The Northern Empire – The Hittites
Hattians before Hittites. The autochthonous Anatolians (6th -3rd millennia BCE)- The first “settling in” around Bo?azköy took place in the 6th millennium BCE during the Chalcolithic period, when small widely scattered hamlets appeared most particularly on mountain slopes and rocky outcroppings. Such a small settlement on the heights of the Büyükkaya ridge represents the earliest known inhabitancy within the . Hattuša city limits. A contemporary settlement has also been found near Yar?kkaya, some two kilometers NE of Hattuša.
In the following millennia settlement in this wooded landscape of northern Anatolia increased very slowly. It was first in the 3rd millennium BCE-during the Early Bronze Age-that coherent zones of habitation, settlements that actively traded with one another, developed and founded the basis for advancement in society. Small settlements grew into political and religious centers, wielding their influence over larger and larger dominions. The discovery and development of the mineral sources in northern Anatolia is believed to have been one of the stimulating factors. One thriving center was located at Alaca Höyük, only 25 km from Hattuša/Bo?azköy. The astoundingly rich chamber tombs (known as the Royal Graves) discovered at Alaca Höyük yielded elegantly fashioned weapons, jewelry, and sculpture, as well as implements and vessels of gold, silver, electron, bronze-and even iron-from a period as early as 2400-2200 BCE. The inhabitants of the site were Hatti, the natives of north and Central Anatolia and the predecessors of the Hittites in this region.
The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in Asia Minor/Anatolia/Turkey in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE. They spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic (now believed by some to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group). They eventually merged with or were replaced by the Hittites, who spoke the Indo-European Hittite language. The Hattians may have been connected, in language and proximity, to the Khaldi/Kardu.
The use of the word “Proto-Hittite” instead of Hattians is inaccurate. This would imply that the Hittites evolved from the Hattians, which is completely false. The Hittites were an Indo-European people, ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Hattians. However, the term “Land of the Hatti” was so ingrained that the Hittites continued to use it when referring to their own country.
The Hattians were organized in city-states and small kingdoms. These cities were organized and ruled as theocratic principalities. Even as they were taken over one by one by the conquering Hittites after 2200 BCE, the Hattians continued to form the major portion of the population.
The influence of their culture was such that the Hittites took over much of their religion and mythology. The principal deities of the Hittites were adopted from the Hattian religion (the Sun Goddess, her husband the Storm God and their children Nerik and Zippalanda, their daughter Nezullash and their grandchild Zentish; and as well Telipinu, his wife Hatepinush, the goddesses Inaras and Zithariyas, Karzish and Hapantalliyash). The Hattian civilization also give rise to the Hittite legend of Illuyankas and Telepinu.
The Hattians and the Hittites even looked different. Egyptian depictions of the Battle of Kadesh show long-nosed soldiers, while their leaders look different. A gold and silver statuette of a long-nosed Hattian woman can be seen in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey. It was found in Hasano?lan and it dates from the end of the third millennium BCE.
Soon there was a Hattian settlement at Bo?azköy as well, and this habitation, founded towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, marked the beginning of continuous occupation at the site. Remnants of the Hattian settlement have been located under the fill of the Hittite Lower City. During this period there was also occupation on the high ridges of Büyükkaya and Büyükkale, with evidence even of fortification walls.
During the Middle Bronze Age the Hattian occupation grew into a city of such significance that a Kârum (Kârum Kaneš) was established here in the 19th and 18th centuries BCE – a trading post of Assyrian merchants who had come from Assur (in the middle Tigris valley, now a part of northern Iraq) to procure natural resources such as copper, silver, gold and precious stones. Long caravans of donkeys transported these materials to Mesopotamia, where they loaded Mesopotamian goods for exchange-including tin, garments and fabric-and set out on the return journey. Along their route the Assyrian merchants also dealt in local Anatolian products; the whole of eastern Anatolia was enmeshed in the net of their routes, knotted together by their trade colonies. In Central Anatolia they established such colonies at several centers of Hattian rule. The Assyrian traders and their families lived in separate residential quarters; they enjoyed the protection of their Hattian lords and paid taxes in return. The center of their network was located in Kaneš/Neša (at the site of Kültepe near Kayseri). It was these Assyrian traders who first introduced writing to Anatolia, for business could hardly be transacted without documentation. Purchases and sales, orders, credits, and exchanges were all recorded in Akkadian cuneiform writing on clay tablets. On these tablets the name of the city was written as well; Bo?azköy was still-or already, we had better say-Hattush.
During this era, known as the Kârum period, fortifications were laid out on Büyükkale. It would seem that the rulers of Hattush resided there; the rest of the Hattian settlement stretched from the slope below Büyükkale to the area where the Great Temple of the Hittites was later erected. The Kârum of the Assyrian traders lay just to the north. Both the settlement and the Kârum must also have been fortified against enemy attacks.
