The Last Days of Hattusa -- The mysterious collapse of the Hittite empire

Trevor Bryce

From his capital, Hattusa, in central Anatolia, the last-known

Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II (1207 B.C.-?), ruled over a
people who had once built a great empire—one of the
superpowers (along with Egypt, Mittani, Babylon and
Assyria) of the Late Bronze Age. The Kingdom of the
Hittites, called Hatti, had stretched across the face of
Anatolia and northern Syria, from the Aegean in the west to
the Euphrates in the east. But now those days were gone, and
the royal capital was about to be destroyed forever by
invasion and fire.
Did Suppiluliuma die defending his city, like the last king of
Constantinople 2,600 years later? Or did he spend his final
moments in his palace, impassively contemplating
mankind’s flickering mortality?
Neither, according A helmeted god stands guard over one of the
to recent principal entrances to ancient Hattusa. From
archaeological the 17th to the early 12th century B.C.,
evidence, which Hattusa served as the capital of the Hittite
paints a somewhat empire. Credit: Gianni Dagli Orti/Corbis.
less dramatic, though still mysterious, picture of Hattusa’s last
days. Excavations at the site, directed by the German
archaeologist Jürgen Seeher, have indeed determined that the
city was invaded and burned early in the 12th century B.C.
But this destruction appears to have taken place after many of
Hattusa’s residents had abandoned the city,
carrying off the valuable (and portable)
objects as well as the city’s important official
records. The site being uncovered by
archaeologists was probably little more than
a ghost town during its final days.
From Assyrian records, we know that in the early second millennium B.C. Hattusa was
the seat of a central Anatolian kingdom. In the 18th century B.C., this settlement was
razed to the ground by a king named Anitta, who declared the site accursed and then
left a record of his destruction of the city. One of the first Hittite kings, Hattusili I (c.
1650–1620 B.C.), rebuilt the city, taking advantage of the region’s abundant sources of
water, thick forests and fertile land. An outcrop of rock rising precipitously above the
site (now known as Büyükkale, or “Big Castle”) provided a readily defensible location
for Hattusili’s royal citadel. Credit: Réunion
Although Hattusa became the capital of one of the greatest Near Eastern empires, the des Musées
city was almost completely destroyed several times. One critical episode came early in Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY.
the 14th century, when enemy forces launched a series of massive attacks upon the
Hittite homeland, crossing its borders from all directions. The attackers included Arzawan forces from
the west and south, Kaskan mountain tribes from the north, and Isuwan forces from across the
Euphrates in the east. The Hittite king Tudhaliya III (c. 1360?-1350 B.C.) had no choice but to abandon
his capital to the enemy. Tudhaliya probably went into exile in the eastern city of Samuha (according to
his grandson and biographer, Mursili II, Tudhalia used Samuha as his base of operations for
reconquering lost territories). Hattusa was destroyed, and the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390–
1352 B.C.) declared, in a letter tablet found at Tell el-Amarna, in Egypt, that “The Land of Hatti is
finished!”
In a series of brilliant campaigns, however, largely masterminded by Tudhaliya’s son Suppiluliuma I
(1344–1322 B.C.), the Hittites regained their territories, and Hattusa rose once more, phoenix-like,
from its ashes. During the late 14th century and for much of the 13th century B.C., Hatti was the most
powerful kingdom in the Near East. Envoys from the Hittite king’s “royal brothers”—the kings of
Egypt, Babylon and Assyria—were regularly received in the great reception hall on Hattusa’s acropolis.
Vassal rulers bound by treaty came annually to Hattusa to reaffirm their loyalty and pay tribute to the
Hittite king.
