The Hittites

in prehistoric island, or what made Alexander truly great.

“With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's”

leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribes. 3,000 years ago, and the late Bronze Age World of the Near East is a wash with remarkable

powers.

You have the Babylonians and the Assyrians in Mesopotamia, that mice and Aens in Greece,

the Minowans in Crete, the thriving kingdom of Egypt along the River Nioid, and in central Anatolia, modern day Turquia, was another power, a kingdom that had risen to become one

“of the major players of the late Bronze Age, the Hittis.”

Now we know them as the Hittis, because of their language. The oldest recorded Indo-European language in the world, but fast-worth of their documents have survived, giving us this fascinating insight into who the Hittis were and how they ruled their empire, an empire that at its height stretched from Syria to potentially as far west as Troy.

The Hittis ruled over a multi-ethnic empire. They themselves appeared to have migrated into Anatolia during the early Bronze Age, but when and from where exactly, we're not exactly sure it's debated. But that is one of many fascinating parts of the Hittite story that we covering today. With our guest, Dr. Elena DeVici, associate professor at the University of Turin.

Elena, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Hi, thank you very much for the invitation. And to give us a wonderful introduction to the Hittites, it's about time we covered the story of the Hittites on the ancients. So do we have a sense from the surviving material that they came into Anatolia from elsewhere,

“that they weren't originally from Anatolia, is that the sense we're getting?”

Yeah, well, that's mainly because of the language. They spoke on which belonged to the Indo-European family, but it's not the one of the local Anatolian languages. We know of other languages that are associated with groups of people who probably were originally there before they came. But the impression, of course, it's a history made of many conflicts and wars,

and the impression is that they did not, they took over Anatolia brutally, but arrived and integrated also in a way with a local population. Yes, which makes sense and cast aside this idea that they're coming and kill everyone, and then there's no local population left as it was, yeah. No, no, no, no, that's not the case.

And we don't exactly where they came from, as I'm suggested, from the region between more or less the Caspian and the Black Sea, probably following trade routes, but without the sources, the written sources, telling us the story is difficult to know.

And what we see is that from sources coming from Syria, from the third millennium already,

that there were already people with a tight name, so or Indo-European name. So, but they started writing later than other Mesopotamian or ancient recent cultures. We mentioned sources there, Elena, and so that particular source from Syria and Mesopotamia. But what types of sources do we have surviving to learn about the Hittites and what we know about them today?

Yeah, well, we have actually thousands of different tablets, so play tablets, written mostly in the transformed script, from the Hittite capital, Hattusha, and Hattusha is nowadays as more city village, one hundred and six kilometers east of Ankara and Turkey. The archaeologists found the royal archives, temple archives, and really in thousands of tablets.

also ill-did tax resources, and also the archives from Syrian kingdoms that at certain point

“where controlled by the Hittites, can contribute to the reconstructed history of the Hittite kingdom.”

And also, in even the Amana letters from Egypt.

So, a lot of documents, a lot of correspondence, and you mentioned that amazing archive from Hattusha,

which we are certainly going to delve into. It almost feels like we did nephsode several months ago on the library of Ashubana Powell at a university. It feels similar to the amount of information we're going to go on from those surviving tablets. But before we get to that Elena, a bit more on the whole structure of the Hittite state, when the Hittites have come into Anatolia and they've established themselves in the region, how do they rule? Should we be thinking of

Hittite kings at the top? Absolutely. A Hittite kingdom was a monarchy, basically. And the king was the highest political military to dishevel and religious authority. So, I mean, the king was the highest authority of the state in all aspects. And of course, I mean, it wasn't ruling alone either other members of the royal family, even the queen,

“had an important function, especially in religious matters, but not only in some queens were very”

active also in the whole foreign affairs nowadays. And of course, the hair to the throne, princess and other dignitaries. And especially, I mean, this might be something that has been inherited by the Hittite kingdom from the earliest phases of its history. At the beginning, it was very small kingdom and it had to negotiate with other local powers. And especially in the very early phases, the power was not necessary transmitted only within one family,

but it could be, let's say, decided that it was the next king to come from another family of

our four family of the region. Then the Hittites become the most important family, let's say,

the most important kingdom. And then the power tends to remain within the dynasty. Right. So, within that dynasty, but we need to imagine also other kind of provenance, noble families, factions that caught, so potentially sometimes can we imagine that there were pretty violent struggles for power. It wasn't always move succession. No, no, it wasn't always moved. And for some moments of its history where I know quite well,

that things didn't go smoothly. And we had fights for power within the royal family, Kingswood, because the predecessor and people who died in it, they died for it. And conspiracies that something that happened very often, not only for certain, they died Kingdoms, history

“of Mesopotamian ports, more or less. But it's great. And that one of the things that I think”

attracts so many people to the Bronze Age is the fact that you have all of these great stories surviving like kind of conspiracies of plots from the documents. I mean, do we have any surviving examples of a great conspiracy or plot in the Hittite Kingdom of one figure trying to rise to power? Oh, yeah. One actually managed to rise to power. It was King Hattociri III. And his predecessor was his nephew. And he managed to rule for a few years. And then Hattocili, to power,

to power, and he was, basically, Hattociri was his uncle. The uncle, yes, this being uncle, okay.

