The Hittite occupation of Anatolia

The first suggestion of the Hittites’ presence in central Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age is the occurrence in the Kültepe tablets of Indo-European personal names in the correspondence of the Assyrian merchants and local rulers of central Anatolia (the “Land of Hatti”), whose non-Indo-European language is known as Hattian (Khattian, Hattic, or Khattic). Although it is now known that these Indo-Europeans called their language Nesite (after the city of Nesa), it is still, confusingly, called Hittite. Besides Nesite, two other Indo-European dialects were found in Anatolia: Luwian (Luvian), spoken by immigrants into southwest Anatolia late in the Early Bronze Age and later written with the pictographs commonly called Hittite hieroglyphs; and the more obscure Palaic, spoken in the northern district known in classical times as Paphlagonia.

The first knowledge of the Hittites, then, depends upon the appearance of typically Nesite names among the predominant Assyrian and Hattian names of the texts. The problem of the origin of the Hittites has been the subject of some controversy and has not yet been conclusively resolved. On linguistic grounds, some scholars were at first disposed to bring them from lands west of the Black Sea, but it subsequently was shown that this theory conflicts with much archaeological evidence. One authority argues for their arrival in Anatolia from the northeast, basing his theory on the burning or desertion during the 20th century bce of a line of settlements representing the approaches to Cappadocia from that direction. The evidence from the cities near the Kızıl (Halys) River and Cappadocia, however, does not support this picture of an invading army, destroying settlements in its path and evicting their inhabitants. The impression is rather one of peaceful penetration, leading by degrees to a monopoly of political power. From their first appearance among the indigenous Anatolians, the Hittites seem to have mingled freely, while the more flexible Nesite language gradually replaced Hattian. It has even been argued that Anatolia was the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans and that they gradually spread east and west after about 7000 bce, carrying with them not only their language but also the invention of agriculture. There are, however, good grounds for rejecting this theory.

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Only a few of the tablets of the Hittite archives found at Boğazköy can be dated earlier than the 17th century bce; nevertheless, certain historical texts of this period have survived in the form of more or less reliable copies made in the 14th or 13th centuries. One of these concerns two semilegendary kings of Kussara (Kushshar) named Pitkhanas and Anittas. The city called Kussara has yet to be identified, but the text gives an impressive list of cities that Pitkhanas had conquered, and among them appears the name of Nesa, which his son, Anittas, subsequently adopted as his capital. Also included in the list is Hattusas (Khattusas), known to be the ancient name of the later Hittite capital at Boğazköy, which Anittas was said to have destroyed. The fact that no direct connection could be inferred between these two kings and the subsequent history of the Hittites has been explained by later archaeological discoveries, which demonstrated that Pitkhanas and Anittas were in fact native Anatolian (Hattian) rulers of the 18th century bce. Indeed, a dagger bearing the name Anittas has been found at Kültepe.

The Old Hittite Kingdom

The two main periods of Hittite history are customarily referred to as the Old Kingdom (c. 1650–c. 1500 bce) and the New Kingdom, or Empire (c. 1400–c. 1180). The less well-documented interlude of about a hundred years is sometimes referred to as the Middle Kingdom. Among the texts from Boğazköy, preserved or recopied by the imperial archivists, those relating to the Old Kingdom are comparatively few. For many years historians of that period relied for the most part on a single remarkable document: the constitutional Edict of Telipinus, one of its last kings. In contrasting the prosperity of the nation under his earliest predecessors with the decadence into which it had fallen at the time of his own accession, Telipinus provides a useful though not always reliable summary of early Hittite history:

Formerly Labarnas was Great King; and then his sons, his brothers, his connections by marriage, his blood-relations and his soldiers were united. And the country was small; but wherever he marched to battle, he subdued the countries of his enemies by might. He destroyed the countries and made them powerless and he made the sea their frontier. And when he returned from battle, his sons went each to every part of the country, to Hupisna, to Tuwanuwa, to Nenassa, to Landa, to Zallara, to Parsuhanda and to Lusna, and governed the country, and in his hands also the great cities prospered [?]. Afterward Hattusilis became King.

Thus, it appears that the Hittites regarded their own history as beginning with a king called Labarnas (Labarnash); this inference is confirmed by the use in later times of his name and that of his wife Tawannannas as dynastic titles or throne names of subsequent rulers. Nothing else is known about this king, however, and it is not certain that he was the first of his line. The earliest contemporary texts date from the reign of his son Hattusilis (Khattushilish; mentioned by Telipinus), and the most important of them is a bilingual inscription in Hittite and Akkadian found in 1957. In the Akkadian version his name is given as Labarnas, and it is implied that he is in fact the nephew of Tawannannas. In Hittite he becomes Hattusilis and is given the double title “King of Hattusas” and “Man of Kussara.” This circumstance has given rise to the supposition that, whereas the original seat of his dynasty was at Kussara, at some time during his reign he transferred his capital to Hattusas (long ago destroyed by Anittas) and thus adopted the name Hattusilis.

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The geographic identity of place-names in Hittite historical texts has always been a subject of controversy, but some of those mentioned in the Edict of Telipinus are known: Tuwanuwa (classical Tyana, near modern Bor); Hupisna (classical Heraclea Cybistra; modern Ereğli); Parsuhanda (Purushkhanda; probably modern Acemhöyük); and Lusna (classical Lystra). With the exception of Landa (probably to the north), the sites are all located in the territory to the south of the Kızıl River called by the Hittites the Lower Land, suggesting the first extension of the Hittite Kingdom from its restricted homeland in the bend of the Kızıl River followed hard upon the establishment of the new capital at Boğazköy. The extent and direction of this expansion may have been unforeseen when the site was chosen. As a mountain stronghold dominating the northeastern corner of the plateau, Boğazköy may at the time have had much to recommend it, but later conquests left it on the periphery of the kingdom, and its security was consequently diminished. This possibility is reflected in the bilingual text, which gives a detailed account of events of six successive years of Hattusilis’ reign.

