Hittites

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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).[1][2]

Variants

History

Origins: The ancestors of the Hittites came into Anatolia between 4400 and 4100 BC, when the Anatolian language family split from (Proto)-Indo-European,[3] as new genetic and archaeological research confirm that Proto-Anatolian speakers arrived to this region sometime between 5000 and 3000 BC.[4] Later on, Proto-Hittite language was formed around 2100 BC,[5] and Hittite language is known to have taken place in Central Anatolia between 20th and 12th centuries BC.[6]

The Hittites are first associated with the kingdom of Kussara sometime prior to 1750 BC.[7]

Hittites in Anatolia during the Bronze Age coexisted with Hattians and Hurrians, either by means of conquest or by gradual assimilation.[8][9] In archaeological terms, relationships of the Hittites to the Ezero culture of the Balkans and Maykop culture of the Caucasus had previously been considered within the migration framework.[10]

Although now it's firmly established that the movement was not through Balkans, but through Caucasus, previous analyses by David W. Anthony, concluded years ago that steppe herders, archaic Proto-Indo-European speakers, spread into the lower Danube valley about 4200–4000 BC, either causing or taking advantage of the collapse of Old Europe.[11] He thought their languages "probably included archaic Proto-Indo-European dialects of the kind partly preserved later in Anatolian,"[12] and that their descendants later moved into Anatolia at an unknown time but maybe as early as 3000 BC.[13] J. P. Mallory also thought it was likely that the Anatolians reached the Near East from the north either via the Balkans or the Caucasus in the 3rd millennium BC. [14] According to Parpola, the appearance of Indo-European speakers from Europe into Anatolia, and the appearance of Hittite, was related to later migrations of Proto-Indo-European speakers from the Yamnaya culture into the Danube Valley at c. 2800 BC, [15][16]which was in line with the "customary" assumption that the Anatolian Indo-European language was introduced into Anatolia sometime in the third millennium BC.[17] However, Petra Goedegebuure has shown that the Hittite language has borrowed many words related to agriculture from cultures on their eastern borders, which is strong evidence of having taken a route across the Caucasus.[18]

The dominant indigenous inhabitants in central Anatolia were Hurrians and Hattians who spoke non-Indo-European languages. Some have argued that Hattic was a Northwest Caucasian language, but its affiliation remains uncertain, whilst the Hurrian language was a near-isolate (i.e. it was one of only two or three languages in the Hurro-Urartian family). There were also Assyrian colonies in the region during the Old Assyrian Empire (2025–1750 BC); it was from the Assyrian speakers of Upper Mesopotamia that the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script. It took some time before the Hittites established themselves following the collapse of the Old Assyrian Empire in the mid-18th century BC, as is clear from some of the texts included here. For several centuries there were separate Hittite groups, usually centered on various cities. But then strong rulers with their center in Hattusa (modern Boğazkale) succeeded in bringing these together and conquering large parts of central Anatolia to establish the Hittite kingdom.[19]


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. After c.  1180 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 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 iron-working at the time. But the view of such a "Hittite monopoly" has come under scrutiny and no longer has scholarly consensus-support.[20]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.[21]Hittites did not use smelted iron, but rather meteorites.[22]

The Hittite military made successful use of chariots.[23]

In classical times, ethnic Hittite dynasties survived in small kingdoms scattered around the areas of present-day Syria, Lebanon and the Levant. Lacking a unifying continuity, their descendants scattered and ultimately merged into the modern populations of the Levant, Turkey and Mesopotamia.[24]

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 Civilizations in Ankara, which is 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of the Hittite capital of Hattusa and houses the most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite art and artifacts in the world.

Hittite language

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,[25] 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.[26] The modern conventional name "Hittites" is due to the initial identification of the people of Hattusa with the Biblical Hittites by 19th-century archaeologists.