Yeah. And then his nephew went to, well, run away, went to exile. And probably was, for a while, had the Egyptian court, then, that's where it's a refuge. Hi, so Hattocili wrestles power from his young nephew, the nephew flees, and Hattocili is able to rule in his state. And that's just one of the plots, one of the conspiracy, one of the stories of Hittite rule, gaining power that we have surviving. Absolutely. I mean, Hattocili was

afterwards a very successful king and also a hero with the prevailing time. Is the one who signed famous peace treaty with Egypt with the Ramses II. And that actually, the time after this treaty was signed and it's corresponds more or less with the time of Hattocili's reign has been dubbed the Paxe Hittica because, I mean, finally, Egypt and the Hittites were the biggest powers in the Western Asia, Anatolia, Syria, the Levant, and Egypt after decades of

copy of it at the United Nations headquarters, often dubbed like the oldest known peace treaty in

“the world, Hattocili and Ramses, the great. So we have the kings at the top,”

Elena, and you have these powerful noble families around. What else do we know about the social

structure, the social hierarchy of the Hittite kingdom of the people who are often overshadowed by the surviving records, everyday people? What we know, of course, depends on the sources. And most of the sources from Hattocia and the other Hittite archives deal mainly to large degree with religion, and either description or organization of religious festivals, rituals, and broadly speaking religion. And those give us a lot of details about the religious life and

not necessarily so much about people, but you have, I mean, I don't know, how many thousands of people mentioned in the sources. And since we have mainly official archives from either the court or temples, the people we see are mainly people dealing with the court in some ways, either members of the royal families or dignitaries, members of the army. And you can reconstruct the hierarchy among these people, four chairs, and a dignitaries messenger, you have a very often

priests, of course. So, I mean, what is difficult sometimes is to distinguish one people from another because we have a lot of namesakes. And you sometimes, you're not sure whether someone

called in a certain name is always the same person across the different sources. Do we always

get intellectuals? Are they looking at the stars? Like these other Bronze Age powers, like astronomers as well in the in the surviving records? Yeah, that's something we don't know very well for the heat type, which is difficult. I mean, we have of course, I mean, they were interested in that, and also concerns with ominous signs. So, we have mentions of Eclipse's for instance, but for instance, that it's something we know from historical sources from the annals of some kings.

And I mean, there is a lot of texts about the divination and so different divinatory techniques, but less astronomy, that what you know from, let's say, later archives from Mesopotamia. So, you mentioned earlier how the Hittai kingdom is called as capital Hittusia. So, we should be mentioning a kingdom that does have these, these urban centres, these cities, and presumably these people that are being mentioned in the surviving archives are living in

those cities near the Royal Family. So, do we have any indication at all about the solemn majority, like the farmers, the everyday people who are living outside of the city world, isn't, and living off the land? Yeah, yeah. Well, we have lists of workers or mentions of different types of either farmers, the itait economy was based on agriculture and livestock.

“It was the, the base and the most important sector, but also, of course, so that what we could”

call the secondary production, for instance, textile industry. That's, I mean, the traditional economy of Mesopotamia and the kingdom. So, we have mentions of different types of artisans and like authors. So, you have names and professions. We know that the Hittai to countryside was and say dotted by villages because there are so many topon names in the Hittai sources. I mean, of course, most of the times it's difficult to not impossible to associate it with an archaeological

site. But Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai Hittai, that has been excavated. And the Royal Family and the King and the Royal Family didn't only leave in Hittai Hittai, they had other royal residences. And at certain point, the capital was even moved to the south of Anatolia for a while. So, we can imagine almost not, not in Etenerans, but the King and the Royal Family going around the kingdom, doing their duties as it was in

“that central Anatolian region. Exactly. And one of the important duty was taking part in religious”

festivities. The King being also the high priest of the state with the Queen and other members

of the royal family or the court would basically travel through the kingdom to take part into

these celebrations and religious celebrations that could last weeks. So, and of course, in this way, they were present on the territory. And at the same time, they would take care of other duties.

