22 MARCH/APRIL 2020
civil wars. As the Hittite princes squabbled over
succession, their enemies were able to conquer
Hattusilis’ hard-won conquests.
An edict by the 16th-century b.c. king Tel-
epinus standardized Hittite royal succession.
The law also included an account of ancient Hit-
tite kings, a valuable future source for historians
studying Hittite culture. Despite Telepinus’s
attempt to restore order and return strength to
the Hittites, several weak leaders followed his
reign during this period, which historians call
the Hittite Old Kingdom.
In the 15th century b.c., Pharaoh Thutmose III
had become Egypt’s great empire builder, ex-
tending Egyptian control farther and farthereast into Syria. When the Mitanni entered into
an alliance with the Egyptians in the early 14th
century b.c., the beleaguered Hittite kings grew
uneasy at this new relationship.
Beset on all sides, the Hittites could have
fallen, but a strong ruler raised them up. Suppi-
luliumas I enjoyed a long reign (1380-1346 b.c.)
and helped turn the Hittites into a new imperial
force. Exploiting Mitanni weakness, Suppiluliu-
mas conquered northern Syria and installed his
sons as kings of Aleppo and Karkemish.
Opening with Suppiluliumas’s reign and con-
tinuing with his heirs, a three-way power strug-
gle developed with Egypt and the rising power of
Assyria to the east. In the decades that followed,
the Hittites owed their military successes to
their mastery of the war chariot.Wheeled Victories
The earliest chariots appeared in Mesopotamia
around 3000 b.c. They were very different from
the familiar horse-drawn vehicles seen in an-
cient Greece and Rome. Early prototypes often
had four solid wheels, and their main purposeMOUNTED
WARRIOR
A neo-Hittite relief
(above) dates to the
ninth century b.c.
It was found on a
stone block from the
temple of ancient Tall
Halaf, northern Syria,
near the Turkish
border.
HITTITE
HORSE WHISPERER
C
hariots are only as good as the animals that
draw them, making a supply of healthy, well-
trained horses a priority to the Hittites. A fas-
cinating text on equine management, dated
to the 13th century b.c., was found at the ancient site
of the Hittite capital Hattusa. It begins with the words
“Thus [speaks] Kikkuli, the
horse trainer of the land of
Mitanni.” An immigrant in
the service of the Hittite
king, Kikkuli’s vocabulary is
of great interest to histori-
ans: a mixture of Hittite, his
native Hurrian, as well as a
smattering of other words
from the Middle East. The
text is divided into three
parts. First, Kikkuli explains
the four-day process of se-
lecting the right animals.
Then, he details a train-ing method that begins in
autumn and lasts for 184
days. The routine starts
with the horses practicing
exercises without pull-
ing any weight to build
up their stamina and help
prevent injury. The third
section gives instructions
on how the horses should
be fed and watered. The fo-
cus is entirely equestrian,
and does not dwell on the
other, vital component of a
chariot: the drivers.GOOD HORSE SENSEPAUL WILLIAMS/ALAMY/ACI
Early chariots in Mesopotamia
often had four solid wheels and were
drawn by oxen, donkeys, or mules.