Hatti
In the middle of the Bronze Age a most extraordinary empire developed and faded. Its capital was nowhere near a major river, sea, or trade route and was barely accessible during the winter months; its people were not speakers of a Semitic language, but instead an Indo-European one. It left a momentous legacy which would be carried on by Assyria and every successive empire yet was almost entirely forgotten for two millennia. Thus we speak of Hatti and the Hittite Empire.
“Hatti” was the name given to an area in the central part of Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, originally by people identified as the “Hattians.” The Hattians inhabited the land in the early Bronze Age; they and their language were distinctive, neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Their land centered on a city they named Hattush (otherwise known as Hattusa/Hattusha/Hattusas). By the beginning of the second millennium BCE, however, the Hattians had been conquered, overrun, or assimilated into a new and different people who spoke the “language of Nesha,” an Indo-European language. The newcomers adopted the nomenclature of the Hattians, and cultivated what they called the “Kingdom of Hattusha.” They were known as the Hatti to the Assyrians and Kheta to the Egyptians; we know them as the Hittites for reasons we will address below.
The land of Hatti did not seem like it would be conducive to the development of a great empire. The north central region of Anatolia is highly mountainous, often covered with snow, and nowhere near major trading routes, rivers, or lakes. Nevertheless, from around 1600 to 1200 BCE, the Kingdom of Hattusha would become a significant player in the ancient Near Eastern world, and its king recognized as a fellow brother to the Great Kings of Egypt and Babylon.
As with Egypt, the history of the Kingdom of Hattusha is delineated among three periods: the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. The Hittite Old Kingdom saw the establishment of the Kingdom of Hattusha and repeated victories over the Amorites, even destroying Amorite Babylon in 1595 BCE and giving it over to the Kassites. Yet soon after the Hittites suffered major setbacks closer to home; this would lead into the period of weak kingship known as the Hittite Middle Kingdom. Around 1400 BCE the period of the Hittite New Kingdom began, contemporaneous with the Hittite Empire. The Hittite Empire would endure for two hundred years. It was the Hittites who smashed and destroyed the Kingdom of Mitanni in the center of Mesopotamia; the Hittites also conquered Aleppo and Carchemish. Their direct rule or rule by kings under treaty extended from the Aegean Sea to the Euphrates River and from the Black Sea coast to the Mediterranean, and even over parts of Cyprus.
The Kingdom of Hattusha thus represented a major force and power in the Late Bronze Age world of the ancient Near East. It was the Hittite king Muwatalli II who infamously fought against Ramses II of Egypt at Kadesh, and despite Ramses’ claims of victory, it was the Hittite forces who controlled the area around Kadesh when all was said and done. Hittite diplomatic records describe their interactions with the king of “Ahhiyawa,” which most scholars now agree has some association with Mycenaean Greece (called the Achaeans by Homer); likewise, one of the cities the Hittites describe in “Arzawa land” to their west was “Wilusa,” which most scholars agree represents the Troy of Iliad fame (called Ilios by Homer).
Many of the tendencies we find in later empires can be traced to practices of the Hittites. The Hittites fought only when necessary; they preferred cultivating treaty relationships with local kingdoms and alliances with those at some distance. In the ruins of Hattusha archaeologists have discovered a treasure trove of such diplomatic documents which have helped us immeasurably in understanding the dynamics of the foreign policy in the ancient Near East. But when many groups proved frequently restive, the Hittites would exile them to other lands elsewhere in their domains and re-populate the land with others; furthermore, it would seem the land of Hatti frequently suffered from depopulation, and the trains of slaves and captives in war brought back to Hatti helped the Hittites maintain their strength for many generations.
The land of Hatti, however, was not the greatest for the center of a powerful empire. Enemies to the northeast, the Kaska people, had often invaded and even destroyed Hattusha during the age of its kings. From what we can tell from historical records and scientific investigation, the land of Hatti suffered prolonged periods of drought in the thirteenth century BCE. The Assyrians gained strength, overran what was left of Mitanni, and defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihiriya around 1237 BCE. The Kingdom of Hattusha also suffered from some bouts of civil war. Its last king, Suppiluliuma II, had won some important battles and seemed to be a great king; nevertheless, he seems to have abandoned Hattusha some time around 1200 BCE, likely to establish his capital further south in a place closer to receiving the necessary aid from other parts of his kingdom.
