Hittites

The Hittites formed a centralized kingdom in central Anatolia during the seventeenth century BCE. Their heartland lay around Hattusha, near modern Boğazkale in Türkiye, where earlier communities had included speakers of Hattic and other Anatolian languages.¹ The name “Hittite” comes from Egyptian and biblical references to a people called Hatti; the Hittites themselves used Hatti for their country, even though Hattic and Hittite were different languages.

Early rulers consolidated territory through warfare, dynastic marriage, treaties, and administrative settlements. King Hattusili I expanded the kingdom beyond central Anatolia, while Mursili I carried Hittite power into northern Syria and famously raided Babylon around 1595 BCE.¹ The state’s fortunes fluctuated, but a later imperial revival under Suppiluliuma I made Hatti the dominant power in Anatolia and a major force in the Levant.

The Hittite Empire was a coalition of directly governed lands, vassal kingdoms, and treaty partners rather than a uniformly administered territory. Suppiluliuma I conquered or subordinated much of northern Syria, bringing Hatti into sustained rivalry with Egypt and creating a diplomatic network that connected Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the eastern Mediterranean.¹

Hittite diplomacy was recorded in detailed treaties that specified oaths, tribute, military assistance, extradition, and the punishment of disloyalty. The best-known example is the peace treaty between Hattusili III and Ramesses II, concluded after the Battle of Kadesh and preserved in both Egyptian and Hittite versions.³ The king ruled with support from an aristocratic elite and a council known as the panku in earlier constitutional traditions, while royal women—including queens such as Puduhepa—could exercise substantial diplomatic and religious authority.

Hittite society is known especially through its multilingual cuneiform archives, which preserve royal annals, treaties, rituals, myths, legal texts, and administrative records. Hittite is the earliest securely attested Indo-European language, although scribes also wrote in Akkadian, Luwian, Palaic, Hattic, and Hurrian for different contexts.

Religion was pluralistic and incorporated traditions from the communities ruled by the empire. The principal state deity was the Storm-god of Hatti, accompanied by the Sun-goddess of Arinna; imported gods and local cults were commonly integrated rather than suppressed. Ritual specialists performed ceremonies intended to remove impurity, restore divine favor, or protect the king. Hittite art included carved orthostats, seals, metalwork, and monumental reliefs, while sanctuaries such as Yazılıkaya displayed processions of deities beside Hattusha.²³

The imperial Hittite state collapsed around the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the twelfth century BCE, but Hittite traditions did not simply disappear. Hattusha was abandoned, while successor states in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia—often called Neo-Hittite or Syro-Hittite states—continued related political, artistic, and religious traditions into the early first millennium BCE.¹

Several details complicate the familiar picture. Hittite law was not merely a code of harsh punishments: many provisions specify compensation, household regulation, property, injury, and agricultural offenses. The archives also preserve practical texts, including inventories, oath formulas, medical and ritual instructions, and records of grain and livestock. Hattusha’s remains include not only palaces and temples but also large fortifications, monumental gateways, and an extensive tablet archive. Modern knowledge of the Hittites therefore comes from a combination of archaeology, comparative linguistics, and the slow decipherment of administrative and literary traditions rather than from a single continuous national history.²

Hattusha

The imperial capital of the Hittites in central Anatolia, located near modern Boğazkale in Türkiye.

Hattic

A non-Indo-European language formerly spoken in central Anatolia and preserved mainly in Hittite religious texts.

Luwian

An Anatolian Indo-European language related to Hittite and used widely in southern and western Anatolia.

Neo-Hittite states

Iron Age kingdoms in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia that continued elements of Hittite political and artistic traditions.