The most illustrious phase in the existence of Hattusa itself,
however, did not come during the floruit of the Hittite
empire under Suppiluliuma, his son Mursili II (c. 1321–1295
B.C.) or grandson Muwatalli II (c. 1295–1272 B.C.). At this
time Hattusa was no match, in size or splendor, for the great
Egyptian cities along the Nile—Thebes, Memphis and the
short-lived Akhetaten, capital of the so-called heretic
pharaoh Akhenaten (1352–1336 B.C.). Indeed, during
Muwatalli’s reign Hattusa actually went into decline when
the royal seat was transferred to a new site, Tarhuntassa, near
Anatolia’s southern coast. Only later, when the kingdom was
in the early stages of its final decline, did Hattusa become
one of the great showplaces of the ancient Near East.
This renovation of the city was the inspiration of King
Hattusili III (c. 1267–1237 B.C.), though his son and
successor, Tudhaliya IV (c. 1237–1209 B.C.), did most of Excavations at Hattusa have turned up
the work. Not only did Tudhaliya substantially renovate the beautifully crafted ritual objects, such as the
acropolis; he more than doubled the city’s size, developing a 7-inch-high, 13th-century B.C. silver rhyton,
new area lying south of and rising above the old city. In the cast in the shape of a stag. Credit: Werner
new “Upper City,” a great temple complex arose. Hattusa Forman/Art Resource, NY.
could now boast at least 31 temples within its walls, many built during Tudhaliya’s reign. Though
individually dwarfed by the enormous Temple of the Storm God in the “Lower City,” the new temples
left no doubt about Hattusa’s grandeur, impressing upon all who visited the capital that it was the
religious as well as the political and administrative heart of the Hittite empire.
Tudhaliya also constructed massive new fortifications. The main casemate wall was built upon an
earthen rampart to a height of 35 feet, punctuated by towers at 70-foot intervals along its entire length.
The wall twice crossed a deep gorge to enclose the Lower City, the Upper City and an area to the
northeast; this was surely one of the most impressive engineering achievements of the Late Bronze
Age.
What prompted this sudden and dramatic—perhaps even frenetic—surge of building activity in these
last decades of the kingdom’s existence?
 One is left with the uneasy
feeling that the Hittite world
was living on the edge.
Despite outward appearances,
all was not well with the
kingdom, or with the royal
dynasty that controlled it. To
be sure, Tudhaliya had some
military successes; in western
Anatolia, for instance, he The great Temple of the Storm God, Teshub,
appears to have eliminated the once dominated the Lower City at Hattusa.
threat posed by the The temple is clearly visible at left-center in
Mycenaean Greeks to the the photo (which looks northwest over the
Hittite vassal kingdoms, which ancient Lower City to modern Boghazkoy),
extended to the Aegean Sea.3 surrounded by ritual chambers and
storerooms. The temple was built by Hattusili
But he also suffered a major III (1267–1237 B.C.)—perhaps on the site of
military defeat to the Assyrian an older temple to Teshub—just northwest of
king Tukulti-Ninurta, which Hattusa’s ancient acropolis (not visible in the
Hattusili’s son Tudhaliya IV dispelled any notion that the photo). Credit: Yann Arthus Bertrand/Corbis.
(1237–1209 B.C.) greatly Hittites were invincible in the field of battle. Closer to home, Tudhaliya
expanded Hattusa to include a wrote anxiously to his mother about a serious rebellion that had broken
new Upper City, doubling the size out near the homeland’s frontiers and was likely to spread much farther.
of the Hittite capital. Tudhaliya
Within the royal family itself, there were serious divisions. For this,
also built dozens of new temples
Tudhaliya’s father, Hattusili, was largely responsible. In a brief but
and massive fortification walls
violent civil war, he had seized
encircling the entire city. Credit:
Life And Society in the Hittite
the throne from his nephew
World. Urhi-Teshub (c. 1272–1267
B.C.) and sent him into exile.
But Urhi-Teshub was
determined to regain his throne. Fleeing his place of exile, he
attempted to win support from foreign kings, and he may
have set up a rival kingdom in southern Anatolia.
