believed to have monopolized ironworking during the Bronze Age. This theory has been increasingly contested in the 21st century, with

5130-407: The capital in a state of near-anarchy. Mursili was assassinated by his brother-in-law Hantili I during his journey back to Hattusa or shortly after his return home, and the Hittite Kingdom was plunged into chaos. Hantili took the throne. He was able to escape multiple murder attempts on himself, however, his family did not. His wife, Harapsili and her son were murdered. In addition, other members of

5225-436: The capital of an empire that, at one point, controlled northern Syria. Under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute , excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005. Smaller scale excavations have also been carried out in the immediate surroundings of Hattusa, including

5320-460: The central Anatolian region until the beginning of the second millennium BC, and who spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic . The modern conventional name "Hittites" is due to the initial identification of the people of Hattusa with the Biblical Hittites by 19th-century archaeologists . The Hittites would have called themselves something closer to "Neshites" or "Neshians" after the city of Nesha, which flourished for some two hundred years until

5415-399: The civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. During sporadic excavations at Boğazköy ( Hattusa ) that began in 1906, the archaeologist Hugo Winckler found a royal archive with 10,000 tablets, inscribed in cuneiform Akkadian and the same unknown language as the Egyptian letters from Kheta —thus confirming the identity of the two names. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of

5510-437: The coastal and interior regions of Caria were virtually unoccupied throughout prehistoric times. As for the assumption that the Carians descended from Neolithic settlers, this is contradicted by the fact that Neolithic Caria was essentially desolate. Though a very small Neolithic population may have existed in Caria, the people known as "Carians" may in fact have been of Aegean origin that settled in southwestern Anatolia during

5605-412: The coastal region of Adaniya, renaming it Kizzuwatna (later Cilicia ). Throughout the remainder of the 16th century BC, the Hittite kings were held to their homelands by dynastic quarrels and warfare with the Hurrians. The Hurrians became the center of power in Anatolia. The campaigns into Amurru and southern Mesopotamia may be responsible for the reintroduction of cuneiform writing into Anatolia, since

5700-469: The corruption of "the princes", believed to be his sons. The lack of sources leads to uncertainty of how the corruption was addressed. On Hattusili I's deathbed, he chose his grandson, Mursili I (or Murshilish I), as his heir. Mursili continued the conquests of Hattusili I. In 1595 BC ( middle chronology ) or 1587 BC (low middle chronology), Mursili I conducted a great raid down the Euphrates River, bypassing Assyria and sacking Mari and Babylon , ejecting

5795-409: The deposed Manapa-Tarhunta of "the land of the Seha River ", one of the principalities within the Luwian Arzawa complex in western Anatolia . This they did, allowing Manapa-Tarhunta to take back his kingdom. In 1274 BC, Karkisa are also mentioned among those who fought on the Hittite Empire side against the Egyptians in the Battle of Kadesh . Taken as a whole, Hittite records seem to point at

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5890-446: The diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son, Akhenaten . Two of the letters from a "kingdom of Kheta "—apparently located in the same general region as the Mesopotamian references to "land of Hatti "—were written in standard Akkadian cuneiform, but in an unknown language; although scholars could interpret its sounds, no one could understand it. Shortly after this, Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia

5985-429: The fog of obscurity and entered the "Hittite Empire period". Many changes were afoot during this time, not the least of which was a strengthening of the kingship. Settlement of the Hittites progressed in the Empire period. However, the Hittite people tended to settle in the older lands of south Anatolia rather than the lands of the Aegean. As this settlement progressed, treaties were signed with neighboring peoples. During

6080-487: The island of Cyprus , before that too fell to Assyria. The last king, Šuppiluliuma II also managed to win some victories, including a naval battle against Alashiya off the coast of Cyprus. But the Assyrians, under Ashur-resh-ishi I had by this time annexed much Hittite territory in Asia Minor and Syria, driving out and defeating the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I in the process, who also had eyes on Hittite lands. The Sea Peoples had already begun their push down

6175-415: The kind partly preserved later in Anatolian," and that their descendants later moved into Anatolia at an unknown time but maybe as early as 3000 BC. J. P. Mallory also thought it was likely that the Anatolians reached the Near East from the north either via the Balkans or the Caucasus in the 3rd millennium BC. According to Parpola, the appearance of Indo-European speakers from Europe into Anatolia, and

6270-409: The kingdom of Kussara (before 1750 BC), the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom ( c.  1750 –1650 BC), and an empire centered on Hattusa (around 1650 BC). Known in modern times as the Hittite Empire , it reached its peak during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I , when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia , bordering the rival empires of

6365-433: The lower Anti-Taurus Mountains as well. To the north lived the mountain people called the Kaskians . To the southeast of the Hittites lay the Hurrian empire of Mitanni . At its peak during the reign of Muršili II , the Hittite empire stretched from Arzawa in the west to Mitanni in the east, and included many of the Kaskian territories north as far as Hayasa-Azzi in the far north-east, as well as south into Canaan near