They were actually pretty visible for everyday people in the Hittai world for farmers,

“for shepherds and so on, if they're hearing that they're going to be attending certain festivals”

around the kingdom in that area. Yeah, in those kind of situations, yes. And we know from, because as I said, many texts describe this festival. We know that there were dances on these occasions, of course, I mean, that religious offerings that involved music and dance and singers. And that was a kind of a way to to stage also the power of the King and to show, I mean, they're the power, not only to celebrate the gods. And the King would also spend an invest a lot into taking care of

temples and offerings. So they depended to learn to, to agree to the King's and the state.

So these kind of events, these big ceremonies where people would gather, lots of music, lots of celebrations, lots of decorations, very lavish, but also, yeah, to honor the gods, but also, I guess, giving out of donations to everyday people who are there as well, kind of bread and circuses, once again, that idea of the King at the top, but also someone, you know, keeping on the right side

“of the everyday people. Yeah, yeah, somehow. And I mean, I think those were the moments where the King”

was more visible, as you were saying, not necessarily in the Hittite capital, where the Citadel with the Royal Palace and other buildings related to the administration. And otherwise, in the low town of Hattusha, there were a lot of temples. And we assumed that other noble families didn't necessarily leave all in the capital. So the capital is quite big. The city walls hover like seven kilometers, something like that, and it hasn't been excavated extensively yet,

but probably other noble families lived around the city, not necessarily in the city, in the capital, next to the King, let's say. So as well as of our logical work has been done at the Tusha, so do we actually know from what you're saying there, Elena, do we know quite a lot about the layout of this big Hittite city? Yeah, it has been excavated since the beginning of the 20th century. Wow,

okay. The excavations of that is where I've been going on for a while now. The first mission

was the German mission, and still is excavated by the German archaeological institute, of course, now with the Turkish colleagues, so they work there every year, and they expose the temples and other buildings belonging to the Citadel, so the Royal Palace and other administrative buildings, I would say, it's easier in a way to excavate at Hittite Hittite and some other Italian sites compared to, let's say, southern Mesopotamia, because they built a lot with the stone. So at least

the plan of many buildings is relatively easy to recognize, and even now, if you visit Hittite Hittite Hittite Hittite, you could easily recognize the shape of buildings. The shape of the city is determined by, of course, the morphology of the site, which is quite rocky with different levels,

“so that that's why you have a sort of acropolis, or Citadel, a Royal Citadel, and then the”

low town, and this was, where defensive walls, of course, so with important gates that get access to the town, and other structures of the Hittite Hittite Hittite, especially religious structures, were open air sanctuaries. Again, kind of using the morphology of the landscape of the territory, so using creeks and stone walls that would be done decorated with a release, and they would also build structures next to it, but somehow kind of using the nature elements that were then

monumentalised. Right, so kind of a beautiful open air area becomes a sacred site, like sacred groves, and the like that I did, I understand. Yes, and also you mentioned that what I found really interesting is why the archaeology is so good, surviving from Hittite Hittite, like yes, in Mesopotamia, Mudbrick buildings, that survived, but further north, in Anatoli with the Hittites, they're building their foundations out of stone, and the stone is more durable than Mudbrick over

that time, and so that's why you have more of the layout of place that Hittite Hittite compared

It's just a sign language. There are just a few things to do in the car park. In Portland, in the same garden. In such fields it's good, a good location to have. Good prices and good in the forest, so how do we get to, now to how we get to, and so on. We get to, good for sichert and goodist.

First of all, on those open air sign trees, someone might think of the word 'apparadise' or

the great gardens of the Bronze Age in Assyria, Babylon, Hangard and Srinces. Can we imagine that the

“Hittites were also very invested in the idea of those open beautiful garden-like spaces?”

Garden-like. No, I mean, what they often did open air sanctuaries had the pond and kind of contents, so that was another natural beauty, that were built in some cases. I mean, they were not a natural pond, but they would build kind of contents next to these sanctuaries.

So water, later than in Portland, in their, it's a Celtic activities and Celtic spaces.