Urhi-Teshub’s brother Kurunta may also have contributed to
the deepening divisions within the royal family. After initially
pledging his loyalty to Hattusili, he appears to have made an
attempt upon the throne when it was occupied by his cousin
Tudhaliya. Seal impressions dating to this period have been Excavators at Hattusa found this five-inch-
found in Hattusa with the inscription “Kurunta, Great King, high, 15th-century B.C. ceramic fragment
Labarna, My Sun.” A rock-cut inscription recently found near that may depict the cyclopean walls and
Konya, in southern Turkey, also refers to Kurunta as “Great defensive towers that surrounded the
King.” The titles “Great King,” “Labarna” and “My Sun” acropolis. Credit: Hirmer Fotoarchiv
Muenchen.
were strictly reserved for the throne’s actual occupant—
suggesting that Kurunta may have instigated a successful coup against Tudhaliya.
Kurunta had every right to mount such a coup. Like Urhi-Teshub, he was a son of the legitimate king,
Muwatalli. Urhi-Teshub’s and Kurunta’s rights had been denied when their uncle, Hattusili, usurped
royal power for himself and his descendants. If Kurunta did indeed rectify matters by taking the throne
by force around 1228 B.C., his occupancy was short-lived, for Tudhaliya again became king, and he
 remained king for many years after Kurunta disappeared from the
historical record.
Nevertheless, the dynasty remained unstable. In an address to palace
dignitaries, Tudhaliya made clear how insecure his position was:
The Land of Hatti is full of the royal line: In Hatti the descendants of
Suppiluliuma, the descendants of Mursili, the descendants of
Muwatalli, the descendants of Hattusili are numerous. Regarding the
kingship, you must acknowledge no other person (but me, Tudhaliya),
and protect only the grandson and great grandson and descendants of
Tudhaliya. And if at any time(?) evil is done to His Majesty—(for) His
Majesty has many brothers—and someone approaches another person
and speaks thus: “Whomever we select for ourselves need not even be a
The seal of Tudhaliya IV (1237–
1228 B.C.) is stamped on this 4- son of our lord!”—these words must not be (permitted)! Regarding the
inch-high fragment of a letter kingship, you must protect only His Majesty and the descendants of His
sent to the king of Ugarit. Majesty. You must approach no other person!
Although the letter is written in
Another serious problem confronted the last kings of Hatti. There may
cuneiform, the seal is in Hittite
hieroglyphics. Credit: Erich well have been widespread famine in the Hittite kingdom during its
Lessing. final decades. The Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (1213–1203 B.C.)
refers to grain shipments sent to the Hittite king “to keep alive the land
of Hatti.” Tudhaliya himself sent an urgent letter to the king of Ugarit, demanding a ship and crew for
the transport of 450 tons of grain. The letter ends by stating that it is a matter of life or death! Was the
Hittite kingdom being slowly starved into oblivion?
The Hittite economy was based primarily on agriculture, requiring a substantial labor force. At the
same time, the annual Hittite military campaigns were heavily labor-intensive—draining off Hatti’s
strong young men from the domestic workforce. To some extent this was compensated for by captives
brought back to the homeland and used as farm laborers. Even so, the kingdom faced chronic shortages
of manpower.
Increasingly, the Hittites came to depend on outside sources of grain, supplied by vassal states in north
Syria and elsewhere. After 1259 B.C., when the Hittites signed a treaty with the Egyptians,4 Hatti
began importing grain from Egypt.
In times of peace and stability, foreign imports made up for local shortfalls. But once supply routes
were threatened, the situation changed dramatically. Grain shipments from Egypt and the eastern
Mediterranean were transported to Ura, on the Anatolian coast, and then carried overland to Hatti. The
eastern Mediterranean was always a dangerous place for commercial shipping, since it was infested
with pirates who attacked ships and raided coastal ports. As conditions throughout the region became
more unsettled toward the end of the 13th century B.C., the threats to shipping became ever greater.
This provides the context for the Hittite military operations around the island of Cyprus during the
reigns of Tudhaliya and his son Suppiluliuma II. The operations were almost certainly aimed at
destroying enemy forces that were disrupting grain supplies. These enemies were probably seaborne
marauders who had invaded Cyprus to use its harbors as bases for their attacks on shipping in the
region. Dramatic evidence of the dangers they posed is provided by a letter from the last king of Ugarit,
Ammurapi, to the king of Cyprus, who had earlier asked Ammurapi for assistance:
My father, behold, the enemy’s ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil
things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the
Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka? … Thus the country is abandoned to
 itself. May my father know it: The seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much
damage upon us.
