7-1 Hattusa

HITTITES
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Hittites is the conventional English-language term for an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa (Hittite Hattushash) where today is the village of Bo
azkÐy in north-central Turkey, through most of the second millennium BC.
The Hittite kingdom, which at its height controlled central Anatolia, north-western Syria down to Ugarit, and Mesopotamia down to Babylon, lasted from roughly 1680 BC to about 1180 BC. After 1180 BC, the Hittite polity disintegrated into several independent city-states, some of which survived as late as around 700 BC.
The Hittite kingdom, or at least its core region, was apparently called Hatti in the reconstructed Hittite language. However, the Hittites should be distinguished from the "Hattians", an earlier people who inhabited the same region until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, and spoke a non-Indo-European language conventionally called Hattic.
Hittites or more recently, Hethites is also the common English name of a Biblical people who are called Children of Heth. These people are mentioned several times in the Old Testament, from the time of the Patriarchs up to Ezra's return from Babylonian captivity; see Hittites in the Bible. The archaeologists who discovered the Anatolian Hittites in the 19th century initially believed the two peoples to be the same, but this identification remains disputed.The Hittites were also famous for their skill in building and using chariots. Some consider the Hittites to be the first civilization to have discovered how to work iron, and thus the first to enter the Iron Age.

The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kultepe (ancient Karum Kanesh), containing records of trade between Assyrian merchants and a certain "land of Hatti". Some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European.
The script on a monument at Bogazkoy by a "People of Hattusas" discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo and Hamath in Northern Syria. In 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Two of the letters from a "kingdom of Kheta" - apparently located in the same general region as the Mesopotamian references to "land of Hatti" - were written in standard Akkadian cuneiform script, but in an unknown language; although scholars could read it, no one could understand it. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the "kingdom of Kheta" mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Sayce's identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century; and so, rightly or wrongly, the name "Hittite" has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Bogazkoy.

Hattusas

heHittites had preserved memories when their kings had ruled from a city called Kussara

Around 1800 BC, one of the early kings, Anittas, began to extend his dominion by conquering first the city of Kanesh (Kayseri province), then Hattush. He seems to have transferred his government to Kanesh. Hattush, on the other hand, was destroyed and declared accursed. Between Anittas and the foundation of the Hittite kingdom there is a gap of several generations. Then the policy of expansion was continued by another king of Kussara, Labarnas, whose son another Labarnas, decided to rebuild and occupy Hattush - a natural stronghold domination the northern valleys. The city was thereafter known as Hattusha. This king was the true founder of the Hittite kingdom. Hattusha was the chief power and cultural force in West Asia from 1400 to 1200 B.C.

Hattusas

The city was sacked again in about 1400 BC by invaders from the north and east. However, in the early 14th century BC, Hattusas was rebuilt and enlarged by Suppiluliumas, the Great King of Hatti.

It remained as the capital for more that 200 years before falling due to internal pressures and invasions from the outside. Only two parts of the city were ever re-inhabited, Büyükkaya and the early citadel rock of Büyükkale. They were re-inhabited by the Phrygians.





The first Indo-European empire: 17th century BC

A group of tribes, speakingIndo-Europeanlanguages and collectively known as the Hittites, establish themselves as the dominant power in Anatolia. Their capital is at Bogazkoy, a dramatically fortified city on a steep slope among ravines; its walls and towers enclose no fewer than five great temples.

The priest-king who makes this place his capital in the 17th century BC is Hattusilis I. He has ambitions for his people. Moving south and east with his army, he reaches the Mediterranean and continues into northern Syria.










Eager to give his empire full credentials, Hattusilis brings back from Syria a team of scribes, expert incuneiform. They adapt the cuneiform script to a new purpose, the recording of an Indo-European language, and they lay the foundation for an important state archive at Bogazkoy.

When the clay tablets of this archive are discovered, in the 20th century, they provide the basis for our knowledge of the Hittites.







The magic of iron: from 1500 BC

The Hittites are the first people to work iron, in Anatolia from about 1500 BC. In its simple form iron is less hard than bronze, and therefore of less use as a weapon, but it seems to have had an immediate appeal - perhaps as the latest achievement of technology (with the mysterious quality of being changeable, through heating and hammering), or from a certain intrinsic magic (it is the metal in meteorites, which fall from the sky).

Quite how much value is attached to iron can be judged from a famous letter of about 1250 BC, written by a Hittite king to accompany an iron dagger-blade which he is sending to a fellow monarch (seeLetter from a Hittite king).

Read more:http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab66#ixzz4BWgLLxsx

Iron - The secret weapon?

