and Ancient
Anatolia -BY
SHASHANK
KULKARNI ,1ST YEAR ,SEM
-2 ,DEPT. OF
ARCHITECTURE ,
MIT ,A’BAD
The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian (modern-day Turkey)
people who formed an empire between 1600-1180 BCE.
The Hittites manufactured advanced iron goods, ruled over their
kingdom through government officials with independent authority
over various branches of government, and worshipped storm gods.
The Hittites’ ongoing conflicts with Egypt produced the world’s
first known peace treaty.
The Hittites were an ancient group of Indo-
Europeans who moved into Asian Minor and
formed an empire at Hattusa in Anatolia
(modern Turkey) around 1600 BCE.
The Hittite Empire reached great heights
during the mid-1300s BCE, when it spread
across Asia Minor, into the northern Levant
and Upper Mesopotamia.
Like many Indo-Europeans, the Hittites were
able to travel long distances and migrate to
other lands due to the domestication of
horses.
The spread of technologies like the wheel and wagon,
which were also used in ancient Mesopotamia and other
early civilizations in the region, also assisted pastoralists
and agrarian civilizations.
After about 1180 BCE, the empire ended and splintered
into several independent Neo-Hittite—new Hittite—city-
states, some of which survived until the eighth century
BCE.
Culture
The Hittite language was a member of Indo-
European, a family of related languages that
today are widely spoken in the Americas,
Europe, and Western and Southern Asia.
Hittites are so named because of their initial
identification with the Biblical Hittites,
according to nineteenth-century archaeology.
The Hittites are usually referred to as a people
living among the Israelites.
The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly
from cuneiform texts found in the area of their former
kingdom and from diplomatic and commercial mail
found in archives in Egypt and the Middle East.
The cuneiform writing suggests that the Hittites had
some connection with Mesopotamian empires, either
through direct communication or through the Hittites’
conquest of another central-Anatolian group, the Hatti,
who had connections to the Sumerians—a
Mesopotamian empire.
Although their civilization thrived during
the Bronze Age, starting around 3000 BCE,
the Hittites were pioneers of the Iron Age
and began manufacturing iron artifacts
around 1400 BCE. This is significant
because the Hittites’ use of iron and steel
created tools and weapons that were more
efficient than those made of bronze.
Government
The head of the Hittite state was the king, followed by
the heir-apparent—one of the king’s offspring born into
the position of succeeding him. Some officials, however,
exercised independent authority over various branches
of the government, so the king did not control all
aspects of the kingdom. For example, the Chief of the
Royal Bodyguards, the Chief of the Scribes—who was
in charge of bureaucracy—and even the Chief of the
Wine Stewards!
.
The actual day-to-day life and culture of the Hittites is
mysterious because the written documents from this
culture deal mainly with the kings and their campaigns.
It is known that the Hittites wrote using Akkadian script
but in their own Indo-European language and used
cylinder seals to sign documents and mark property as
people did throughout Mesopotamia, suggesting a link
between the two cultures
Religion
Storm gods were prominent in the Hittite
pantheon—the set of all the gods in a
polytheistic religion. Tarhunt was referred
to as The Conqueror, The King of
Kummiya, King of Heaven, and Lord of the
land of Hatti. He was the god of battle and
victory, especially against foreign powers.
This might indicate that the Hittites placed
value on military might.
Hittite Architecture
The principal architectural remnant of the
Hittite civilization is at Boğazköy, where temple
structures and the city walls may be seen. The
Hittites developed the bit-hilani, a porticoed
entrance hall built with a stairway approach
flanked by pillars. Another characteristic form
was the double gateway with corbeled arch,
decorated with friezes and protected on either
side by a threatening beast figure. Among the
These gate figures were later to be copied and
used in the churches of Western Europe. In
building interiors wall painting was evidently
practiced with considerable sophistication, but
only a few fragments of this work remain,
principally at Boğazköy and Atchana in N
Syria.
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