Hittite Articles

The ancient Near East, and the Fertile Crescent in particular, is generally seen as the birthplace of agriculture. In the fourth millennium BC this area was more temperate than it is today, and it was blessed with fertile soil, two great rivers (the Euphrates and the Tigris), as well as hills and mountains to the north. The region was highly diverse... [continue reading]

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 URUḪattuša) in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, south-western Syria as far... [continue reading]

While its origins remain mysterious even today, the Hittite Empire was one of the most significant of the Mesopotamian kingdoms, powerful enough to bring down the commanding Babylonians and their strict ways of life. The Hittites burst on to the Mesopotamian scene sometime around the late 18th century B.C. At its height, the Hittite Empire covered Anatolia... [continue reading]

The foundation of the Assyrian dynasty can be traced to Zulilu, who is said to have lived after Bel-kap-kapu (ca. 1900 BC), the ancestor of Shalmaneser I. The city-state of Ashur rose to prominence in northern Mesopotamia, founding trade colonies in Cappadocia. King Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1791 BC) expanded the domains of Ashur by defeating the kingdom... [continue reading]

Ramesses II (known as Ramesses The Great) ruled Egypt for 67 years in the 12th century BCE and, today, the Egyptian landscape still bears testimony to the prosperity of his reign in the many temples and monuments he had built in honor of his conquests and accomplishments. Among his greatest moments as Pharaoh, however, is not an act of war but one of peace... [continue reading]

The cuneiform script proper emerges out of pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium BC. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first documents unequivocally written in the Sumerian language date to the 31st century, found at Jemdet Nasr. The Sumerians of the Uruk period used clay tokens... [continue reading]

This overview examines the impact of horsepower on Old World society over the last 6,000 years. Analysis of man’s symbiosis with the domesticated horse necessarily takes the reader to regions remote from urban centers and pays special attention to mobile elements of nomadic society, too often deemed marginal or transitory. The discussion first grapples... [continue reading]