Hittites
The Hittites (/ˈhɪtaɪts/) were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a
kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an
empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia (around 1650 BC).[2][3] This empire reached its
height during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included
most of Anatolia as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.
Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC, the Empire of Hattusa—in modern times conventionally called
the Hittite Empire—came into conflict with the New Kingdom of Egypt, the Middle Assyrian Empire and
the empire of Mitanni for control of the Near East. The Middle Assyrian Empire eventually emerged as
the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite Empire, while the remainder was sacked
by Phrygian newcomers to the region. From the late 12th century BC, during the Late Bronze Age
collapse, the Hittites splintered into several independent Syro-Hittite states, some of which survived
until the eighth century BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language
family. Along with the closely related Luwian language, Hittite is the oldest historically attested Indo-
European language,[4] referred to by its speakers as nešili "in the language of Nesa". The Hittites called
their country the Kingdom of Hattusa ( Hatti in Akkadian), a name received from the Hattians, an earlier
people who had inhabited and ruled the central Anatolian region until the beginning of the second
millennium BC and who spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic.[5] 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 history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their
kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives
in Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt and the Middle East, the decipherment of which was also a key event in the
history of Indo-European studies.
Scholars once attributed the development of iron-smelting to the Hittites of Anatolia during the Late
Bronze Age, with their success seen as largely based on the advantages of a monopoly on ironworking at
the time. But the view of such a "Hittite monopoly" has come under scrutiny and no longer has scholarly
consensus-support.[6] As part of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, the Late Bronze Age collapse saw
the slow, comparatively continuous spread of ironworking technology in the region. While there are
some iron objects from Bronze Age Anatolia, the number is comparable to that of iron objects found
in Egypt and in other places from the same period; and only a small number of these objects are
weapons.[7] X-ray fluorescence spectrometry suggests "that most or all irons from the Bronze Age are
derived from" meteorites.[8] The Hittite military made successful use of chariots.[9]
In classical times, ethnic Hittite dynasties survived in small kingdoms scattered around the areas of
present-day Syria, and into the rest of Levant. Lacking a unifying continuity, their descendants scattered
and ultimately merged into the modern populations of the Levant, Turkey and Mesopotamia.[10]
During the 1920s, interest in the Hittites increased with the founding in 1923 of the Republic of Turkey.
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
the state-owned Etibank ("Hittite bank"),[11] and the foundation of the Museum of Anatolian