So, while a grave crisis was
mounting in the land, with periods
of famine, unrest and war
aggravated by a dysfunctional royal
dynasty, the Hittite kings decided to
rebuild Hattusa!
This project obviously required
enormous resources. Where did the
workers come from? It would have
been dangerous to deplete the ranks
of the army during a period of
conflict with Assyria in the east,
rebellion near the homeland’s
frontiers (the one Tudhaliya
described to his mother) and attacks
On a wall of his mortuary temple at Thebes, called the Ramesseum, the by marauders in the Mediterranean.
Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II (1279–1213 B.C.) carved scenes showing The construction workers had to be
the Battle of Kadesh—a clash between the Egyptians and the Hittites recruited from among the able-
fought in 1274 B.C. near the Orontes River in modern Syria. Thirteen
bodied men working the farms—yet
years later, Ramesses signed a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattusili
III (1267–1237 B.C.), putting an end to the protracted war between the another strain on the already taxed
two Late Bronze Age superpowers. Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, Hittite economy.6
NY. How do we explain this?
The new city was the brainchild of Tudhaliya’s father, Hattusili, who was always conscious of the fact
that he was not the legitimate successor to the throne. Hattusili thus made great efforts to win
acknowledgment from his royal peers: the kings of Egypt, Babylon and Assyria. It was also important
for him to win acceptance from his own subjects. His brother and predecessor King Muwatalli had
transferred the royal seat to Tarhuntassa. Very likely Hattusili decided to win favor from his people—
and the gods—by reinstating Hattusa, the great ancestral Hittite city, as the kingdom’s capital, and to do
so on a grander scale than ever before. In this way, Hattusili-the-usurper could assume the role of
Hattusili-the-restorer-of-the-old-order.
Did this provide a compelling motive for his son, Tudhaliya, who actually undertook the project? Or
was Tudhaliya’s commitment to rebuilding the capital as a city of the gods an expression of religious
fervor,7 especially as his kingdom was beginning to crumble around him? Or was he engaging in a
gigantic bluff—creating a spectacular mirage of wealth and power in an attempt to delude subjects,
allies and enemies into believing that the fragile empire he ruled was embarking upon a grand new era?
Dramatically appealing as such explanations may be, they do not square with the picture we have of
Tudhaliya as a level-headed, responsible and pragmatic ruler.
In short, the massive rebuilding of Hattusa at this time remains a mystery, one of the many mysteries
attending the collapse of the Bronze Age.8
Only a handful of texts survive from the reign of Tudhaliya’s son Suppiluliuma II, and these tell a
mixed story. On the one hand, some texts point to continuing unrest among his own subjects, including
the elite elements of the state, and to acts of outright defiance by vassal states. On the other hand,
military documents record conquests in southern and western Anatolia and naval victories off the coast
of Cyprus. These conflicting documents from Suppiluliuma’s reign bring our written records of the
Hittite kingdom abruptly to an end. Suppiluliuma, the last known monarch to rule from Hattusa, was
almost certainly the king who witnessed the fall of the kingdom of Hatti.
What happened at the royal capital? The evidence of widespread
destruction by fire on the royal acropolis, in the temples of both
the Upper City and Lower City, and along stretches of the
fortifications, suggests a scenario of a single, simultaneous,
violent destruction in an all-consuming conflagration. The final
blow may have been delivered by bands of Kaskan peoples from
the Pontic zone in the north, who had plagued the kingdom from
its early days.
As we have seen, however, recent archaeological investigations
indicate that by this time the city had already been largely
abandoned. The Hittites saw the end coming!
