During the second millennium B.C. a group of people known as the Hittites, who spoke an Indo-European language, ruled over the 'Land of Hatti', in central and eastern Anatolia, that peninsula which is modern Turkey. They had displaced the previous occupants, the Hattians (who spoke a non-Indo-European language), and ruled from the city of Hattusas near the modern Boghazkoy in northern central Turkey, possibly as early as 1900 B.C. Much of the Cappadocian plateau was under their control through satellite kingdoms before 1800 B.C. and they enjoyed a thriving trade with the Assyrians. Around 1800 B.C. Anittas and his father Pitkhanas of Kussara sacked several Hittite cities, including Hattusas, though Anittas laid a curse upon that city and trade broke off until the founding of the Old Kingdom under King Labarnas around 1680 B.C. He and his descendents greatly expanded the region of Hittite control, crossing the Taurus mountains and waging war on Syria and Assyria. King Mursilis (~1620-1590 B.C.), Labarnas' grandson by adoption, brought down the Old Kingdom of Babylon - Hamurabi's dynasty. This expanded realm, also stretching to Anatolia's west coast, proved to susceptible to internal power struggles. In 1525 B.C., Telepinus, last king of the Old Kingdom seized control and sacrificed some of the Western districts and all of the territory east of the Taurus mountains in favor of a more easily managed kingdom.
The Hurrians occupied the land between the Hittites and Assyria, having descended from the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. They ruled the kingdom of Mitanni. In the late 15th century B.C. the Hittite empire's beginning is marked by an influx of Hurrian names into the royal family. Tudhalyas I (1420 B.C.) reunited Western Anatolia under Hittite rule, and retook Allepo but lost the Black Sea coast to the Kaska tribes. After some difficulty with the Mittani the Hittites resurged under King Suppilulimas around 1344-1322 taking a firmer hold on Syria. With Egypt, they dominated the lands of Canaan and the Levant during the 1200's. Their prosperity came to a sudden end when the invasion of the Sea Peoples coincided with increasing trouble from the Kaskas. While Hittite culture continued through about 700 B.C., the Empire was shattered into several kingdoms and pressures such as the growing Assyrian Empire helped keep it from uniting again.
The Hittites were a patriarchal, highly agricultural society. They had rich iron deposits which they mined and traded with the Assyrians. They also used it for weaponry and were rather successful in the use of a three-man chariot. Through trade and conquest the languages and cultures of their neighbors seeped into Hittite society. Babylonian and Hurrian deities were worshiped along-side or assimilated with the native Hittite deities. This merging of cultures and free use of foreign languages is rather fortuitous. Parallel Hittite and Akkadian treaties and similar texts helped in cracking the Hittite hieroglyphic code. Unfortunately, while the ability to translate Hittite hieroglyphics has improved, the pronunciation of several Hittite ideograms, and hence their transcription into English, remains elusive. Often, as in the case with the Storm-god, we must resort to a descriptive name, or else use the appropriate Hurrian or Akkadian name.
