HISTORY OF THE HITTITES The earliest information concerning Asia Minor relates to the first half of the third millennium B.C. Eastern Asia Minor was already inhabited by the non-Indo-European Khatti. The rich natural resources of the country attracted the Sumero-Babylonians and Assyrians, who founded colonies and kingdoms there. About 2635 B.C. the powerful ruler, Sargon of Akkad, undertook a cam paign against the city Purushkhanda, in Asia Minor, governed by a king with the Accadian name Nur-Dagan. According to text of uncertain historical value the most powerful of the successors of Sargon of Akkad, King Naramsin (25th century B.c.) , f ought a victorious battle against a coalition of 17 kings which included Pamba, king of Khatti (now Boghazkeui), Zipani, king of Kanesh (now Kara Euyuk and Kultepe near Caesarea), and Khuvdruvash, king of Amurru in Southern Syria. It is not certain whether it is permitted to infer from the name Khuvdruvash, of wholly Hittite character, that the invasion of Asia Minor, even of Syria, by the first Indo-Europeans, the Lfiites (in part also the true Hittites?) took place as early as the first centuries of the third millennium B.C. Naramsin had also to defend his empire against the attack of the Ummdn-Manda "troops of peoples" which came from the North, and in which then, as later, are to be seen in the first line Indo-European, Aryan peoples. One of these peoples may have been the later Aryans of Khurri-Mitanni.
Further light on the most ancient history of Asia Minor is thrown by the old Assyrian (also called Cappadocian), cuneiform tablets of Kultepe-Kanesh, which date from the 21st century and which were discovered partly by the secret diggings of natives, and partly by the official excavations of Hrozny in 1925. The original stock of the population is Khatti; the native prince of Purush khanda? (or Khatti) is called Labarsha, in an inscription found by Hrozny's expedition. This name is Khattish (cf. the later Khatti-Hittite royal name and kingly title Labarna-Tabarna.) Meanwhile the Assyrian empire had become very powerful ; East ern Asia Minor was subject to it. In the cities resided rich As syrian merchants who were organized in gdru's "Bazaars" and carried on a flourishing trade in the products of Asia Minor. The Indo-European Hittites had already invaded this territory as is shown by distinctly Indo-European names, such as Thar (cf. ?yip "man"), also Inarava, Khalkiasliu (cf. Indo-Eur.-Hittite khalkish "corn") and others. While the political centre of the Khatti was the city Khatti and the first Indo-Europeans, the Luites, were concentrated in the South, in Arzava-Luya, it may be that the Indo-European Hittites, at first (probably however after 2000 B.C.), had settled mainly around the cities Kanesh and Kushar. Inscriptions do not state that the city Kanesh was once also a political centre of the Indo-European Hittites. Probably the invasion of the Indo-European Hittites in the loth century B.e. made an end of the Assyrian rule in Cappadocia. Eastern Asia Minor was subdivided again, as for example in the time of the kings of Akkad, into a number of small mutually hostile states, over which the Indo-European conquering people, called by us Hittites, now attempt to rule. One of the important rulers, of this time, the great king Anittash, of Kushshar, about the beginning of the 19th century B.C. vanquished Pijushtish, then king of the town Khatti (himself, possibly, also a Hittite), then the king of Neshash, the king of the city Zalpuva (Zalpa), situated ap parently somewhere in the coastal region, and rulers of Purush khanda and Shalativara.
Some generations later, about 1800 B.C., there ruled in Kush shar the great conqueror Tlabarnash, whose name is written Tabarnash or Labarnash, and who extended his kingdom as far as to the sea. His successes are so great that his name and that of his wife, Tlabarnash and Tavannannash, were used as titles of honour by the later Hittite kings and queens. The kingdom, thus greatly enlarged, later on undertook military expeditions beyond Asia Minor. In Mesopotamia, Syria and South Armenia, in the first half of the second millennium B.C., the effect of the invasion of the East Indo-European peoples—of the Aryans of Khurri Mitanni—becomes more evident. A series of Aryan-Khurrish states arose here : among which the most notable are Khanigalbat (= Khurri-Mitanni) in Mesopotamia and the great kingdom Khalap (now Aleppo) in Syria. The great king Khattushilish I., a son of Tlabarnash, who lived in Kushshar, but apparently also in Khattushash-Boghazkeui fought against Khalap successfully. His successor Murshilish I. who transferred the seat of the Hittite Dynasty to Khattushash, succeeded about the year 1758 B.c. in vanquishing not only Khalap and the Khurri, but even Babylon itself, and overthrew the Khammurabi dynasty in Baby lonia. During the remainder of the 18th and the 17th-15th cen turies B.C. the Hittites were engaged in internal disorders and external campaigns, especially against the Khurri. From the Syrian Khurri, who were strongly mingled with Khatti, Hittite and Semite elements, went out the people, known as the Hyksos, who took possession of Egypt about 1685 B.C. (The Hyksos names are probably partly of Semitic and partly of Syrian-Asianic origin. Only the name of the Hyksos king, Khendder or Khenddel, may be here mentioned, which is of linguistic interest as recalling the name of the Hittite king Khantilish, the successor of Murshilish I.) The great king Telepinush attempted, about 1600 B.c., to reor ganize the shattered kingdom. The Hittite rulers of the i 5th cen tury B.C. may still be reckoned as belonging to the Old Empire, though the forerunners of the New one. Tudkhalijash II. suc ceeded in reuniting the kingdom and breaking the power of the confederate kingdoms of Khanigalbat (Khurri-Mitanni) and Khalap; but still some time after this, Khattushilish II. fought successfully against Khalap and Mitanni.