And we've mentioned words like rituals, codes, temples, so basic question, do we know much about Hittite religion about the types of gods that they worshiped? Yeah, we know a lot because indeed many sources talk about religion and gods are mentioned everywhere. There is an expression that you find in Titex, following them the thousand gods of the Hittite country. The thousand gods, did you say? Yeah. The thousand gods. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we know that somewhere the major gods,

the most important gods were divine solar goddess, the sun god of arena, and then the storm god,

so those were the most important gods of the Hittite pantian, but the Hittite stand to integrate

“gods from the regions, so they come into contact from Anatolia and other countries. So that's why”

the pantian becomes very big. Yeah, the thousand gods of the Hittites. And especially, for instance, in the treaties, you have very long lists of gods from the Hittite pantian, and then they also include the gods of the counterpart, with whom they conclude the treaty, were summoned at the end of the treaty as witnesses to the treaty. And the gods were those of the guarantee that the treaty was respected, and punish those who would not respect the treaty. And therefore,

for instance, you have very long lists of gods from different cities in Anatolia, and that gives you an idea of how big an diverse was the pantian. No one did they start saying that they have a thousand gods, and this was also interesting when you're saying a line of there with the goddess of the sun, the god of storms, being like the chief deities, and going back to what we mentioned earlier about what you're saying, how the Hittites

they come in from elsewhere, they're not removing the local population, it's integration. So I guess could you potentially imagine, maybe this is just theory, but the Hittites, when they come in, they have the storm god, they have the sun goddess, and then they integrate all of these local gods, deities into their pantian as time goes on? Yeah, the sun goddess was probably especially the sun goddess of arena, which is the hypothesis of the sun god of the,

“which is venerated by the Hittites, and which is the most important goddess of the”

taint pantian was probably a local cult, and the sun god, the storm god, these are all natural elements, and that's in a way universal, of course, I mean the sun god is very important also in Syria, even in Mesopotamia, so it's not a prerogative of the Hittite pantian,

features, but that's something shared by these populations understood. And do we have any sense

any idea of rituals around these deities? Should we be thinking of sacrifices and offering religious sentences? Yeah, especially, I know about the libations, so there was, of course, part of the

“most important god of the country. Going back to what you were saying earlier about the royal”

family having important religious duties at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's also part of not only Hittite, but the Mesopotamian idea of kingship dependent from the gods, and needing a divine support and in favor, so you would be very careful in taking care of the gods properly. Well, let's get towards that archive, but before we arrive at those archives and those documents, if anyone types in Hittite to share today, you mentioned the walls, but perhaps the most

iconic photo is of that particular gate, which has those lion statues either side, so do you know much about the importance of lions to the Hittites and this particular structure? I have the lions.

“I mean, the lion was important because it's a symbol of kingship. It's sometimes mentioned in the”

text as a metaphor and animal symbolism for the king. So in that sense, I mean, having lions represented in a way a representation of kingship, then you have the other main gates with human figure that is usually understood as a king or as a representation of the king, and that's a really specific one, and then the king's gates. So yeah, the iconography of these things is widespread in a special in the Levant, and in the area that king contacts with each other. So a lion gate, a king gate,

and a spring gate. And so if we go up to the palace to the Citadel, was that where this archive,

this incredible archive was discovered? Not all of them. I mean, some come from temples,

especially the main temple, it is called temple one in the with the labels that give you to the archaeologists. The thing is many of these texts, especially the biggest discoveries, state to the very first campaigns. At that time, as it happened in also many other sites of misopotamia, the archaeologists were not as careful as we would like them to be to record the exact fine spot of the tablets. So sometimes, I mean, especially in later excavations,

they would still find the fragments of tablets that were unearthed in previous excavations, in previous years, in the, say, dump of the earlier excavations. So many cases, we know that the tablet that comes from temple one, for instance, but not exactly where it was kept in the temple. Assuming that it would have been possible to understand it from the archaeological excavation. This information are often missing. Personally, it's very different. I mean, archaeologists started

working in much more careful way, but the first campaigns were not recorded that well.

“The first campaigns, it's in when the Hittites first come into Anatolia. Is that what's mean?”

No, no, sorry, the first archaeological campaigns. Oh, the first archaeology? At the beginning of the archaeological investigations of the Hittites, in the early 20th century. Exactly, exactly. Got it, understood. Well, let's have a look at some of the, the contents that I mean discovered in this archive. I mean, first of all, regarding documents that talk about the Hittites, state a bit more, and its structure, because have they revealed quite a lot about

the Hittites laws about their legal code? The Hittites are one of the two, let's say, cultures of the ancient roots who wrote a low code. Yeah, we have a low code with different versions of it, so it was rewritten and changed a bit of our time. Well, it's not our only source about Hittite law and judicial administration, but it's an important source, and it's phrasing away similar to the Morphames Hammurabicode, where all the norms are phrased as a hypothetical sentence.

