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New Hittite Kingdom: A Visual History

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Visual history of an empire

The Anatolian superpower of the Bronze Age that fought Egypt at Kadesh, wrote to pharaohs as equals and vanished so completely that it was rediscovered only in the nineteenth century.

Existed
1,400 BC to 1,180 BC
Duration
220 years
Existed
About 1400 to 1180 BC
Peak area
About 500,000 km2 (1300 BC)
Capital
Hattusa (Bogazkoy)
Notable kings
Suppiluliuma I, Mursili II, Muwatalli II, Hattusili III
Ended by
Bronze Age collapse, c. 1180 BC

The Hittite Empire, or New Kingdom, ran from about 1400 to 1180 BC. From Hattusa in central Anatolia, Suppiluliuma I destroyed Mitanni and made Syria Hittite; his successors Mursili II and Muwatalli II fought Egypt, culminating in the Battle of Kadesh around 1274 BC and the peace treaty of Hattusili III with Ramesses II. The Hittites had a rich cuneiform archive, an unusually humane law code and a pantheon of a thousand gods. Around 1180 BC, in the Bronze Age collapse, Hattusa was abandoned and burned; Neo-Hittite city-states in Syria carried on the name.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is New Hittite Kingdom (Hittite Empire). The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

2,000 BC1,800 BC1,600 BC1,400 BC1,200 BC1,000 BC800 BC600 BCNew Hittite Kingdom (Hittite Empire) (1,400 BC to 1,180 BC)Open: First Babylonian EmpireFirst Babylonian Empire (1,894 BC to 1,595 BC)Open: Old Hittite KingdomOld Hittite Kingdom (1,650 BC to 1,500 BC)Open: New Kingdom of EgyptNew Kingdom of Egypt (1,550 BC to 1,069 BC)Open: Middle Hittite KingdomMiddle Hittite Kingdom (1,500 BC to 1,400 BC)Open: MitanniMitanni (1,500 BC to 1,300 BC)Open: Middle Assyrian EmpireMiddle Assyrian Empire (1,365 BC to 1,050 BC)Open: PhrygiaPhrygia (1,200 BC to 700 BC)

Hittite territory

01252503755001,400 BC: 2001,340 BC: 4501,300 BC: 5001,250 BC: 4801,200 BC: 3501,180 BC: 01,400 BC1,375 BC1,350 BC1,325 BC1,300 BC1,275 BC1,250 BC1,225 BC1,200 BC1,180 BCthousand km2 (approximate)

Timeline of the New Hittite Kingdom (Hittite Empire)

  1. 1,400 BC
    New Kingdom period begins
  2. 1,350 BC
    Suppiluliuma IMitanni defeated; Syria conquered.
  3. 1,321 BC
    Mursili II
  4. 1,274 BC
    Kadesh
  5. 1,259 BC
    Treaty with Egypt
  6. 1,237 BC
    Tudhaliya IVYazilikaya.
  7. 1,180 BC
    Hattusa abandoned

Suppiluliuma

After a period of weakness Suppiluliuma I (about 1350-1322) rebuilt Hattusa's walls, crushed the Kaska raiders, defeated Mitanni and took northern Syria including Aleppo and Carchemish, installing his sons as viceroys. An Egyptian queen, probably Tutankhamun's widow, wrote asking for a Hittite prince as husband; the prince sent was murdered on the way, and the plague that Hittite prisoners brought back killed Suppiluliuma himself.

Kadesh and the peace

Mursili II subdued western Anatolia and recorded a plague-prayer confessing his father's sins. Muwatalli II moved the capital to Tarhuntassa and met Ramesses II at Kadesh in about 1274 in the largest chariot battle ever fought; both sides claimed victory, but Egypt withdrew and Kadesh stayed Hittite. Hattusili III usurped his nephew's throne, married the Hurrian priestess Puduhepa, and concluded the treaty of 1259 with Ramesses, sealed by a Hittite princess's marriage to the pharaoh.

Collapse

Tudhaliya IV carved the rock sanctuary at Yazilikaya and fought Assyria; famine, Sea Peoples' raids, revolts in the west and the loss of Cyprus's copper strained the empire. Under Suppiluliuma II, around 1180 BC, Hattusa was evacuated and burned; the empire disintegrated in the wider collapse. Neo-Hittite kingdoms at Carchemish, Malatya and elsewhere kept the Luwian hieroglyphs and the name 'Hatti' until Assyria absorbed them; the biblical Hittites are their memory.

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Empires of the same era and region

8 surprising things about the New Hittite Kingdom (Hittite Empire)

  1. The Hittites spoke the earliest recorded Indo-European language; the tablets were deciphered in 1915 by Bedrich Hrozny.
  2. The Hittite-Egyptian treaty of c. 1259 BC survives in both a Hittite cuneiform version and an Egyptian hieroglyphic one.
  3. Hittite laws punished most crimes with fines rather than death, and specify prices for stolen animals down to the age of the sheep.
  4. The Hittites called themselves the people of Hatti, taking the name of the earlier non-Indo-European Hattians.
  5. The Hittite king was 'My Sun'; the queen (Tawananna) had her own seal and reigned as high priestess for life.
  6. The Hittite chariot carried three men (driver, shield-bearer, warrior) against Egypt's two.
  7. The Hittites were experts in horse training; a manual by the Mitannian Kikkuli survives in the archives.
  8. The empire was so thoroughly forgotten that when it was rediscovered, only the Bible's scattered 'Hittites' preserved the name.

Sources

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