Hatti

Turkey, 1650–1178 BCE. Draft, not yet reviewed

The Hittites were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Their empire was centered on their capital, Hattusa, around 1650 BC. It reached its peak during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. From the late 12th century BC, during the Late Bronze Age collapse, the Hittites splintered into several small independent states.

Seat of power: Hattusa

No rulers documented for this era yet.

Culture

• Their language, Hittite, belonged to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.
• The Hittite military also made successful use of chariots.
• The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in their former territories.

Picture

Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1986.

Image: Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, file

Sources

• Hittites (Wikipedia)
• Hatti (Wikidata)
• About the picture (Wikipedia)

Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.