Her armies would surprise the Egyptians at Kadesh, deliver Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, from a Syrian army, and overwhelm the defenders of Babylon. The Hittites seemingly appeared out of nowhere, struck decisively, and then, almost as quickly, disappeared.  From a distance, success seemed only explainable in mythical terms, unrelated to superior tactics, training or fighting ability. There was the suspicion (or hope) that it was the iron in their weapons that gave them an edge. The primitive bronze weapons of their enemies broke against the iron blades wielded by the Hittite soldiers.  The story of a superior race of people, with an advanced technology, reinforced the special status conferred by their mention in the Bible.  Perhaps the saviors of the Israelites were human agents of a Divine plan of retribution or salvation. The secret of iron had been revealed to them as part of that plan.  The Hittite legend is not entirely false, since they are credited with the "discovery" or development of iron technology, even if their exploits have been somewhat embellished with time.

Iron probably was not the mythical secret weapon which explained Hittite military success. However, they did develop a smelting process capable of producing iron tools, weapons, and ornamental objects.  Their process was the result of years of metal-working experience, not simply an accidental  byproduct of an iron rock falling into a fire.

Discovering that rocks can melt...

The melting temperature of three metals, iron, copper, and tin, is at the heart of the Hittite discovery.  Iron has a melting point of 1535 degrees C (about 2795 degrees F), copper melts at 1083 degrees C (about 1972 degrees F), and tin melts at 231.97 degrees C (about 422 F).  In one sense, the history of metals involved two very simple, but separate ideas.  The first was the discovery that solid rock would melt.  The second was the development of a process capable of producing the temperatures at which ore would turn into liquid.

Tin may have represented the breakthrough metal.  With a melting point of 232 degrees C, it probably was one of the earliest metals observed to liquefy.  In terms of the smelting process itself, the temperature threshold would be relatively easy to achieve and sustain.  Where or when such knowledge was first acquired would be difficult to pinpoint.  There is evidence that it was first used in the Zagros Mountains of what is now western Iran after 3500 B.C..  Whether that knowledge moved west or was discovered independently, tin mining and smelting was occurring in southern Anatolia shortly after that.  About 60 miles north of Tarsus is an ancient Anatolian village called Göltepe in the Taurus Mountains.  While its population was small, at only 500 or 1,000 people, it had been occupied between 3290 B.C. and 1840 B.C..  Economic life revolved around a nearby tin mine.  An extensive network of tunnels, some over a mile in length, had been dug into the mountain.  (It may have been the scene of some of the earliest mining accidents, since the skeletons of children have been found there.)

The mining process at Göltepe began by heating the mine face. Fires would soften the ore so that it could be chiseled more easily.  Once the ore had been hauled to the surface it was smelted. Smelting involved heating in small ceramic crucibles.  Charcoal, which was layered between the tin ore, provided the heat source. Temperatures may have reached 2,000 degrees F, possibly achieved through the use of reed pipe "bellows."

The Bronze Age

Tin had a market in its own right. However, the miners of Göltepe found the tin market sustained by the demand for bronze. Bronze was the alloy produced when tin was added to copper. Copper, with a melting temperature of 1083 degrees C, would seemingly have been a much more difficult metal to decipher than tin.  Despite that apparent obstacle, copper was in use long before tin.  Copper beads from sites in northern Iraq, have been dated to 9000 B.C. Catal Hüyük, another Hittite city, may have been smelting copper, as well as lead, as early as 5400 B.C.. The Copper Age (or early Bronze Age) has been assigned various starting dates -  5000 B.C., according to some, 4000 or 3500 B.C. according to others.   The Bronze Age, similarly, has a starting date of 4000, 3000, 2500, or even 2000 B.C..  The Shang Civilization (1700 - 1100) is credited with starting the Bronze Age in China.

The Bronze Age ended with the beginning of the Iron Age.  Unfortunately there is no agreement on just when the Iron Age began.  Some date its beginnings to 1500 B.C., about the time the Hittites may have started working with iron.  Others give it a range of between 1500 and 1000 B.C.. Still others have dated it to 1200 B.C., when the Hittite Empire came to an end. Others assign its beginnings to around 1000 B.C., some 200 years after the end of the Hittite Empire.  The basis for such a comparatively late date is that iron usage had become commonplace around the Mediterranean by that time. The start of the Iron Age also depended on location.  The Halstatt Iron Age in central Europe is dated to 850 B.C. and Egypt's Iron Age began around 700 B.C.. Indian cities entered the Iron Age sometime after 600 B.C.. The Iron Age has continued to the present, even if its beginnings are uncertain.

Uncertainties about the beginning dates of the Copper, Bronze or Iron Ages stem from their broad meanings. They are intended to describe general stages of human development, rather than specific events or accomplishments.  They could not have occurred without the discovery of copper or iron, but the date of the discovery or first use did not necessarily mark the beginning of an age.  The occasional crafting of trinkets or tools proved that metals were being used, but small-scale or occasional production did not amount to an "Age."  The Bronze or Iron Ages required, not only the ability to produce bronze or iron products on a large scale, but also fairly widespread use.  An Age, in other words, demanded a large-scale market, i.e., an economy somewhat larger than that of a local village or tribe.