If this and this happen, then this will be the consequence of the punishment that is gone.

with the Hittite laws. As also in other cases, they cover different aspects of Hittite life

“from what we would now call them, let's say, family, low, civil law, but it isn't a, that's the”

reason why we tried to avoid using the word code refer to the exact collections of laws, because it isn't as systematic as our modern low code. Is there anything similar in that low code? We're sort of going to say, okay, then is there anything similar in those Hittite laws to an eye for an eye, or the classic thing that people think about with Hammurabic? Yeah, kind of, but you see some differences in the administration of justice, and this is something

that, for instance, you find also in a letter by Hittite King, actually, again, at the city

the third, writing to a Babylonian king was complaining about some Babylonian merchants being killed

there in the Hittite territory, and had to city with answer, I mean, in the Hittite territory,

“we don't even kill a murderer as a punishment, so it's likely unlikely that they would kill”

for instance. I mean, Hittite's tend to use often kinds? No, no, no, but I understand, so with Hittite laws, it's very much a death penalty, a death punishment is not something you see, it's more, it's more fines, or some other type of punishment, or okay, wrongdoing. And, but you mentioned there also, which leads us on nicely to correspondence with other powers in the Bronze Age, we've talked with your good friend, Dr Amanda. We've talked with your good friend, Dr Amanda

Padani in the past about these kind of brotherhood of kings, and how they interact with each other. And so were the Hittites very much part of this? Did they have a lot of correspondence with neighboring kings, whether that's in Babylonia or in Egypt or elsewhere? Yeah, absolutely, I mean,

“the time when the Hittite kingdom becomes what some call an empire in the late 14th century,”

and then through the 13th century, was a time when the ancientaries was divided among great powers. So, and they were in contact with each other, and they also fostered this contact very much through the exchange of letters for instance, and a sort of exchange of messenger that went together with the exchange of goods and gifts, but also of experts for instance, and of princesses. Princesses are okay. Yeah, because way to maintain a good relationship,

so at least try to build and consolidate alliances where an internationalist marriage is to, we know of Hittite princesses who were given to Princess the Pharaoh, but also to, also to those small kings, so subordinates kings, because that was seen in a way to guarantee that the next generation. So, the hair to the throne being born to a tight princess would be raised into Hittite culture, educated to the Hittite language and traditions, and that would be

likely a more royal battle, but would be a way to guarantee that the next generation of subordinates ruler would be loyal to the Hittite kingdom. So, this is strengthening of alliances and stability of these empires. Yeah, and also the Hittite kings would marry for a day, but it would go both ways. And this case is a Egyptian princesses going to the Hittite kings and being married to a Hittite king,

as well, or is it the other way around? Never, never. Egyptian princesses never live Egypt.

Right, so they were saying, like, yes, we will take the Hittite princess, but you're not having one of ours, okay. Yeah, there is, there's a famous letter, I don't know, perhaps Amanda quoted it, or mentioned it by Babylonian king, writing to the Pharaoh and complaining about the fact that he would not give an Egyptian princess marriage to him, and it's funny because he goes on saying, well, I mean, just send me a woman, as long as she's a pretty, who would know that she's not a princess.

Gosh, he didn't get an even nice looking woman from Egypt, so. So, it's a good excuse to do an insight into that kind of diplomatic nature of these these correspondences that the Hittites were very much part of. I mean, how did from the archive we have from Hittusia Elena, how did Hittite kings, how did they correspond

large dossier of letters of the correspondence between the Ramses II and atosidditor and also the

“Queen, the Hittite Queen, she was also corresponding with Ramses II because that was in the wake of the”

Khadesh battle when the two kingdoms were trying to come to the terms and so there were some how let's say handling in a way literally bargaining the dowry of the Hittite princesses who would marry Ramses II and at the same time defining the terms of the alliance. And what I was

to find interesting in these letters is that I mean, if you think of a assume, I never read a letter

between two presidents of two modern states and nowadays how they phrase their correspondence, but I imagine it always been very official, at least the official letters, they were right to each other. But the these kings were addressing very different issues and sometimes also been very rude in a

