The Hittites of Anatolia and Syria

How The Hittite People Became A Part Of Ancient History

Feb 15, 2009

The belief that the Hittites were an obscure tribe has evolved into an understanding that these chariot warriors were actually the chief rivals of Egypt's 18th Dynasty.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the Hittites were known to history only by the 48 separate references made to them in the Bible. At the time, scholars believed that the Hittites were a Canaanite tribe that had lived to the north of Israel.

Modern scholars have learned that, in fact, the Hittite tribes that the Bible mentions are only the last remnants of a once great Empire that spanned the Near East, dominating Anatolia and Syria as one of the Great Kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age. The re-emergence in history of the Hittite kingdom is owed to an accidental discovery of an ancient city by one man, and to another man’s obsession with revealing its secrets.

Hattusa

In 1834, a French explorer, Charles-Felix-Marie Texier, embarked on an expedition into the mountains of Central Anatolia on a quest to find the Roman-era city of Tavium. After talking to peasants from the village of Boghazköy, he set out to search in the nearby mountains. The explorer thought he had found the lost city he was searching for when he located a sizable ruin of large stone blocks. However, Texier was eventually forced to admit that these ruins in no way conformed to any known Roman era design, and that he was unable to explain their origins.

Unknown to Texier, he had discovered the remains of the Hittite capital, Hattusa. Although at first Texier’s scholarly counterparts were not interested in the Anatolian ruins, his work did lead other, more professionally trained archaeologists to the scene. Over the course of several decades, evidence emerged that indicated to researchers that a new civilization was being uncovered.

Hittitology

In 1877, an Irish missionary named William Wright wrote an article in the British press detailing his observations among the ancient ruins. However, his writing went largely unnoticed. It wasn’t until several years later, following the publication of Archibald H. Sayce’s article, “The Hittites in Asia Minor”, and his subsequent lectures on the Hittite people, that the new discipline, Hittitology, was created.

Sayce’s original conclusion, that the city Texier found was associated with the Hittites, was based largely on his reading of the Biblical evidence. The discovery of a new civilization in Anatolia appeared to Sayce as one of the missing pieces in the Hittite puzzle.

To modern scholars, the evidence is now clear that the Iron Age Hittites of Syria and Canaan were only the southernmost representatives of a larger kingdom once based in Anatolia. But in the late 1800’s, when Wright and Sayce first proposed the idea, they were ridiculed.

The Hittite Inscriptions

We now understand so much of the history of the Hittites due, in large part, to the translation of their vast record of inscriptions, found on the walls of the ruins of their ancient capital. After Sayce’s original theories were proposed, he was able to back up his work by attempting to translate all of the available Hittite material found in Hattusas.

In 1884, William Wright published a book, The Empire of the Hittites, replete with decipherments by Sayce. Still, while Hittitology was beginning to gain acceptance with established scholarship, there was much more to be uncovered.

The Amarna Letters

After returning to his work as an Egyptologist, Sayce experienced one of history’s great strokes of fortune. He became aware that dozens of ancient clay tablets were being sold on Cairo’s black market. Sayce acted quickly, using his influence to get museums and collectors to buy the tablets so that they could be studied properly.

These documents turned out to be from the trove of diplomatic records that have come to be known as the Amarna Letters. Their translation has shown that during the reign of Akhenaten, the Hittites had become a great Empire, based in Anatolia, with borders that stretched from the Euphrates River to the Aegean Sea.

Sayce and Wright’s theory that the Hittite’s controlled a vast Empire has been proven correct. Today Hittitology is a major scholarly discipline, and the study of the ancient Hittite Empire compliments the study of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty.

Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites ( Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005 )

Sayce, Archibald H. The Hittites; Story of a Forgotten Empire ( London, Religious Tract Society, 1903 )

The copyright of the article The Hittites of Anatolia and Syria in Near Eastern History is owned by Robert McRoberts. Permission to republish The Hittites of Anatolia and Syria in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.