During these first centuries of the 2nd millennium BCE there appears to have been frequent strife in Central Anatolia between the local Hattian rulers and the immigrant Hittite groups who were anxious to consolidate their power. The ruins excavated demonstrate that the city of Hattush was burned down in a great conflagration around 1700 BCE. The destruction of the city was even inscribed in cuneiform; a King Anitta of Kushar reports that he has defeated King Piyushti of Hattush and destroyed his city. “At night I took the city by force; I have sown weeds in its place. Should any king after me attempt to resettle Hattush,” he wrote, “may the Weathergod of Heaven strike him down.” Anitta chose the city of Kanesh/Nesha, some 160 km to the southeast and already quite influential as the center of the Assyrian trade colonies, as his capital.
We do not know how long Anitta’s curse on the city of Hattuš (Hittite – Hattuša; Turkish – Bo?azköy) was respected, but the advantages of the site and the many springs there were certainly enough to have attracted settlers relatively soon. By the second half of the 17th century BCE the temptation had obviously become overwhelming, for a Hittite king had indeed chosen the site as his residence and capital. The Hattian Hattuš was now the Hittite Hattuša.
Hittites Origins. Indo European intrusions into Iran and Asia Minor /Anatolia began about 3000 BCE. The Indo-European tribes spread from their homelands in the great central Eurasian Plains into the Danube River valley possibly as early as 4500 BCE, where they may have been the destroyers of the Vinca Culture. Iranian tribes entered the plateau which now bears their name in the middle of the third Millenium BCE (3000-2000 BCE), and reached the Zagros Mountains which border Mesopotamia to the east by about 2250 BCE. The Guti may have been Indo-European.
The Hittites and related tribes began entering Anatolia [modern Turkey] from both the northwest (the European Balkans) and the northeast (Russian Georgia) after 3000 BCE. They conquered and partially absorbed the former residents (the Hatti), from whom the Hittites drew their name]. Small kingdoms were formed and there was some trade with Old Assyria. At some time after 2000 BCE the separate Hittite kingdoms confederated under the leadership of a king called King, Great King, King Of Kings.
This title was common in the ancient world and is frequently translated as Emperor. Like many other early Indo-European Kingships, the top position was not passed by way of primogeniture; the successor could be any male member of the ruling family. As a result, civil wars frequently determined the succession; and the “Empire” of the Hittites could not maintain a consistent strength because of quarrels over succession. The same is true of related peoples like the Hurrians and the Mitanni. In 1600 BCE the Hittite Empire was very powerful, but after the successful raid on Babylon in 1590BCE, the Hittites entered a period of weakness. Consequently, their allies in the raid took over and created the Kassite Kingdom of Babylonia, which endured almost four hundred years in spite of comparative economic and military weakness and a lack of social or technological innovation.
Hittite Revival. After a period of decline, the Hittite nation made a resurgence under Suppliluliumas I (about ca.1344?-1320 BCE), who conquered the kingdom of Mitanni and made inroads in northern Syria. His son Mursilis II (ca. 1317-1293 BCE) further consolidated the Hittite position as masters of Anatolia [1] . Clearly, the Hittites were in a position to challenge Egyptian authority in Syria-Palestine.
The Hittite capital was at Hattuša, located in the north central Anatolian plateau. This fabulous city was destroyed in the chaos that ended the Late Bronze Age about 1200 BCE [2] . Excavation at the site produced, among other things, a large cache of cuneiform tablets, mostly in the Hittite language, which proved to be the royal archives of the later Hittite kings. These have aided immeasurably in the reconstruction of the history of the Hittites and their relations with other nations.
Possible Legacy to the Hebrews -Treaties and Covenants. Of special interest are a number of treaty documents outlining the relationship between the Hittite king, as overlord (or suzerain), and the subject nation (vassals). The form of these treaties consistently contains certain elements which can be found in the biblical texts outlining the Mosaic Covenant[3] . It seems clear that, with some inevitable detail differences (“functional shift”), the covenant between God and Israel reflects normal treaty/covenant forms of the Late Bronze and not those of other periods [4]. Though the details of comparison vary by interpreter, the following presents a general idea of the parallels.
The Hittites were quite removed from the physical situation of the Hebrews and might seem an unlikely source of parallels to the biblical tradition of the Exodus. But it should be noted that we have Hittite treaties due to the accidents of discovery and that others from the period might well be equal good parallels. It is also possible that Hebrews in Egypt could have come into contact with Hittite ideas, including treaties, through Egyptian dealings with that nation.
Notes:
[1] Macqueen, Hittites, 46-48.
[2] Kurt Bittel, Hattusha: The Capital of the Hittites (New York: Oxford, 1970).
[3] George E. Mendenhall, “Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law,” BA 17 (May 1954): 26-46; idem, “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” BA 17 (Sept. 1954): 59-76; both reprinted in E. F. Cambell, Jr. and David Noel Freedman, [4] The Biblical Archaeologist Reader 3 (New York: Anchor, 1970), 3-53.
Kenneth A. Kitchen, “New Directions in Biblical Archaeology: Historical and Biblical Aspects,” in BAT 1990, 43-44.