“wave and also very very frankly speaking to each other and trying to do the best that they could”

and get the best they could from this context from this interaction without her kingdoms. And what language are they using in these tablets when they're exchanging these sometimes quite abrupt quite rude messages with each other? Mm-hmm. Although, Hittite was the official language of the Hittite's data, these letters were written in Akkadian. Akkadian was used as the lingua franca, you would say, to correspond among kingdoms

and people whose mother tongue was different, of course. But they kind of agreed at some point we don't know how of course, but to use Akkadian as a common language. And Akkadian written in Babylonia in Assyria in Egypt or in the Hittite kingdom it was a bit different because often especially in these regions where it was on the region of language of the scribes and you can see a lot of influence and interference of their mother tongue, but it was still let's say good enough

to understand each other. Right, so the Hittite scribes serving the Hittite King and Queen, they have to learn this. This lingua franca diplomatic language Akkadian to interact with these other kings, which is another fascinating part. Elena, we need to explore some of these really interesting examples. You've mentioned already the one, you know, the after the best of Kadesh between the Hittites and the Egyptians before the peace treaty we mentioned earlier, how there's

the bargaining between the Hittite King and Queen and Ramsey's the great over the Hittite princess going to Egypt and the dowry. What are the great stories are there from this archive that you have a particular love of that you'd love to tell us? One letter I like to read for myself and also with

the students is a very long letter written by the third to the Babylonian King and that's also because

my other big area of research are the cassaits, the dynasty ruling Babylonia at this time, so the other great kings of the time and we have this very long letter, don't have so many letters between Hatti and Babylonia on this period, but this one is very long and it gives us a lot of information about also the time before this letter was written, so they often refers to events and

“facts that took place earlier and so they often are very important sources for us to reconstruct”

the history of these kingdoms or their relationships and in this letter I have to see the massive minority say quite all the certainly not of the beginning of his reign is writing to the Babylonian King who is much younger and as to see the refers to the good relationships he had with the father of the current Babylonian King probably also quoting passages from a treaty that we don't have

mean despite the thousands of tablet found at Hattiusha which always account for a lot of missing

evidence and sometimes the texts we have mean our clearer evidence for what we're missing because they refer to text that we're not discovered then it's unlikely that we'll be discovered one day so his quoting passages from what seemed to be a treaty of an alliance between the

desire probably Hattiubabilonian court was very yeah I'm friendly towards Hattiusha while the Babylonian King was still very young probably so his desire was probably running the kingdom for him what it was so young and it was very unfriendly toward the Hittites so he's complaining about the past region to Babylon that's like he was he's

“being rude to me like I should have been treated better exactly exactly yeah yeah you must”

have the tablets I sent to your father and even to this regiment and so who and ask your

scribes to read them to you because first they were not able to write and read that they had someone else

doing it for them and so imagine it's a nice fascinating window you open into the interaction between these kingdoms and then the latter goes on princess mentioning this issue with merchant being killed in a tight territory and merchants were very important of course I mean they were working for the state in a way I mean there were state merchants and kings were very let's say they tried to make sure that they could do their business in a safe way so we often

“find them in the correspondence kings trying to to deal with problems that the merchant”

experiencing the other kings territory which can really make sense as if as they're the ones who are crossing the borders quite a lot to trade the goods and to spread far and wide yeah yeah and then in the same letter it's very long and it addresses a real topic also issues yes yeah a lot of issues and one is the fate of Babylonian position was ascended to the hit at court of certain point and that was a part of this exchanges of experts

for instance so we know also of Egyptian positions being sent to the Egyptian absolutely hit at bite okay and this Babylonian position was sent to the hit at court from what we understand

“that from how to see this reply to some complain by the Babylonian king this physician must have”

died soon after the rich the hathusha and so the to see the third is saying it's not coming back

because he died and I'm not withholding him here and he's been mentioning that some other a physician and a ritualists were still at the hit at capital and they were staying on the wrong for wheel they were not held back by the hit at king and one even married the hit at woman had his house so he simply wanted to go back nah no flene for such a end besuch the road kept in the life world in Freiburg with your email to the owner or the channel of the children of the

children all the years and take our interactive exhibition by the elite tour with audio guide and a classic and the next parvillion the whole world from road kept in the road kept in the late this week no i'm the zikling and found I love that particular story so the young Babylonian king or maybe the region before sent

to add to silly the third one of their prized positions you're an ally gonna send you our

prized physician to look after you then shady circumstances this physician dies in hetusia and this letter we have surviving is her to study basically saying yeah about that sorry he's not coming back exactly yeah but he's also saying that it is best to heal him and when he died he did all the morning rides and he sent in back his servants so with the gifts they had given to the physician the justifying the situation but he really seems not to be guilty I mean and this physician

this particular physician we are very lucky because his mansion also in sources from Babylonia and it must have been already relatively old when it traveled to haplica and it was long travel so maybe not yeah not two suspicious circumstances then in those cases yes no not necessarily

paragraph there's a something about the value his physician's this expert had at the courts

“where they were working and delaying the two these letters that we have been found in the archive”

at atusia do they continue for many many generations do you see many different kings and queens sending letters so that you can almost create a timeline of all of these diplomatic endeavours that went ahead that was sent out from the hit-eye capital and we're received there too mm-hmm yeah I mean letters concentrated in the 13th century 14th century bit but we know about other type of things through other types of sources we have a surrographic tax analysis telling

the deeds of other kings and we have the edicts that we have the treaties that we're able to reconstruct sequence of it that things well it's often difficult to know how long each king rained that's something that the establishment of the technology of the dynasty and of each king is pretty difficult and altogether I mean we have sources about type kings from the 17th century until at the end of the 13th century or even early 12th century I've got to my notes the

name which I always struggle to say but I have to say it anyway. Scipilulululululuma.