References

  1. Kloekhorst, Alwin; Waal, Willemijn (2019). "A Hittite Scribal Tradition Predating the Tablet Collections of Ḫattuša?". Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie. 109 (2): 189–203. doi:10.1515/za-2019-0014. hdl:1887/3199128. S2CID 208141226.
  2. Kloekhorst, Alwin (2020). "The Authorship of the Old Hittite Palace Chronicle (CTH 8): A Case for Anitta". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 72: 143–155. doi:10.1086/709313. S2CID 224830641.
  3. Kloekhorst, Alwin, (2022). "Anatolian", in: Thomas Olander (ed.), The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective, Cambridge University Press, p. 78: "
  4. Lazaridis, Iosif, et al., (2022). "The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe", in: Science, 26 Aug 2022, Vol 377, Issue 6609, [Reseach Article Summary, p. 1]: "Around 7000-5000 years ago, people with ancestry from the Caucasus [...] moved west into Anatolia [...] Some of these migrants may have spoken ancestral forms of Anatolian [...]"
  5. Kloekhorst, Alwin, (2022). "Anatolian", in: Thomas Olander (ed.), The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective, Cambridge University Press, p. 75: "...a Proto-Hittite ancestor language that may have been spoken only a few generations before the oldest attestations of Kanišite Hittite (twentieth century BCE), i.e. around 2100 BCE..."
  6. Kroonen, Guus, et al., (2018). "Linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al. 2018: Early Indo-European languages, Anatolian, Tocharian and Indo-Iranian", in Zenodo 2018, p. 3: "...The Anatolian branch is an extinct subclade of the Indo-European language family attested from the 25th century BCE onwards (see below) that consists of Hittite (known 20th–12th centuries BCE), Luwian (known 20th–7th centuries BCE), and a number of less well-attested members, such as Carian, Lycian, Lydian, and Palai..."
  7. Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Ancient Near East, Volume I. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 226–27. ISBN 978-0-415-16763-5.
  8. Puhvel, J. (1994). "Anatolian: Autochton or Interloper". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 22 (3 & 4): 251–264..
  9. Steiner, G. (1990). "The Immigration of the First Indo-Europeans into Anatolia Reconsidered". Journal of Indo-European Studies. 18 (1 & 2): 185–214..
  10. Mallory, J. P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-05052-1.
  11. [Anthony, David W. (2007), The Horse, the Wheel and Language. How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Princeton University Press, p.133]
  12. Anthony 2007, p. 229.
  13. Anthony 2007, p. 262.
  14. Mallory, J.P.; Adams, D.Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5. Retrieved 24 March 2012. pp. 12–16.
  15. Parpola, Asko (2015), The Roots of Hinduism. The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization, Oxford University Press, pp. 37–38.
  16. Anthony 2007, pp. 345, 361–367.
  17. "Anatolian languages". Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
  18. Petra Goedegebuure | Anatolians on the Move: From Kurgans to Kanesh (Marija Gimbutas Memorial Lecture), Oriental Institute, University of Chicago,
  19. Lehmann, Winfred P.; Slocum, Jonathan. "Hittite Online". Linguistics Research Center. University of Texas at Austin: College of Liberal Arts.
  20. Muhly, James D. 'Metalworking/Mining in the Levant' in Near Eastern Archaeology ed. Suzanne Richard (2003), pp. 174–183
  21. Waldbaum, Jane C. From Bronze to Iron. Gothenburg: Paul Astöms Förlag (1978): 56–58.
  22. 'Irons of the Bronze Age' (2017), Albert Jambon.
  23. "Hittites". British Museum. London: Trustees of th
  24. Ancient History Encyclopedia. "Sea Peoples." September 2009. Sea Peoples
  25. "2006-05-02 Hittite". 7 July 2004.
  26. Ardzinba, Vladislav. (1974): Some Notes on the Typological Affinity Between Hattian and Northwest Caucasian (Abkhazo-Adygian) Languages. In: "Internationale Tagung der Keilschriftforscher der sozialistischen Länder", Budapest, 23–25. April 1974. Zusammenfassung der Vorträge (Assyriologica 1), pp. 10–15.