Perhaps Suppiluliuma arranged for the departure of his family
while it was still safe, and ordered the evacuation of the most
important members of his administration, including a staff of
scribes (who carried off the tablets), and a large part of his troops
and personal bodyguards. The hoi polloi were left to fend for
The tablet, found at Hatttusa, is the
themselves. Those who stayed behind scavenged through the
Egyptian version of the treaty of
leavings of those who had departed. When Hattusa was little more Kadesh, written in Akkadian. Credit:
than a decaying ruin, outside forces moved in, plundering and Erich Lessing.
torching a largely derelict settlement.
This raises an important question. If the elite elements of Hittite society abandoned Hattusa, where did
they go? Did Suppiluliuma set up a new capital elsewhere? That is not beyond the realm of possibility,
for we know of at least two earlier occasions when king and court left Hattusa and re-established their
capital in another place (Samuha and Tarhuntassa). We know, too, that at Carchemish on the Euphrates
River, which had been made a vice-regal seat in the 14th century B.C., a branch of the Hittite royal
family survived for perhaps several centuries after the fall of Hattusa. In fact, northern Syria became
the homeland of a number of so-called neo-Hittite kingdoms in the early part of the first millennium.
Did Suppiluliuma and his entourage find a new home in Syria?
It may be that the final pages of Hittite history still exist somewhere. In the last few decades, thousands
of tablets have been found at sites throughout the Hittite world. This inspires hope that more archives
of the period have yet to be found, including the last records of the Hittite empire. If Suppiluliuma II
did in fact arrange a systematic evacuation of Hattusa, taking with him everything of importance, the
stuff had to go somewhere. Maybe it still lies beneath the soil, awaiting discovery.

The Hittite Kings

Old Kingdom
Labarna –1650
Hattusili I 1650–1620 (grandson?)
Mursili I 1620–1590 (grandson, adopted son)
Hantili I 1590–1560 (brother-in-law)
Zidanta I (son-in-law)
Ammuna 1560–1525 (son)
Huzziya I (brother of Ammuna’s daughter-in-law)
Telipinu 1525–1500 (brother-in-law)
Alluwamna (son-in-law)
Tahurwaili (interloper)
Hantili II (son of Alluwamna?)
Zidanta II 1500–1400 (son?)
Huzziya II (son?)
Muwatalli I (interloper)

New Kingdom
Tudhaliya I/II (grandson of Huzziya II?)
Arnuwanda I 1400–1360 (son-in-law, adopted son)
Hattusili II? (son?)
Tudhaliya III 1360–1350 (son?)
Suppiluliuma I 1344–1322 (son)
Arnuwanda II 1322–1321 (son)
Mursili II 1321–1295 (brother)
Muwatalli II 1295–1272 (son)
Urhi-Tesub 1272–1267 (son)
Hattusili III 1267–1237 (uncle)
Tudhaliya IV 1237–1228 (son)
Kurunta 1228–1227 (cousin)
Tudhaliya IV 1227–1209 (cousin)
Arnuwanda III 1209–1207 (son)
Suppiluliuma II 1207– (brother)

How We Know What We Know: The Hittite Archives

The Hittites were perhaps the world’s first historians. On numerous clay
tablets recovered largely over the last century by archaeologists, they wrote
down what we today recognize as history, rather than merely relating myths
or the acts of the gods.9 Much of what we know about the Hittites, therefore,
comes from the pen (or stylus) of the Hittites themselves.
Credit: Erich Lessing
The earliest excavations on the site of Hattusa were conducted by the German archaeologist Hugo
Winckler in the first decade of the 20th century. They brought to light thousands of tablets, often
fragmentary, from Hattusa’s palace and temple archives. A total of eight languages are represented in
the tablets, all inscribed in the cuneiform script developed in Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C.
Many of the tablets found at Hattusa are written in Akkadian, a Semitic language used by the
Babylonians and Assyrians. During the Late Bronze Age, Akkadian also functioned as the international
language of diplomacy; many of these tablets are thus correspondence between Hittite kings and their
vassal states in Syria or foreign kingdoms (such tablets have also been found, for example, at Tell el-
Amarna, Egypt, site of the pharaoh Akhenaten’s capital).