At this point the Hittite records give out since Suppiluliuma II had the records of his reign taken with him. Yet the end of the Kingdom of Hattusha had come: within fifty years Hattusha was overrun and destroyed; Phrygian people from the Balkan Peninsula invaded and overran most of the center of Anatolia; the Assyrians attempted to conquer the rest. The Kingdom of Hattusha and Hatti would fade from the historical record and become almost entirely forgotten until rediscovered in the 19th century of our era.
The Old Testament never speaks of the Kingdom of Hattusha as such; we call it the Hittite Empire because soon after evidence of Hatti was discovered in the 19th century, its European discoverers immediately associated them with the “Hittites” described in the Hebrew Bible.
The “Hittites” described in the earliest part of the Old Testament, from Genesis through Judges, and even in 1 Kings 9:20/2 Chronicles 8:7, Ezra 9:1, and Nehemiah 9:8, most likely have nothing to do with Hatti or the Kingdom of Hattusha in Anatolia. Such people, like Ephron, seem to be the “Hethites,” the sons of Heth, a son of Canaan according to Genesis 10:15. They would be another band of Canaanites. Many such Canaanites would certainly have known about the Kingdom of Hattusha, since it would have ruled over the lands not far to their north; Ugarit, a Canaanite city in northern Syria, was allied with Hattusha and may have met its demise because its military forces were away on campaign with the Hatti king when invaders arrived. Depending on how one dates the Exodus, the glory days of the Kingdom of Hattusha took place during the Wilderness wanderings, conquest of Canaan, and in the days of the early judges, or during the time of the Egyptian sojourn and Wilderness wanderings. We can understand why we do not hear much about them within these texts.
Yet there are three Old Testament passages which refer to Hittites who do not seem to be the “sons of Heth”: 1 Kings 10:29, 11:1, and 2 Kings 7:6, in which we learn Solomon’s traders sold horses and chariots to the Aramean and Hittite kings, Solomon loved Hittite women, and a besieging Aramean army became afraid the king of Israel had hired the kings of Egypt and the Hittites to attack them. Yet, as we have indicated, the Kingdom of Hattusha had fallen around 1200 BCE, and Solomon and Elisha lived after 1000 BCE. How can this be?
While it is true the Kingdom of Hattusha collapsed around 1200 BCE, and its homeland was overrun by the Kaska and the Phrygians, such does not mean all Hittite influence and rule collapsed. The kings of Hattusha had long appointed their brothers and their sons as lesser kings over Carchemish and Aleppo, and we have evidence Hittite rule over Carchemish continued for many generations after Hattusha had been destroyed. Around 1000 BCE bands of Arameans invaded or overran much of Syria; we are most familiar with the Aramean Kingdom of Aram centered in Damascus, but many other Syrian city-states with Aramean kings developed during the Early Iron Age. Yet the Arameans were not able to overcome the remnants of the Kingdom of Hattusha which was by then ruled over by Luwian speaking kings in southeastern Turkey. Scholars used to speak of these as “Neo-Hittite” kingdoms; today they are better known as either “Syro-Hittite” or “Luwian-Aramean” kingdoms.
Thus the kings of Israel and Judah traded with, and perhaps even allied with, “Hittite” kings, speaking a similar but different language than Hatti, yet still attempting to maintain the glory of the Kingdom of Hattusha of old. Yet even these kings and kingdoms lasted for only a brief time; they were overrun by the Assyrians and made part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 825 BCE, and fully assimilated into Assyria by 700 BCE. As the Hittites had previously exiled people and forced many into their homelands, thus their descendants were most likely exiled and forced into Assyria in turn.
We can now understand why Hatti was entirely forgotten: its original homeland was overrun by invaders and those who wished to maintain their legacy were forcibly assimilated into Assyria. The presence of their name in the Old Testament was even used for a time as a means to discredit its integrity; after all, who had ever heard of the Hittites, and what evidence would demonstrate their existence? The answer would be provided definitively through archaeological excavations and the decipherment of Hittite in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Thus the Kingdom of Hattusha in many respects paved the way for the kinds of behaviors we find manifest in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires a few centuries later. Hatti is a good reminder for us of how ephemeral human power and glory can prove: a mighty power in the Late Bronze Age world of the ancient Near East which would be so completely forgotten as to become a source of mockery and derision centuries afterward. Thus we do well not to put our trust in princes but in the Lord God and to seek His purposes in Jesus!
Ethan R. Longhenry
The post Hatti appeared first on de Verbo vitae.
