The Rise and Fall of the Hittites in Ancient Anatolia

Did you know that the Hittite Empire was among the most powerful of the ancient world? Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and today's video is all about the ancient culture known as the Hittites. We're going to look at the two periods of Hittite control in the Anatolian and Levant regions, their expansion, their decline, and what they have left behind. Don't forget the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up, subscribing to our channel and hitting that bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on any new uploads. If you haven't already heard, World History Encyclopedia has teamed up with Andante Travels to bring you the Treasures of Ancient Greece guided tour. Join our expert tour guide Dr. Rita Roussos as she takes you on a journey through classical Athens, to Delphi, across the Gulf of Corinth, and into the Peloponnesian Hills, where the hero Hercules began his 12 labors and King Agamemnon set out to rescue Helen and capture Troy. Make sure to visit worldhistory.travel or hit the link in the description below to learn all about this amazing trip and we hope to see you there. The Hittites were an Indo-European culture that occupied the region of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, and today is the region of Turkey. Before the Hittite culture, which emerged in the region in around 1700 BCE, the Hatti civilization were the indigenous peoples of Anatolia, which the Hittite culture developed from. The Hittites expanded their territories and ended up consolidating the Hittite Empire, which both rivaled and threatened the nation of Egypt. The Hittites are mentioned repeatedly in the Hebrew Tanakh, which is also known as the Christian Old Testament, as the adversaries of the Israelites and their god. In the Bible and in the Amarna letters, which are correspondence found at the Egyptian city of Amarna or Akhataten, the Hittites were referenced as the kingdom of Keter, which has been identified in the modern day as the kingdom of Hatti, but their own documents identify themselves as the Nasili. The Hittites were in control of the Anatolian region in two periods, which have been divided by modern scholars as the Old Kingdom between 1700 and 1500 BCE and the New Kingdom, which is also known as the Hittite Empire, between 1400 and 1200 BCE. The 100-year gap between the two periods is due to our lack of evidence and sources from the period, which some consider a dark age and some call the Middle Kingdom, but there was no discontinuity between the Old and the New Kingdoms of the Hittites. Between circa 1344 and 1322 BCE, during the reign of King Supiluliuma I, the Hittites reached their peak, but after the death of his son Mersili II in 1295 BCE, the Hittites began to decline and they finally fell to the Assyrians after being repeatedly attacked by the Sea Peoples and the Kaska tribe. Up until the excavations of Burgaski in Turkey in the late 19th century, which just so happened to be the site of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite Empire, the Hittites were only known from the Bible and fragments from ancient Egyptian documents. The site of Hattusa was originally founded by the Hatti in 2500 BCE and the complex grew into a huge fortress city with citadels and temples. But this vast city and its culture remained unknown until William Wright discovered their writings in 1884 and the archaeologist Hugo Winkler in 1906 began excavating. By 1912, Winkler had recovered 10,000 clay tablets which were housed in the royal archives of the Hittites. Their tablets, which were deciphered pretty quickly, tell us of the Hittites' history and their transactions. The Hittites were founded by Hattusili I, a name which means one from Hattusa, who changed his name from Kusara, which means man from Kusara. Hattusili I had to rebuild the city of Hattusa, which had existed as the powerful city of the Hatti since 2500 BCE because the Hittite king Anita from the neighboring kingdom of Kusara in 1700 BCE burned the city, cursed it and, for good measure, cursed anyone who might attempt to rebuild it. The ancient document, the Edict of Telepinu from the 16th century BCE, tells how Hattusili I was a king and a warrior who went on campaign and controlled enemy lands with force and he ended up conquering a vast region. However, after he established his unified kingdom, his sons seemed to have rebelled against him with the resources of the regions they had been placed in charge of. Upon his death, Hattusili chose his grandson, Mersili, to succeed him. According to the Edict of Telepinu, Mersili didn't raid to gain land like his father but to loot and add resources to territories he already had. He destroyed both the city of Aleppo and Babylon, taking their goods and deporting their people. But he was killed by his brother-in-law Hantili and Hantili's son-in-law Zidanta. Hantili reigned for 30 years without seeming to have done much at all until Zidanta killed him and his heirs and became king for 20 uneventful years until his son Amunah killed him. Amunah ruled for 20 years and proved to be just as bad as his predecessors. The kingdom which Hattusili had established fell apart under Amunah and his successor Hosea I, who only reigned for five years before being deposed by a son or son-in-law of Amunah, Telepinu. Telepinu banished Hosea and then went to work in restoring the kingdom to its former glory. But there was little