The New Empire which begins about 1385 B.C. with the brilliant Hittite king Shuppiluliumash, son of Tudkhalijash III., embraced the last two centuries of the Hittite kingdom. During this time the Khatti kingdom exercised the most profound influence on the destiny of the Near East. It may certainly be considered as, for some time, the first military and political power of the East at that epoch. The united Hittite kingdom sought to extend its sphere of influence in all directions, by means of wars, alliances and treaties with vassals, as well as by dynastic marriages. A power ful confederation of States came into existence, which, however, composed of very dissimilar elements, could not be of long dura tion. The resurrection of the Indo-European Hittite empire was facilitated by the decay of the Khurri kingdom, ruled over by an Aryan dominant class which took place in the 14th century B.c. The Khurri kingdom, Khanigalbat dissolved into two enemy states, Khurri and Mitanni (with the capital Vashshugganni), which we may seek perhaps in Ras el-Ain in North Mesopotamia; cf. Opitz in Zeitsohr f. Assyr. 1927, 299 et seq.), against which Shuppiluliumash was able to fight. The king Tushratta ruled in Mitanni at this time. Shuppiluliumash established his power al most over the whole of Syria, where he successfully checked the Egyptian influence. His armies advanced thence as far as the territory of Lebanon. He also subdued the people of Gashga between the Euphrates and the Halys, and by means of alliances and marriages, bound Khajasha on the Upper Euphrates and Arzava in southern Asia Minor to the Hittite empire, with which Kizvatna-Pontos was also very closely allied. After the death of the Pharaoh Bibkhururiash ( =Tutankhamen?) his widow sought to marry one of the sons of Shuppiluliumash, but the Hittite prince was murdered by Egyptians on his way to Egypt. The political and military activities of the Hittite king dom were conducted on the same lines with many vicissitudes, in the reign of the successors of Shuppiluliumash which however can not be described here in detail. His son and second successor Murshilish II. (about 1340 B.c.) belongs to the most enterprising and warlike rulers not only of the Hittite kingdom, but even of the ancient East as a whole. This great king also took special interest in Western Asia Minor, where he came into touch with the Greeks as Forrer was the first to point out, though his views as Friedrich specially has shown, are in many instances untenable. The city and the country Akhkhiyavd, which now appear in the Hittite inscriptions and which are there named together with Lazpash, perhaps=Lesbos, can be probably connected with Gr. 'AXaipa and the Achaeans (q.v.), which are for the rest mentioned in an inscription of Pharaoh Menneptah (c. 1240 B.c.). It is, how ever, impossible (with Forrer) to seek this Akhkhiyavd in Greece. It is probably a country situated on the coast of Western Asia Minor near the island Lesbos. Further both on linguistic and real grounds, it is not possible to identify Tavagalavash, who at the time of Murshilish was perhaps a vassal of Akhkhiyavd, and who wished to become a vassal of the Hittites, with the mythical king Eteokles ('ETEfoKXEffs) of Orchomenos in Boeotia. To iden tify Antaravash, mentioned in an oracle text, which names also Akhkhiyavd and Lazpash, with Andreus, the father of Eteokles of Orchomenos, is also very risky. Again, Forrer has failed to prove that the king Attarishshijash of Akhkhiyd (probably = Akhkhi yava), an opponent of the Hittite king Tudkhaliyash IV. (cir. 1240 B.C.) is the same as Atreus, king of Mycenae and father of Aga memnon. Forrer's opinion that the Hittite word a javalash means Aeolian and that Troy might be recognized in Hittite inscriptions in the name Taruisha, which Forrer reads Troisa, which however should be read Tarvisha, is also erroneous.
At the present time we may reasonably admit only the existence of an Achaian state in Asia Minor, represented by Akhkhiyavd and Lazpa (probably not to be identified with Zalpa), and await further information from the future. (Kretschmer [Glotta 12] compares the king Alakshandush [cir. 13oo B.c.] of Vilusha Elaiussa with the Homeric Alexandros-Paris.) On the relations between the Hittites and the Greeks, see also below the chapter on the Hittite myths.
Other powerful Hittite rulers of this age were the sons of Murshilish II., Muvattallish (Muttallish) about i3oo B.c., who vanquished at Kadesh the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II. (see above), and Khattushilish III., who concluded an alliance with the same Pharaoh about the year 1272 B.C. (See also above.) Tudkhalijash IV. (cir. 124o B.c.), son of Khattushilish III., ap parently still extended his kingdom westwards by successful wars. But already about the year 1 190 B.C. under his second successor Tudkhalijash V., the Hittite kingdom fell under the attack of the so-called sea peoples and that of the Indo-European Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians, who followed in their train and forced their way into Asia Minor. Shortly before this the Mitanni king dom was conquered by the Assyrians. Subsequently small Hittite Khurrish states arose in Syria, such as Carchemish and Kunulua. Yet these too were gradually overthrown by the Assyrians; Carchemish itself fell under the attack of Sargon II. in 717 B.c.