6460-409: The mountain of Phthries, the river Maeander and the crests of Mount Mycale were held by the Carians at the time of the Trojan War and that the Carians, qualified by the poet as being of incomprehensible speech, joined the Trojans against the Achaeans under the leadership of Nastes, brother of Amphimachos ("he who fights both ways") and son of Nomion. These figures appear only in the Iliad and in

6555-437: The mountains south of Kussara . The founding of the Hittite Kingdom is attributed to either Labarna I or Hattusili I (the latter might also have had Labarna as a personal name), who conquered the area south and north of Hattusa. Hattusili I campaigned as far as the Semitic Amorite kingdom of Yamkhad in Syria , where he attacked, but did not capture, its capital of Aleppo . Hattusili I did eventually capture Hattusa and

6650-564: The northerners retained language isolate Hattian names, and the southerners adopted Indo-European Hittite and Luwian names. Zalpuwa first attacked Kanesh under Uhna in 1833 BC. And during this kārum period, when the merchant colony of the Old Assyrian Empire was flourishing in the site, and before the conquest of Pithana , the following local kings reigned in Kaneš: Ḫurmili (prior to 1790 BC), Paḫanu (a short time in 1790 BC), Inar ( c.  1790 –1775 BC), and Waršama ( c.  1775 –1750 BC). One set of tablets, known collectively as

6745-450: The power of the Assyrians. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser I had seized the opportunity to vanquish Hurria and Mitanni, occupy their lands, and expand up to the head of the Euphrates , while Muwatalli was preoccupied with the Egyptians. The Hittites had vainly tried to preserve the Mitanni Kingdom with military support. Assyria now posed just as great a threat to Hittite trade routes as Egypt ever had. Muwatalli's son, Urhi-Teshub , took

6840-509: The presence of Carians in Sardis , Rhodes , and in Egypt where they served as mercenaries of the Pharaoh . In Rhodes, specifically, a type of Carian chamber-tomb known as a Ptolemaion may be attributed to a period of Carian hegemony on the island. Despite this period of increased archaeological activity, the Carians still appear not to have been an autochthonous group of Anatolia since both

6935-677: The region. From the late 12th century BC, during the Late Bronze Age collapse , the Hittites splintered into several small independent states , some of which survived until the eighth century BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; lacking a unifying continuity , their descendants scattered and ultimately merged into the modern populations of the Levant and Mesopotamia . The Hittite language —referred to by its speakers as nešili , "the language of Nesa "—was

7030-535: The reputation of Carian wealth that may have preceded the Greek Dark Ages and thus recalled in oral tradition. In some translations of Biblical texts , the Carians are mentioned in 2 Kings 11 :4 and 19 ( /kɑˈɽi/ ; כָּרִי, in Hebrew , literally "like fat sheep/goat", contextually "noble" or "honored"), and perhaps alluded to in 2 Samuel 8:18, 15:18, and 20:23 ( /kɽɛˈti/ ; כְּרֵתִי, probably unrelated due to

7125-474: The rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya , which contains numerous rock reliefs portraying the Hittite rulers and the gods of the Hittite pantheon. The Hittites used a variation of cuneiform called Hittite cuneiform . Archaeological expeditions to Hattusa have discovered entire sets of royal archives on cuneiform tablets, written either in Akkadian , the diplomatic language of the time, or in the various dialects of

7220-411: The royal family were killed by Zidanta I , who was then murdered by his own son, Ammuna . All of the internal unrest among the Hittite royal family led to a decline of power. The Hurrians, a people living in the mountainous region along the upper Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern south east Turkey, took advantage of the situation to seize Aleppo and the surrounding areas for themselves, as well as

7315-470: The scholar Stephanus of Byzantium , "Alabandos" was the Carian word for "winner in a horse fight". Another son of Car, Idrieus , had the city Idrias named after himself. The tomb of Car was in the Carian city Souangela , giving that city its name— according to Stephanus, "Souangela" meant "tomb of the king" in Carian. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in

7410-420: The second millennium BC. Hittites The Hittites ( / ˈ h ɪ t aɪ t s / ) were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia . Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea , they settled in modern-day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC . The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia , including

7505-621: The so-called "Old Script" (OS); although most of the remaining tablets survived only as Akkadian copies made in the 14th and 13th centuries BC. These reveal a rivalry within two branches of the royal family up to the Middle Kingdom; a northern branch first based in Zalpuwa and secondarily Hattusa , and a southern branch based in Kussara (still not found) and the former Assyrian colony of Kanesh . These are distinguishable by their names;

7600-416: The southern border of Lebanon . The ancestors of the Hittites came into Anatolia between 4400 and 4100 BC, when the Anatolian language family split from (Proto)-Indo-European. Recent genetic and archaeological research has indicated that Proto-Anatolian speakers arrived in this region sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC. The Proto-Hittite language developed around 2100 BC, and the Hittite language itself