to be done to salvage it at this point. Telepinu was the last of the kings of the old kingdom and after his edict, the Edict of Telepinu, the Hittites entered a dark age, which just means that we really don't know a whole lot about it. Most of the inscriptions that have survived tell us of the kings and their campaigns, so the daily life of the Hittite people is still pretty mysterious. We know that they wrote in the Akkadian script but in their own language and used cylinder seals to sign documents and mark property. This was a very common practice all throughout the region of Mesopotamia. The Hatti and Sumerians in the south of Mesopotamia were in contact through trade, so it is probable that the Mesopotamian culture influenced the Hatti which then was appropriated by the Hittites after they conquered the Hatti. However, with the lack of documents concerning the everyday people, it is hard to paint a clear picture of the relationship between the cultures and the lives of the Hittite population. The new kingdom of the Hittites, also known as the Hittite Empire, picked up at 1400 BCE and spanned 200 years. It all really begins with King Supiluliuma I, who ascended the throne in 1344 BCE. Not only did Supiluliuma consolidate the borders and the defences of the Hittite region, but he extended the walls of the city and greatly expanded the empire. He reduced the kingdom of the Mittani to a vassal state after the Egyptian king Amenhotep III withdrew his support of the Mittani king Tushrata, so Supiluliuma was free to do what he wanted in the region. He conquered the region of Syria and cities like Byblos were taken from the Egyptians. We know that Supiluliuma was in contact with the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, since their correspondence was preserved in the Amarna letters. And once Tutankhamun took the throne, he sent his general, Horemheb, to go against the Hittites and try to stop their rise in power. These were pretty unsuccessful attempts, as the Hittite army just kept getting stronger while the Egyptian army had declined. When Tutankhamun died suddenly, he left his wife with no heirs and no one to marry, so she wrote to Supiluliuma I asking for one of his sons to marry, which was highly unprecedented for a queen of Egypt. Supiluliuma sent his son Zananza to marry the queen and become pharaoh, but he never made it safely to Egypt. He was perhaps killed by the general Horemheb or the vizier Ai, because the Egyptians didn't want a foreign pharaoh. At this, Supiluliuma set all of his military might against Egypt and proceeded to conquer the rest of the Levant. Supiluliuma died from the plague that was perhaps brought to Hattusa by slaves he took during conquests in 1322 BCE and was succeeded first by his son Anuwanna II, who died from the plague as well, and was succeeded by his younger brother Mursili II. Mursili wasn't groomed to be king like his older brother was and had little experience with it all. None of the kings in the surrounding regions took him very seriously, which ended up being a huge mistake. It turned out that Mursili II actually learned a lot more from his dad than anyone knew, and he set about conquering tribes that had long been a problem for the Hittites, like the Kaska, and he not only secured the Hittite borders but expanded them. He died after a 25-year reign and was succeeded by his son Muatali II, who is best known for facing Ramesses the Great at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE, which culminated in the world's first peace treaty struck between Hattusili III, Muatali II's brother, and the Egyptians in 1258 BCE, with both kings claiming victory. Muatali was succeeded by his son Mursili III in 1272, who reigned for only five years before being succeeded by Hattusili III, who in 1237 BCE died and passed the throne to his son Tudaliya IV. During this time the Assyrians were growing in power and in 1230 BCE challenged the Hittites for the land that previously belonged to the Mittani. Tudaliya IV and his forces were defeated by the Assyrian army at the Battle of Nerea in circa 1245 BCE, and this was the beginning of the end of the Hittite Empire. The final king of the Hittite Empire was Suppiluliuma II, who was famous for the very first recorded naval battle in 1210 BCE, where the Hittite fleet were victorious over the Cypriots. This wasn't a common occurrence during Suppiluliuma II's reign though, and with Assyria's strength growing and the constant raids on Hittite land by the mysterious Sea Peoples and the Kaska tribe, the empire's stability continued to deteriorate until it completely fell apart with the attack by the Kaskas in 1190 BCE, who sacked and burned the city. It is believed that King Suppiluliuma II died during this attack. The Assyrians completely took over all that they could from the Hittite Empire and spread their culture and values across the region. Despite this, in 630 BCE the region was still known as the land of the Hatti, even though no one by that time actually remembered the Hatti or the Hittites, their kings or their achievements. What do you find the most interesting about the Hittites? Let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content, head to our website via the link below. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization and you can find us on Patreon, a brilliant site where you can support our work and receive exclusive benefits in return. 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