Pontic Steppe
84-468: 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 the kingdom of Kussara (before 1750 BC),
168-501: 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 was signed in the 21st year of Rameses (c. 1258 BC). Terms of this treaty included
252-471: 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 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
336-602: 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
420-712: A great raid down the Euphrates River, bypassing Assyria and sacking Mari and Babylon , ejecting 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
504-501: A group of Indo-European peoples who inhabited Anatolia as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Identified by their use of the now-extinct Anatolian languages , they were one of the oldest collective Indo-European ethno-linguistic groups and also one of the most archaic, as they were among the first peoples to separate from the Proto-Indo-Europeans , who gave origin to the individual Indo-European peoples. Together with
588-566: 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
672-716: 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 the Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean , and continuing all
756-646: 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 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
840-466: 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 the Arzawans. This was the first recorded use of biological warfare . Mursili also attacked a city known as Millawanda ( Miletus ), which
924-471: 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 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
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#17327718464281008-632: Is possible, the Isaurian language may have survived into the Late Antiquity , with funerary inscriptions recorded for as late as the 5th century AD. The better known laws of the Anatolian peoples were the Hittite laws that were formulated as case laws . These laws were organized in groups according to their subject (in eight main groups). Hittite laws show an aversion to the death penalty ,
1092-670: The Battle of Kadesh , the greatest chariot battle of the ancient world. Their empire disappeared with the Late Bronze Age collapse in the 12th-century BC. As Hittite was a language of the elite, the language disappeared with the empire. Another Anatolian group was the Luwians , who migrated to south-west Anatolia in the early Bronze Age . Unlike Hittite, the Luwian language does not contain loanwords from Hattic, indicating that it
1176-741: The Institute for Advanced Study , Princeton, New Jersey , United States, in 1964 at the Saarland University and in 1975–1976 at the University of Munich , Germany. He and his wife Nimet, also a professor of archaeology at Ankara University, formed a remarkable team, dominating Turkish field archaeology and its university teaching. Ozgüç was the excavator of the famous site of Kültepe ( Kayseri ), ancient Kanesh, where his 57 years of continuous excavation produced sensational architectural artifacts and texts, revealing in extraordinary detail
1260-585: 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 the Hurri-Mitanni and Assyrians. Between
1344-691: The Kaskians in the 15th-century BC. Following the Bronze Age collapse , a number of Neo-Hittite petty kingdoms survived until about the 8th century BC. Later in the Iron Age, Anatolian languages were spoken by the Lycians , Lydians , Carians , Pisidians and others. These languages were mostly extinct in the Hellenistic period , by the 3rd century BC, although late survival of some remnants
1428-572: 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 the southern border of Lebanon . The ancestors of the Hittites came into Anatolia between 4400 and 4100 BC, when
1512-477: 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
1596-562: 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
1680-916: The Proto-Tocharians , who migrated eastward, the Anatolian peoples constituted the first known waves of Indo-European emigrants out of the Eurasian Steppe . They likely reached Anatolia from the north, via the Balkans or the Caucasus , in the 3rd millennium BC, or less likely from the Caucasus without ever existing in the north. This movement has yet to be documented archaeologically, although they had wagons, they probably emigrated before Indo-Europeans had learned to use chariots for war. Comparison of Hittite agricultural terms with those of other Indo-European subgroups indicates that
1764-596: 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 the region. From the late 12th century BC, during
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#17327718464281848-507: The 16th century BC, is supposed to illustrate the unification, growth, and prosperity of the Hittites under his rule. It also illustrates 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
1932-668: The 18th century BC, in Old Hittite language, and three of them using 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
2016-507: The 19th Century BC at Kanesh . Kanesh was at the time the center of a network of Assyrian merchants overseeing trade between Assyria and the warring states of Anatolia. This certainly increased the power of the Anatolian peoples who inhabited the city. The Hittites are by far the best known of the Anatolian peoples. Originally referring to themselves as the Neshites after their capital at Kanesh, which they had at one point captured from
2100-495: 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 is believed to have been in use in Central Anatolia between the 20th and 12th centuries BC. The Hittites are first associated with
2184-423: The Anatolian peoples seceded from the other Indo-Europeans before the establishment of a common agricultural nomenclature, which suggests that they entered the Near East as a cohesive people through a common route. The Anatolian peoples were intruders in an area in which the local population had already founded cities, established literate bureaucracies and established kingdoms and palace cults. Once they entered
2268-537: 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
2352-707: 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 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
2436-634: The Hatti, the Hittites then seized the Hattic capital of Hattusa . The Hittite language thereafter gradually supplanted Hattic as the predominant language in Anatolia. Uniting several independent Hattic kingdoms in Anatolia the Hittites began establishing a Middle Eastern empire in the 17th-century BC. They sacked Babylon , seized Assyrian cities and fought the Egyptian Empire to a standstill at
2520-657: 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
2604-473: 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 the Hurrian states of Aleppo and Mitanni, and expanded to
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2688-673: The Hittite kingdom. The Hittite state was formed from many small polities in North-Central Anatolia, at 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
2772-537: 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 the Hittite confederation. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara , Turkey houses
2856-468: 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
2940-639: 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
3024-551: The Hittites established themselves following the collapse of the Old Assyrian Empire in the mid-18th century BC, as 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
3108-510: 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 the fog of obscurity and entered the "Hittite Empire period". Many changes were afoot during this time, not
3192-575: 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
3276-631: 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 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
3360-552: 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
