01 Who were the 'Hittites'?
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This article is from the Hittite/Hurrian Mythology FAQ, by Christopher B. Siren cbsiren@hopper.unh.edu with numerous contributions by others.
01 Who were the 'Hittites'?
During the second millennium B.C. the Indo-European people known as
the Hittites ruled over the 'Land of Hatti', in central and eastern
Anatolia, that peninsula which is modern Turkey. They had displaced the
previous occupants, the non-Indo-European Hattians, and ruled from the
city of Hattusas near the modern Boghazkoy in northern central Turkey,
possibly as early as 1900 B.C. Much of the Cappadocian plateau was
under their control through satellite kingdoms before 1800 B.C. and they
enjoyed a thriving trade with the Assyrians. Around 1800 B.C. Anittas
and his father Pitkhanas of Kussara sacked several Hittite cities,
including Hattusas, though Anittas laid a curse upon that city and trade
broke off until the founding of the Old Kingdom under King Labarnas
around 1680 B.C. He and his descendents greatly expanded the region of
Hittite control, crossing the Taurus mountains and waging war on Syria
and Assyria. King Mursilis (~1620-1590 B.C.), Labarnas' grandson by
adoption, brought down the Old Kingdom of Babylon - Hamurabi's dynasty.
This expanded realm, also stretching to Anatolia's west coast, proved to
susceptible to internal power struggles. In 1525 B.C., Telepinus, last
king of the Old Kingdom seized control and sacrificed some of the
Western districts and all of the territory east of the Taurus mountains
in favor of a more easily managed kingdom.
The Hurrians occupied the land between the Hittites and Assyria,
having descended from the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. They
ruled the kingdom of Mitanni. In the late 15th century B.C. the Hittite
empire's beginning is marked by an influx of Hurrian names into the
royal family. Tudhalyas I (1420 B.C.) reunited Western Anatolia under
Hittite rule, and retook Allepo but lost the Black Sea coast to the
Kaska tribes. After some difficulty with the Mittani the Hittites
resurged under King Suppilulimas around 1344-1322 taking a firmer hold
on Syria. With Egypt, they dominated the lands of Canaan and the Levant
during the 1200's. Their prosperity came to a sudden end when the
invasion of the Sea Peoples coincided with increasing trouble from the
Kaskas. While Hittite culture continued through about 700 B.C., the
Empire was shattered into several kingdoms and pressures such as the
growing Assyrian Empire helped keep it from uniting again.
The Hittites were a patriarchal, highly agricultural society. They
had rich iron deposits which they mined and traded with the Assyrians.
They also used it for weaponry and were rather successful in the use of
a three-man chariot. Through trade and conquest the languages and
cultures of their neighbors seeped into Hittite society. Babylonian and
Hurrian deities were worshiped along-side or assimilated with the native
Hittite deities. This merging of cultures and free use of foreign
languages is rather fortuitous. Parallel Hittite and Akkadian treaties
and similar texts helped in cracking the Hittite hieroglyphic code.
Unfortunately, while the ability to translate Hittite hieroglyphics has
improved, the pronunciation of several Hittite ideograms, and hence
their transcription into English, remains elusive. Often, as in the
case with the Storm-god, we must resort to a descriptive name, or else
use the appropriate Hurrian or Akkadian name.
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