Facts about Hittites

The archaeologists who discovered the Anatolian Hittites in the nineteenth century initially believed the two peoples to be the same, but this identification remains disputed.

The Hittites were aware that they belonged to a common humanity, something that sometimes seems forgotten in the modern world.

The early Hittites, whose prior whereabouts are unknown, borrowed heavily from the pre-existing Hattian culture, and also from that of the Assyrian traders—in particular, the cuneiform writing and the use of cylindrical seals.

The Hittites are last mentioned by Ezra on his return from Babylonian captivity (Ezra 9:1, around 450 B.C.E.—long after the demise of the Anatolian Hittite empire).

The Hittites appear to have adopted aspects of religious practice and some of the deities of conquered peoples.

The first reference to the Hittites is in Genesis 23:10, where Abraham bought the family burial cave at Machpelah from "Ephron the Hittite" (???, HTY).

The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kьltepe (ancient Karum Kanesh), containing records of trade between Assyrian merchants and a certain "land of Hatti."

Starting with the conquest of Canaan, the Hittites—from now on always called ???, HTY—are listed, on a par with the Canaanites, as one of the seven mighty peoples living in the region.

The many peace treaties that have survived testify that the Hittites were a people who could make peace as well as war.

On the other hand, the view that the Biblical Hittites are related to the Anatolian Hittites remains popular.

The Hittites were famous for their skill in building and using chariots.

Civil war and rivaling claims to the throne, combined with the external threat of the Sea Peoples weakened the Hittites, and by 1160 B.C.E.

Others have proposed that the Biblical Hittites were a group of Kurushtameans.

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.

Later, in Genesis 26-36, two of Esau's wives are labeled as Hittites.

Correspondence survives between Rameses II of Egypt and Queen Puduhepa of the Hittites as early as the thirteenth century B.C.E.

the Hittites were bordering on the Egyptian sphere of influence, leading to the inconclusive Battle of Kadesh in the early thireenth century B.C.E., and then to the peace treaty with Egypt.

An episode in the time of Elisha (2 Kings 7:6) mentions "the kings of Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians" as mighty powers.

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

King Solomon also had Hittite wives (1 Kings 11:7), and traded with (or received tribute from) the kings of the Hittites, of Syria, and of Egypt (2 Chron.

The kings of the Hittites are mentioned in two similar passages, together with Egypt and the kings of Syria, as senders of lavish tribute to Solomon.