Hittites

"Hittites" is the conventional English-language term for an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa (the modern village of Boğazköy in north-central Turkey), through most of the second millennium BC.

Related Topics:
Indo-European language - Hattusa - Turkey

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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.

Related Topics:
Anatolia - Syria - Ugarit - Babylon

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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.

Related Topics:
Hittite language - Hattians - Hattic

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Hittites or more recently, Hethites is also the common English name of a Biblical people (חתי or HTY in the consonant-only Hebrew script), who are also called Children of Heth (בני-חת, BNY HT). 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.

Related Topics:
Hebrew script - Old Testament - Patriarch - Ezra - Babylonian captivity - Hittites in the Bible

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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.

Related Topics:
Chariot - Iron

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