3444-557: 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, a non- Indo-European people settled along
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3528-744: The West, with recently discovered epigraphic evidence confirming their origins as the Balkan "Bryges" tribe, forced out by the Macedonians. Anatolian peoples Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Anatolians were
3612-524: 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 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
3696-411: 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
3780-526: 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
3864-494: 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 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
3948-478: 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 the capital of an empire that, at one point, controlled northern Syria. Under
4032-410: 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
4116-410: 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 the brief reign of his eldest son, Arnuwanda II, another son, Mursili II , became king ( c. 1330 BC ). Having inherited
4200-449: The dean of the faculty in the years 1968–1969. In the time between 1969 and 1980, he was rector of the same university. Following his retirement in 1981, he was five years long in charge of vice chairman of the High Education Council of Turkey. Özgüç contributed much to Anatolian archaeology with his students, archaeological excavations and more than 100 scientific articles and books published. He lectured as guest professor in 1962–1964 at
4284-446: 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
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#17327718464284368-441: 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 the rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya , which contains numerous rock reliefs portraying
4452-485: 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 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
4536-590: The first historical period of Anatolia, that of the Assyrian merchant colonies, about 2000–1700 BC. He also led excavations in Karahöyük Elbistan, Horoztepe ( Tokat ), Altıntepe ( Erzincan ), Maşathöyük, Kazankaya and Kululu. Özgüç was member of several scientific institutions, such as Turkish Historical Institute, German Archaeological Institute, British Academy , American Archaeological Institute, Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities , City of London Archaeological Society and Institute of Archaeology in Turkey. Tahsin Özgüç died on October 28, 2005, in Ankara . He
4620-424: 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 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
4704-414: The former Assyrian colony of Kanesh . These are distinguishable by their names; 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 ,
4788-462: 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 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
4872-456: 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 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
4956-406: 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 the throne and ruled as king for seven years as Mursili III before being ousted by his uncle, Hattusili III after
5040-417: 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 the timely arrival of Egyptian reinforcements prevented total Hittite victory. The Egyptians forced the Hittites to take refuge in
5124-514: 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 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
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#17327718464285208-418: 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 the lower Anti-Taurus Mountains as well. To the north lived the mountain people called
5292-448: 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 the Hittite Empire period the kingship became hereditary and the king took on a "superhuman aura" and began to be referred to by
5376-420: 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 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
5460-501: 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 the island of Cyprus , before that too fell to Assyria. The last king, Šuppiluliuma II also managed to win some victories, including
5544-501: 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 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
5628-475: The region, the cultures of the local populations, in particular the Hattians , significantly influenced them linguistically, politically and religiously. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Anatolian peoples initially gained a foothold in Anatolia after being hired by the Hattians to fight other invading Indo-European groups. The earliest linguistic and historical attestation of the Anatolian peoples are names mentioned in Assyrian mercantile texts from
5712-440: The resources of Hatti, and left 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
5796-423: 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 ) was considered the core of the Empire, and some Hittite laws make a distinction between "this side of
5880-432: 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 was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to
5964-411: 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
6048-525: 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 is the practice of conducting treaties and alliances with neighboring states;
6132-597: 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
6216-479: 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
6300-431: 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 the 13th century BC into the 12th century BC with drought for three consecutive years in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC. By 1160 BC,
6384-452: The usual penalty for serious offenses being enslavement to forced labour , however in some cases of serious offenses death penalty was applied. Tahsin %C3%96zg%C3%BC%C3%A7 Tahsin Özgüç (1916–2005) was an eminent Turkish field archaeologist . The careers of Tahsin Özgüç and his wife, Nimet Özgüç , began after World War II and lasted for nearly 60 years. He was said to be the doyen of Anatolian archaeology. Tahsin Özgüç
6468-473: 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: the Kaskians, Phrygians and Bryges . The Hittite Kingdom thus vanished from historical records, much of
6552-527: 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 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
6636-682: Was a Northwest Caucasian language , but its affiliation remains uncertain, whilst the Hurrian language was a near- isolate (i.e. it 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
6720-587: Was born in Kardzhali , Bulgaria to Turkish parents. He was educated at the Faculty of Philology, History and Geography in Ankara University , graduating 1940. Following his doctorate in 1942, he married fellow archaeologist, Nimet Dinçer in 1944. At the same faculty, he became assistant between 1945 and 1946 and lecturer from 1946 to 1954, the year when he was appointed professor. Özgüç served as
6804-421: 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
6888-455: Was initially spoken in western Anatolia. The Luwians inhabited a large area and their language was spoken after the collapse of the Hittite Empire. The least known Anatolian group were the Palaic peoples , who inhabited the region of Pala in northern Anatolia. This area had probably also previously been inhabited by the Hatti. It is likely that Palaic peoples disappeared with the invasion of
6972-407: 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 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
7056-410: 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 a part of it. Hittite prosperity was mostly dependent on control of the trade routes and metal sources. Because of
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