“Yeah Scipilululuma. Wow what a name he's one of those kings isn't he?”

Yeah yeah he is the one who it's a managed to transform in a also in a stable way the hit-eye kingdom into an empire because he managed to conquer Syria and annexed to the hit-eye kingdom by defeating the kingdom of Midani that was the big power, the great power in northern Syria and northern Zopothemia at the time and to is the one who the previously typed kings already led the military campaigns to the south in northern Syria but never managed to annex it

in a stable way. And he's he's ruling at the time of that that famous or infamous Egyptian fairer Akhenart and isn't he who seems to be very much he's not as active in the military campaigning he's enjoying the luxuries of his life and Egypt so

“he kind of takes advantage this hit-eye kingdom. I'm not going to repeat the name of”

to kind of seize land in Syria at that time so that it's interesting isn't it how that's it. Yeah this is the time where the hit-eye kings work were responding also with Akhenarton in the first it was corresponding we have a few letters from the hit-eye kingdom also in the Amanar cave so the archive at Akhenarton was at the capital of Akhenarton's at his capital yeah Akhenarton's capital. Well I can ask so many more questions but I'm not going to because I've got a couple more

areas I love us to explore. First off I'd like to revisit this link with Babylon because Elena you mentioned that you are the big interest is this Kassai dynasty which deserves a

podcast in their own right but I'm not correct that hit-eye Babylonian relations haven't always been

very lovely Davi and good and at nice is there also a story that the hit-eye steed once sack Babylon arguably the greatest city in ancient history. True that happened quite early in the title history and the hit-eye king more silly the first managed to basically reach Babylon with its army the exact date is kind of a matter of debate depending on the chronology use but basically after a leading number of successful military campaigns in northern Syria he took advantage of say power vacuum in northern

Mesopotamia and also the fact that even the dynasty that was really in Babylon at the time was weakened by the rough factors and he reached Babylon he sacked it even kidnap local god marduca and that didn't lead to an excitation of Babylonian to the hit-eye king the man was too far away

and impossible to rule and control but as a symbolic actor certainly very very powerful but that's

the only director military confrontation we have between hit-ides and Babylonians because the countries were too far away actually to get into conflict and the reason then you get hit-ides fighting Egyptians is because the Egyptians want to measure the northern Syria and closer to the hit-eye hotlands right exactly I mean they had a border in common more or less where the current border

trying to expand it or further south or further north especially the Egyptians that would say where

“I kind of absolutely had you think of the chariots and everything like that I don't think we got”

well delve into the military in this case but but chariots they're a big part of this hit-eye story or they just what we associated with them today but we're actually quite a small part well I mean when the hit-eye army is mentioned it's made of soldiers and chariots they go together so yeah that become part of warfare in Mesopotamia in the late Bronze Age understood understood yeah I have to ask we have to look at West lastly Troy and the hit-ites

is there a connection here yeah there is if we agreed that the ancient side of Troy so ancient Troy corresponds to the city and the territory called the villaza in the hit-eye sources

“which has been associated with the illios the great name of Troy and that region was conquered”

but at that time it's at a certain point we have a treaty between hit-eye king and mortality

second and the king of villaza whose name was Aleksandu is a version of the Greek name like

Aleksandras so that part of Anatolia if villaza is a kisser like you so boy was at a certain point part of the hit-eye kingdom which stretched I mean at its peak from Western Anatolia the Gianco stone to Eastern Anatolia and included in northern Syria and even Cyprus Cyprus as well as the SOC fairing of its two and so could a Troy on the Western Age is a vassal state and people get very excited when they hear Aleksandu doing they they tried

“to associate it with Paris from the illiad and the Trojan war so that's another rabbit hole”

that I'm sure we could delve into another time but Aleina if the hit-ites end up being so powerful

in Anatolia as the Bronze Age progresses for centuries they're one of the big powers that are interacting with the other great states of the ancient Near East how does it all land how does it all come tumbling down what is the story of the end of the hit-ites yeah it's a story we're still doing a lot about because at some point they simply leave the hit-eye capital and we don't have sources telling us what happened exactly but how to show his abandoned at the beginning say of the