Gold may help to illustrate the problems in defining a metals age.  While gold articles and the work of ancient goldsmiths are the most enduring and familiar treasures of the ancient world, the likelihood of an Age of Gold is extremely remote. The experience and skills of early craftsmen demonstrated a thorough knowledge of metalworking. Unfortunately, the scarcity of gold limited the market to ornamental items, since only kings or wealthy individuals could afford it.

The Hittites may have been able to produce and work iron, but production was too limited to support the mass markets demanded for designation as an Iron Age. One Hittite king, in the 13th Century B.C., apologetically sent an iron dagger blade to another king.  The amount of iron the foreign monarch had requested, he explained, would not be ready for some time.  The Bronze Age thus saw the anomaly of an iron-making capability and limited demand for the metal before the Iron Age began.

The Iron Age

The modern blast furnace produces temperatures hotter than 1600 degrees C (3000 degrees F), well above the melting point of iron (1535 degrees C) (2795 degrees F). An initial question, in analyzing the capabilities of Hittite technology, is whether it could have reached the melting point of iron or, if it could, whether that temperature could have been sustained for any period of time.  The immediate response is that it must have achieved those goals, since the evidence suggests that the Hittites were regularly producing iron.  That would be a remarkable achievement, given what one would expect from an ancient technology.  However, there may be two other factors which might impact any analysis.  The first is the fact that while the melting temperature of pure iron is something of an absolute, the addition of carbon, (a process known as carburization), can reduce the melting point to about 1170 degrees C (2138 degrees F).  A second factor is the possibility that iron could be produced and worked at a temperature below its melting point.

Modern iron making offers a window into the past.  In some ways the basic technology, if more refined and systematized, has changed little in 3500 years.  The goal of the modern blast furnace, to produce a pure iron product, is the same as that of the ancient furnace or oven.   The modern furnace may generate hotter temperatures and better iron, but the basic idea revolves around heat generation and temperature. 

Iron, in its natural state, has a tendency to combine with oxygen, producing iron oxide, commonly observed as rust.  Removing impurities, starting with oxygen, has been the universal problem encountered by iron makers.  The secret to eliminating oxygen is to use a substance, known as a reducing agent, with a greater affinity for oxygen than iron. Charcoal and coke have been the two most commonly used reducing agents. Both serve dual purposes.  As fuels, they generate the temperatures capable of melting iron.  As carbon sources (coke is nearly 90 percent carbon), they carburize the iron, reducing its melting point and also serve as reducing agents to remove the oxygen. Oxygen is not the only impurity found in iron ore.  Some can be removed with limestone, which, like a reducing agent, will combine with such impurities, lowering their melting point.  The slag which forms separates from the iron and floats to the surface.

One of the problems faced by the Hittite iron makers involved the amount of carbon to be added. Additional amounts of carbon may lower the melting point of iron, but also make it extremely difficult to shape.  Cast iron, the product, can only be shaped by use of a mold.  As the liquid cools it assumes the shape of the mold.  Wrought iron, in contrast, contains far less carbon, but requires a temperature close to the melting point of pure iron. The advantage over cast iron is malleability.  Normally wrought iron is made with an additional ingredient, silica, found in sand. Steel includes a limited amount of carbon or the addition of other elements, such as manganese or nickel.

The Hittites appear to have produced an iron which could be reheated and worked, suggesting that their product was a form of wrought iron or some version similar to carbon steel.  Charcoal was used as the reducing agent, layered with the iron ore in shallow hearths.  The temperatures may not have reached the melting point, but they were sufficient to remove the oxygen after several hours, leaving a shiny metal.  Limestone may have been used to remove other impurities or iron workers may have reheated the iron and hammered out the impurities which were left.

The Hittites occupied the region ofAnatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 BCE, developed a culture apparently from the indigenous Hatti (and possibly the Hurrian) people, and expanded their territories into anempire which rivaled, and threatened, the established nation of Egypt. They are repeatedly mentioned throughout the Hebrew Tanakh (also known as the Christian Old Testament) as the adversaries of the Israelites and their god. According to Genesis 10, they were the descendants of Heth, son of Canaan, who was the son of Ham, born of Noah (Genesis 10: 1-6). The name they are known by today, therefore, comes from the Bible and from the Amarna Letters of Egypt which reference a "Kingdom of Kheta" identified today as the `Kingdom of Hatti' (the designation the land of the Hittites was known by) but their own documents refer to them as Nesili, as do others of the time.  Their control of the region is divided by modern-day scholars into two periods: The Old Kingdom (1700-1500 BCE), and the New Kingdom, also known as theHittite Empire (1400-1200 BCE). There is an interregnum between these two which, to those who accept that version of history, is known as the Middle Kingdom. The discrepancy between those scholars who recognize a Middle Kingdom and those who do not arises from the fact that there was no discontinuity between the Old Kingdom and the New, merely a `dark age’ of less than 100 years about which little is known.  The Hittite Empire reached its peak between under the reign of King Suppiluliuma I(c.1344-1322 BCE) and his son Mursilli II (c.1321-1295 BCE) after which it declined and, after repeated attacks by the Sea Peoples and the Kaska tribe, fell to the Assyrians.