7695-514: The southern branch of the royal family, against the northern branch who had fixed on Hattusa as capital. Another set, the Tale of Zalpuwa, supports Zalpuwa and exonerates the later Ḫattušili I from the charge of sacking Kanesh . Anitta was succeeded by Zuzzu ( r. 1720–1710 BC); but sometime in 1710–1705 BC, Kanesh was destroyed, taking the long-established Assyrian merchant trading system with it. A Kussaran noble family survived to contest

7790-598: The state-owned Etibank ("Hittite bank"), and the foundation of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , built 200 kilometers (120 mi) west of the Hittite capital of Hattusa, which houses the world's most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite art and artifacts. The Hittites called their kingdom Hattusa ( Hatti in Akkadian), a name received from the Hattians , an earlier people who had inhabited and ruled

7885-480: The succession was not legally fixed, enabling "War of the Roses" -style rivalries between northern and southern branches. The next monarch of note following Mursili I was Telepinu ( c.  1500 BC ), who won a few victories to the southwest, apparently by allying himself with one Hurrian state (Kizzuwatna) against another (Mitanni). Telepinu also attempted to secure the lines of succession. The last monarch of

7980-596: The supposition is suitable from a linguistic point-of-view given that the Phoenicians were calling them "KRK" in their abjad script and they were referred to as krka in Old Persian . The Carians next appear in records of the early centuries of the first millennium BC; Homer 's writing about the golden armour or ornaments of the Carian captain Nastes, the brother of Amphimachus and son of Nomion, reflects

8075-537: The throne and ruled as king for seven years as Mursili III before being ousted by his uncle, Hattusili III after a brief civil war . In response to increasing Assyrian annexation of Hittite territory, he concluded a peace and alliance with Ramesses II (also fearful of Assyria), presenting his daughter's hand in marriage to the Pharaoh. The Treaty of Kadesh , one of the oldest completely surviving treaties in history, fixed their mutual boundaries in southern Canaan, and

8170-434: The timely arrival of Egyptian reinforcements prevented total Hittite victory. The Egyptians forced the Hittites to take refuge in the fortress of Kadesh , but their own losses prevented them from sustaining a siege. This battle took place in the 5th year of Ramesses ( c.  1274 BC by the most commonly used chronology). After this date, the power of both the Hittites and Egyptians began to decline yet again because of

8265-511: The two peoples is found also in Herodotus, who wrote that the Carians, when they were allegedly living amid the Cyclades, were known as Leleges . The Carian language belongs to the Luwic group of the Anatolian family of languages . Other Luwic languages besides Luwian proper are Lycian and Milyan (Lycian B). Although the ancestors of Carian and Lycian must have been very close to Luwian, it

8360-500: The widow of Tutankhamen . That son was evidently murdered before reaching his destination, and this alliance was never consummated. However, the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) once more began to grow in power with the ascension of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC. Ashur-uballit I attacked and defeated Mattiwaza the Mitanni king despite attempts by the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I, now fearful of growing Assyrian power, attempting to preserve his throne with military support. The lands of

8455-476: Was priestess of Thea Maeter Adrastos and of Aphrodite. Throughout the 1950s, J.M. Cook and G.E. Bean conducted exhaustive archaeological surveys in Caria. Cook ultimately concluded that Caria was virtually devoid of any prehistoric remains. According to his reports, third millennium finds were mostly confined to a few areas on or near the Aegean coast. No finds from the second millennium were known aside from

8550-401: Was considered the core of the Empire, and some Hittite laws make a distinction between "this side of the river" and "that side of the river". For example, the bounty for an escaped slave who had fled beyond the river is higher than for a slave caught on the near side. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts. This terminology

8645-406: Was credited for the foundation of the Hittite Empire. "Hattusili was king, and his sons, brothers, in-laws, family members, and troops were all united. Wherever he went on campaign he controlled the enemy land with force. He destroyed the lands one after the other, took away their power, and made them the borders of the sea. When he came back from campaign, however, each of his sons went somewhere to

8740-488: Was identical with the "kingdom of Kheta " mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller , agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta , but proposed connecting it with Biblical Kittim rather than with the Biblical Hittites . Sayce's identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century; and the name "Hittite" has become attached to

8835-623: Was one of only two or three languages in the Hurro-Urartian family ). There were also Assyrian colonies in the region during the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BC); it was from the Assyrian speakers of Upper Mesopotamia that the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script . It took some time before the Hittites established themselves following the collapse of the Old Assyrian Empire in the mid-18th century BC, as

8930-520: Was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language that originated in these areas as Luwian . Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of that territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya . Upon its revolt from the Hittites during the reign of Ammuna , it assumed the name of Kizzuwatna and successfully expanded northward to encompass

9025-450: Was signed in the 21st year of Rameses (c. 1258 BC). Terms of this treaty included the marriage of one of the Hittite princesses to Ramesses. Hattusili's son, Tudhaliya IV , was the last strong Hittite king able to keep the Assyrians out of the Hittite heartland to some degree at least, though he too lost much territory to them, and was heavily defeated by Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria in the Battle of Nihriya . He even temporarily annexed

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