12th century this is part of a crisis that invests the whole Eastern Mediterranean not only the hit-eye kingdom the so-called the sea people are often associated with this crisis and this collapse of the Libra's age system of the great powers and the sea people are groups of populations which probably came from the western broadly speaking and are described and even represented in Egyptian beliefs on boats and you have this very famous relief from at the time of the

Ramesses III from Medinetable showing this towards boats with people attacking the coast basically

and the story is told in the Egyptian sources are very dramatic and they describe it as an invasion and a violent invasion it's difficult to confirm this version but it's true that many sites are abandoned or less at this time not only in Anatolia and some in the eventual traces of destruction another reason of this collapse at least for the hit-eye kingdom what we see in the sources from the last decades of the hit-eye history is that they seem to struggle to have enough

cereals and so the the grain supply seem to be so famine or drowned or to something like that yeah something like that might have played role as well but another factor of weakness could have been what we mentioned at the very beginning so struggles within the royal family so when the uncle took over from the nephew and see the third took power this probably cause some it's a friction to use an effemysman within not only the royal family but the court and the elite and having the

maintain on the power so it's probably a combination of factors that cause the the collapse of the

“hit-eye kingdom which however is only one of the big powers that disappears from the map at this time”

more or less of the same time even the massacenial civilization experiences across this Egypt as well Babylonia for different reasons it's generalized it's chaos yeah to rise chaos the Bronze Age collapse hit-eye don't fair too well in it and at the fact that they all kind of there's a very intense interaction they had in the previous centuries and decades probably made them in a way very much dependent on one another I mean at least the general balance they found it don't

wanna affect exactly because they're so interlinked one started to call and then it's a sort of dominant effect and that's the end of their story although you later I do see later on once again this is an episode in its own right you do see the word neo-hit-ites but are they very different from the

“hit-ites pre- Bronze Age collapse or should we also call them hit-ites well they are pretty different”

the in terms of extension for instance of the neo-hit-ite states or kingdom which are smaller kingdoms in southern Anatolia and northern Syria but they considered themselves as the hairs of the great hit-eye kingdom apart because some dinosaurs originally descended from the hit-ites and they use a right-in system and a language that was used also in the hit-eye kingdom next to a uniform and a hit-eye that the hit-ites developed also a right-in system that is called

Anatolian or Luvian aeroglyphic. Ah this is the higher glyphs of Anatolia okay. Yeah and that was used already at the time of the hit-ite kingdom also on official official text seals for instance and release and that becomes the right-in system and the language they used in this new

“hit-ite states so you see also a cultural and linguistic link with traditions that were”

already occurring at the time of the hit-ite kingdom. I say high glyphs they're not just Egyptian and I guess it explains as a tip if they saw themselves as the hairs as the successes while you have

a super Luleumah the second or third the neo-hit-ites and his mad statue if you type his name you see

this big bulging eyes looking at you so I guess that's yeah more that continuation into the Iron Age slightly different but that that continuation linguistic and the the name hit-ite. And the Assyrians kept calling this region a khati. Hati there you go so continues. Yeah yeah I mean the hit-ites didn't exist anymore but the name had been associated with northern Syria and part of Anatolia. Elaine that there's been such fascinating conversation a

wonderful introduction to the story of the hit-ites so much more we could explore but I guess that's also why this topic this Bronze Age civilization these people are so exciting today because there is a lot that we know about them and more has been discovered every day week month a year.

Mm-hmm yep that's true it's for me never ending it's a gold mine of stories that I like to

research first for for scientific purposes but and also like to read this text so with students because there they offer a lot of a lot of information and also a lot of opportunities to discuss about different aspects about disansion people interactive with each other. Elaine it just goes me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thank you thank you again.

Well there you go there was Dr. Elena Divelli giving you an introduction to the story of the hit-ites this remarkable Bronze Age power centered in Anatolia I hope you enjoyed the episode we've just scratched the surface with the story of the hit-ites there are so many different parts of their story that we can delve into in future episodes so really want to hear from you we do hope you enjoyed the episode let us know your thoughts let us know if you want more episodes

on the hit-ites in the future but in the meantime thank you for listening to this episode if you enjoy the ancient so far please make sure that you are following the show whether that be on Spotify or wherever you get to your podcast that really helps us you'll be doing us a big favor if it also be kind enough to leave us a rating too we'd really appreciate it really helps us out now last week don't forget you can also sign up to history hit for hundreds of hours of original

I'll see you in the next episode.

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