In the account of the first year’s campaign, the obscure place-names give no more than a general impression of a localized operation, perhaps in Cappadocia. In the second year’s records, however, the extent of Hittite conquests is more impressive, and there is some justification for Hattusilis’ claim to have “made the sea his frontier.” In fact, the very first place-name mentioned places Hattusilis beyond the Taurus passes in the plains of northern Syria. Alalkha is almost certainly Alalakh (modern Tell Açana, near Antioch), the ruins of which were excavated by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley between 1937 and 1949. The priority given to this town would suggest an approach to Syria through Cilicia and by the Belen Pass over the Nur Mountains. Two other cities, Igakalis and Taskhiniya, remain unidentified, but Urshu, which Hattusilis besieged (probably unsuccessfully) on his return journey, is known to have been located on the Euphrates above Carchemish. Rather curious in this account is the absence of any reference to the important kingdom of Yamkhad (centred at Aleppo), of which Alalakh was a vassal state. For the rest of Hattusilis’ reign, Aleppo apparently remained the principal power in North Syria, to whose armies and allies his own troops were to find themselves repeatedly opposed.

The third year’s record introduces the names of two states later to play an important role in Hittite history. The first of these was Arzawa, a powerful kingdom with extensive territory in the southwest part of the peninsula, against which Hattusilis now organized a campaign. In doing so, he left his possessions in the south and southeast unprotected, and they were promptly annexed by the Hurrians, a people who now enter Anatolian history for the first time. From the late 3rd millennium bce onward, the Hurrians had infiltrated northern Mesopotamia and Syria from the north and soon constituted an important element in the population of both territories. On this occasion, having abandoned his attack on Arzawa, Hattusilis seems to have pressed them back and recovered his losses, but he spent the next two years reestablishing his frontiers. In the sixth and last year of his recorded activities, he found himself once more opposed to the Hurrian armies in North Syria, this time supported by troops from Aleppo. His feud with Aleppo was never decided in his lifetime, for it is known from other sources that he returned, badly wounded, to his old residence at Kussara, anxious to appoint a successor who might continue the struggle. In this endeavour he was at first singularly unsuccessful, for three of his sons in succession proved unreliable to the point of treason; one of the most remarkable and humanly revealing documents of the period is a long and bitter lament in which Hattusilis chides his sons for their infidelity and ingratitude. This text is one of the first examples of the Hittite language written in cuneiform, and it is thought that Babylonian scribes had been imported into the capital for the purpose of devising a formula by which this could be done.

Hattusilis eventually adopted his grandson Mursilis (Murshilish) as his successor, and he proved a wise choice. His first concern was to avenge Hattusilis’ death by settling accounts with Aleppo, which he destroyed after conclusively defeating the Hurrian armies. Following this victory, he launched an extraordinary expedition against Babylon and, according to Telipinus, destroyed the city. Historians have found it difficult to explain the fact that Mursilis’ army was able to advance almost 500 miles down the Euphrates and overcome the defenses of the Mesopotamian capital. His occupation of the city seems to have been extremely brief, because it was not the Hittites but the Kassites who afterward assumed control of the country and founded a dynasty in Babylonia. The Kassites had penetrated northern Mesopotamia, probably from the east, on the heels of the Hurrians. It is by no means improbable that Mursilis had welcomed them as allies, and the attack on Babylon may have been made possible by their support. Because it must have taken place just before or just after the death of Samsuditana, the last king of the 1st dynasty of Babylon, the event can be dated to 1595 bce. This date also may well have corresponded to the death of Mursilis, for after he returned to his own capital laden with booty, a conspiracy among his relatives resulted in his assassination. The succession of his brother-in-law Hantilis marked the beginning of the catastrophic period referred to in the Edict of Telipinus, during which the Hittite kingdom came near the verge of extinction.

A major disaster during this period, which eclipsed other military failures, was the conquest of Cilicia by the Hurrians. This great coastal plain to the south of the Taurus Mountains, known as the “land of Adaniya” (Adana), was renamed and became the seat of a Hurrian dynasty. The cities of North Syria were thus rendered inaccessible to the Hittite armies, except through the Southeastern Taurus passes, and remained so until imperial times. When Telipinus sought to establish defensible frontiers, he was forced to conclude a treaty with a king of Kizzuwadna named Isputakhsus and was also compelled to renounce his claims on the neighbouring country of Arzawa.

Of equal interest in the Edict of Telipinus is his program of political reforms. Citing examples of the political evils that had resulted in the past from aristocratic disunity at the death of a monarch, he laid down a precise law of succession, specifying an exact order of precedence to be observed in the selection of a new ruler. He further prescribed that

the nobles must again stand united in loyalty to the throne, and if they are dissatisfied with the conduct of the king or of one of his sons, they must have recourse to legal means of redress and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by murder. The supreme court for punishment of wrongdoers must be the pankus [whole body of citizens].

The meaning of the word pankus (pankush) has been much discussed, for it has been taken to mean a general assembly in the democratic sense, composed of the fighting men and servants of the king. Because the pankus is known to have been an essentially Indo-European concept and did not survive into imperial times, its existence has been cited as evidence that at this period the Indo-European aristocracy had not yet merged with the native Hattian population. There is, however, little other evidence to support this suggestion, and in the inscriptions no specific term or epithet is ever used to distinguish the non-Hittite indigenous population.