The Hittites occupied the ancient region of Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 BCE, developed a culture apparently from the indigenous Hatti (and possibly the Hurrian) people, and expanded their territories into an empire which rivaled, and threatened, the established nation of Egypt.

They are repeatedly mentioned throughout the Hebrew Tanakh (also known as the Christian Old Testament) as the adversaries of the Israelites and their god. According to Genesis 10, they were the descendants of Heth, son of Canaan, who was the son of Ham, born of Noah (Genesis 10: 1-6). The name they are known by today, therefore, comes from the Bible and from the Amarna Letters of Egypt which reference a "Kingdom of Kheta" identified today as the 'Kingdom of Hatti' (the designation the land of the Hittites was known by) but their own documents refer to them as Nesili, as do others of the time.

The Hittite control of the region is divided by modern-day scholars into two periods:

  • The Old Kingdom (1700-1500 BCE)
  • The New Kingdom, also known as the Hittite Empire (1400-1200 BCE)

There is an interregnum between these two which, to those who accept that version of history, is known as the Middle Kingdom. The discrepancy between those scholars who recognize a Middle Kingdom and those who do not arises from the fact that there was no discontinuity between the Old Kingdom and the New, merely a 'dark age' of less than 100 years about which little is known. The Hittite Empire reached its peak under the reign of King Suppiluliuma I (c. 1344-1322 BCE) and his son Mursilli II (c. 1321-1295 BCE) after which it declined and, after repeated attacks by the Sea Peoples and the Kaska tribe, fell to the Assyrians.

Little was known of the Hittites other than the references from the Bible and fragmentary documentation from Egypt until the late 19th century CE when excavations began at Boghaskoy (modern-day Bogazkale, Turkey) which was once the site of Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire. Hattusa was originally founded by the Hatti (an aboriginal tribe of Anatolia) in 2500 BCE, and their culture may have provided the basis for that of the Hittites.

The Old Kingdom

The Old Hittite Kingdom (1700-1500 BCE) is first evidenced by the sacking of Hattusa by the Hittite King Anitta of the neighboring kingdom of Kussara in 1700 BCE. The city had repulsed attacks by Sargon the Great of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE) and his grandson Naram-Sin (2261-2224 BCE) but fell to King Anitta who burned the city, cursed it, and cursed anyone who would attempt to rebuild it.

Not long after its destruction, however, it was re-built by another king of Kussara named Hattusili I whose name means 'One from Hattusa'. The vast kingdom which Hattusili had created fell apart as more and more regions rebelled against a central rule, and Ammuna did nothing to stop the insurgence or placate the territories in any way.

The actual day-to-day life and culture of the Hittites is equally mysterious, as the inscriptions which have been deciphered deal mainly with the kings and their campaigns. It is known that the Hittites wrote using Akkadian script but in their own Indo-European language.

At the same time, however, Akkadian was the lingua franca of the age, and Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) had long been in contact through trade with the Hatti, and so it seems more probable that the Mesopotamian culture had influenced the Hatti, not the Hittites, and the Hittites appropriated the Hattian culture through conquest. Those details of Hittite life and culture which have come to light seem to be slight variations on that of the Hatti

The New Kingdom

The history of the Hittites resumes with the so-called New Kingdom (1400-1200 BCE), also known as the Hittite Empire. Although there were Hittite kings before him (such as Tudhaliya I and Tudhaliya II), this history really begins with King Suppiluliuma I who took the throne c. 1344 BCE.

Under Suppiluliuma's reign, the vast kingdom of Mittani was reduced to a Hittite vassal state and the fertile Levant region, including important port cities like Byblos, were taken from the Egyptians.

The last king of the Hittite Empire was Suppiluliuma II, famous for his part in the first naval battle in recorded history in 1210 BCE, in which the Hittite fleet was victorious over the Cypriots. Still, the victory was the exception, rather than the rule, of Suppiluliuma II's reign, and the growing might of the Assyrians, combined with repeated raids by the Sea Peoples and the Kaska tribe, who had risen again, chipped away at the stability of the empire until it broke apart. Hattusa was sacked by the Kaskas in 1190 BCE and burned.

The Assyrians destroyed whatever they could not use from the Hittite empire and stamped the region with their own culture and values. The area was still known as "the land of the Hatti" down to the year 630 BCE, even though the people, by that time, no longer remembered the Hatti or the Hittite kings and their achievements.

The Complete History of the Hittites :iron-soviet:

The Rise and Fall of the Hittites in Ancient Anatolia :biden-fall:

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