Most of the tablets, however, are written in a language that was unknown to Hattusa’s first excavators.
This language turned out to be Hittite, the language of the Hittites themselves (though they called it
Nesite). The Hittite language was deciphered during the First World War by a Czech scholar named
BedrŠich Hrozny´, who concluded (correctly) that it was a member of the Indo-European family of
languages and thus related to Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.
The tablets vary widely in content: historical annals, treaties and diplomatic correspondence,
collections of laws and prayers, ritual texts, lists of festivals, literary and mythological texts, and lists of
towns with ties to the Hittite empire, such as the 13th-century B.C. tablet shown. In 1986, an intact
bronze tablet—the first metal tablet from the Hittite world—was discovered near Hattusa’s Sphinx
Gate. This tablet is inscribed with the text of a treaty between the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV (1237–1209
B.C.) and his cousin Kurunta, ruler of the Hittite appanage kingdom of Tarhuntassa.
On seals and in monumental rock-cut inscriptions, the Hittites used a hieroglyphic script written in the
Luwian language. Luwian is an Indo-European language closely related to Hittite. The only writing
found so far in Late Bronze Age Troy, for example, is a bronze seal inscribed with Luwian
hieroglyphics.b
Hittite archives have also come to light in outlying parts of the Hittite empire (at Emar on the Euphrates
River in modern Syria, for instance) and at administrative centers in and near the Hittite homeland.
Archaeologists recently found over 3,000 tablets at the site of ancient Sapinuwa (modern Ortaköy),
northeast of Hattusa. Although these tablets have not yet been published, provincial archives from other
sites have taught us much about the day-to-day administration of the kingdom’s provinces and the lives
of local officials. —T.B.

Notes:
1. Jürgen Seeher, “Die Zerstörung der Stadt Hattusa” in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für
Hethitologie Würzburg, 4.-8. Oktober 1999, StBoT 45, ed. Gernot Wilhelm (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2001).
2. See Eric H. Cline, “Warriors of Hatti,” review-article on Trevor Bryce’s The Kingdom of the Hittites
(Oxford, 1999), Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2002).
3. One of the Hittite vassal kingdoms was almost certainly Troy (called “Ilios” and “Troia” by Homer
and “Wilusa” by the Hittites). See the following articles in Archaeology Odyssey: “Greeks vs. Hittites:
Why Troy is Troy and the Trojan War Is Real” (interview with Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier), July/August
2002; and “Is Homer Historical?” (interview with Gregory Nagy), May/June 2004.
4. For more on this treaty, signed with the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II (1279–1213 B.C.), see Jack
Meinhardt, “‘Look on My Works!’ The Many Faces of Ramesses the Great,” Archaeology Odyssey
September/October 2003.
5. Document from Ras Shamra, trans. M.J. Astour, “New Evidence on the Last Days of Ugarit,”
American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965), p. 255.
6. Given the fragile condition of Hittite food production at this time, any number of events could have
precipitated a crisis, such as severe drought or earthquakes (see Amos Nur and Eric H. Cline, “What
Triggered the Collapse? Earthquake Storms,” Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2001).
7. Tudhaliya IV was also responsible for the impressive sculptural decorations in the sanctuary at
Yazilikaya, about a mile northeast of Hattusa (see E.C. Krupp, “Sacred Sex in the Hittite Temple of
Yazilikaya,” Archaeology Odyssey, March/April 2000).
8. Hattusa was one of many cities in the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean—including Ugarit,
Troy, Knossos and Mycenae—that were destroyed toward the end of the second millennium B.C. See
the following articles in Archaeology Odyssey, September/October 2001: William H. Stiebing, Jr.,
“When Civilization Collapsed: Death of the Bronze Age”; and Amos Nur and Eric H. Cline, “What
Triggered the Collapse? Earthquake Storms.”
9. See Richard H. Beal, “History’s History: Learning to Distinguish Fact from Fancy,” Origins,
Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2003.