Who were the Hittites?
Anatolia was the homeland of a large complex of civilizations, the earliest of which extended back thousands of years before the beginning of the Bronze age. The Hittite kingdom was founded in the early or middle 17th century BC and lasted for about five hundred years.
The people themselves had no tribal name or a name for their own civilization. They called their land Hatti, and therefore they are referred to as Hittites, which means ‘people of the land of Hatti.’ The term Hittite first occurs in the Bible in reference to a tribe of Canaanites who lived in Palestine in the early first millennium BC.
Bronze is made from tin and copper, and there are no large deposits of tin in Anatolia, so the Hittites had to rely on imports from other peoples, mainly from Mesopotamia and Syria in the southeast. Their need for trade led to the Hittites creating political and administrative links between their nations.
Currently there is no way to determine the ethnicity of the people living in the area, or whether they were one people or many people who came from other lands. We also do not know the ethnicity of the rulers, though there is linguistic evidence to suggest that the rulers and elite class were descended from the IEs. Again, this is not confirmed but only a theory that cannot be proven or disproven.
They were a multi-racial people who had no single common ethnic background or a single common language. They were made at least of Indo-Europeans (Nesites, Luwians, and Palaians), Hattics, and Hurrians, as well as a probable mixture of Mesopotamians and Syrians. The only thing that gave them all common identity was the region in which they lived, being clearly defined with hills and the Red River. Most of the people lived on small farms and were subject to local rulers who could call on them for resources or to fight in the armies.
By the end of the third millennium BC, there were three known groups of people in Anatolia who spoke Indo-European languages: Luwians, Palaians, and Nesites.
Sometime around 2300 BC there were a surge of political and social upheavals, which scholars link to the arrival of the Indo-Europeans into the area. However, there is no definite evidence of a large influx of people to Anatolia in this era, so it is only a theory. It is known that the IEs were living in Anatolia, but it is unknown when they arrived. However, it is certain that they were living there by the end of the third millennium BC.
Tombs discovered at Alaca Höyük reflect a predominantly IE culture, and the people buried there would have spoken Nesite. The artifacts found in the tombs also suggest that those buried there were wealthy and part of the elite class, and so we’re able to theorize that if the elite spoke Nesite — an IE language — then perhaps the IE overtook the natives and ruled over them when they arrived in the area.
When they IEs did arrive, they most likely mixed freely with the natives there and the cultures and languages were mixed and adapted among them. The most apparent adoption of IE life in Anatolia was the language Nesite, which became the official language throughout the land. It was used in all official matters, both religious and secular, and was the mode of communication between rulers and subjects, as well as merchants both local and foreign.
The three IE languages spoken in Anatolia are similar enough linguistically that it suggests a dispersion after the IE people arrived. In other words, it is likely that a single tribe speaking a single language came to Anatolia, and only after they had settled and established their home there, the people split into three smaller peoples, and their three respective languages reflect this. The dispersion would have taken place in the third millennium BC.
The Nesite language, though it was used in religious context, was not treated as a holy language as was Latin or Greek. The language changed organically over the kingdom’s 500 year life span — evidence of a living language used by both the elite and the working classes. The fact that this language more than the other several language spoken in the area remained the official language of the court and religion is evidence enough to suggest that it was spoken to retain an ethnic tradition (at least originally, whether or not the reason was forgotten over the centuries).
The Assyrians established several merchant colonies in the eastern part of Anatolia for the purpose of trading with the Hittites. They brought writing to Anatolia, which officially began the history of the region.
