For the people of the Hebrew Bible, see Biblical Hittites.
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia. They established a kingdom centred at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c. the 14th century BC, encompassing a large part of Anatolia, north-western Syriaabout as far south as the mouth of the Litani River (in present-day Lebanon), and eastward into upper Mesopotamia. The Hittite military made successful use of chariots.
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By the mid-14th century BC (under king Suppiluliuma I) carving out
an empire that included most of Asia Minoras well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. After c. 1180 BC, the empire disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" citystates, some surviving until the 8th century BC. Their Hittite language was a member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family.
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Natively, they referred to their land asHatti, and to their language as Nesili (the
language of Nesa). The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with theBiblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite the use of "Hatti", the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and spoke a non-Indo-European language called Hattic. Although belonging to the Bronze Age, the Hittites were forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron artifacts from as early as the 14th century BC, when letters to foreign rulers reveal the latter's demand for iron goods.
Main article: History of the Hittites The Hittite kingdom is conventionally divided into three periods, the Old Hittite Kingdom (ca. 17501500 BC), the Middle Hittite Kingdom (ca. 15001430 BC) and the New Hittite Kingdom (the Hittite Empire proper, ca. 14301180 BC). The earliest known member of a Hittite speaking dynasty, Pithana, was based at the city of Kussara. In the 18th century BC Anitta, his son and successor, made the Hittite speaking city of Nea into one of his capitals and adopted the Hittite language for his inscriptions there. However, Kussara remained the dynastic capital for about a century until Labarna II adopted Hattusa as the dynastic seat, probably taking the throne name of Hattusili, "man of Hattusa", at that time. The Old Kingdom, centred at Hattusa, peaked during the 16th century BC. The kingdom even managed to sack Babylon at one point, but made no attempt to govern there, enabling the Kassite to rise to prominence and rule for over 400 years. During the 15th century BC, Hittite power fell into obscurity, re-emerging with the reign of Tudhaliya Ifrom ca. 1400 BC. Under Suppiluliuma I and Mursili II, the Empire was extended to most of Anatoliaand parts of Syria and Canaan, so that by 1300 BC the Hittites were bordering on the Egyptian sphere of influence, leading to the inconclusive Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC. Civil war and rivalling claims to the throne, combined with the external threat of the Sea Peoplesweakened the Hittites and by 1160 BC, the Empire had collapsed. "Neo-Hittite" post-Empire states, petty kingdoms under Assyrian rule, may have lingered on until ca. 700 BC, and the Bronze Age Hittite and Luwian dialects evolved into the sparsely attested Lydian, Lycian and Carian languages. Remnants of these languages lingered into Persian times (6th4th centuries BC) and were finally extinguished by the spread of Hellenismwhich followed Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor in the 4th century BC.
