The state of the Hittites, a people who once came to Asia Minor, arose in the XVIII-XVI centuries BC. It was gaining strength very quickly. The aliens defeated Babylon, defeated the state of Mitannia, they made even Egypt, the first power of the Ancient World, afraid of themselves. The Hittites are mentioned in the Bible, but in a strange way then disappear from the annals of the Ancient World. Already the Greek ancient historians did not say a word about this people. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century AD - 38 centuries later - archaeologists found material traces of this state in Turkey. The Hittites built, as cuneiform records say, 1600 cities on the Anatolian plateau. Over the past century, less than a dozen of their ruins have been found. And the complete history of this lost kingdom is not yet available, there are only its fragments.
The high hill is a sandy part of the city of Hattusas, the capital of the ancient Hittite empire.
CHRONICLES COLLECTED BY SYLLABLES
In 1906, the German orientalist Hugo Winkler, almost in the center of the Asia Minor peninsula, stumbled upon the grandiose foundations of the once majestic buildings. As it turned out later, these were the ruins of the Hittite capital - Hattusas. Winkler, despite his knowledge of the Ancient East, found himself in a dead end: he read cuneiform, but could not understand the meaning of what was written. A European would find himself in approximately the same position if he unrolled a Turkish newspaper in Latin script: the letters are known, but the words are not!
Later, diplomatic correspondence of ancient peoples helped - its texts were written both in the newly discovered, unknown, and in the already known language. Particularly helpful was the peace treaty concluded in 1260 BC between Egypt and the Hittites. It is written in the Babylonian language, already mastered by scientists, and in Egypt it was immortalized in hieroglyphs. But the mystery remained: who are the Hittites, whose king, Hattusili III, signed this treaty with Ramses II, where they came from. The strong kingdoms of antiquity are all counted, and then suddenly we are talking about a power, almost equal to Egypt (as can be judged by the treaty), but it seems to be not in history.
The Czech researcher Grozny, who studied the cuneiform signs of the Hittites, found that the language of this people belongs to the Indo-European group, and its traces can still be found in modern speech. For example, the German verb “is” sounds like “essential”. The Hittites pronounced the same verb as "ezzen". The evolution of the word "water" is even clearer: for the British it is "water", for the Germans it is "wasser", for the Hittites it is "vadar" …
But where did the Hittites come from on the Anatolian Peninsula? Where is their ancestral home? Studying the Hittite language and folklore from cuneiform writings, researchers found that the general, main prayer of the people began with the words:
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“O heavenly sun-god, shepherd of all people!
You ascend from the sea, heavenly Sun!"
In the capital of the Hittites, these exclamations did not correspond to the local landscape in any way - the city was tightly ringed with a mountainous horizon. And the canonical text of the hymn made the worshipers sing about the sunrises of the sea that their distant ancestors saw. And the assumption was born that before Anatolia the Hittites lived on the shores of either the Caspian or the Black Sea. Then this Indo-European tribe passed, apparently, through the Caucasus (and maybe through the Dardanelles) to the high plateau of Central Anatolia, where, having forced out the few aborigines called Hittites, it settled, taking the name of this people. The Hittites took over cuneiform (albeit with changes), in all likelihood, from the Assyrians, whose merchants kept their trading posts here.
In the beginning, the Hittites were an unremarkable group of tribes. The first notable event in their history took place under the leadership of King Hattusili I (1650-1620 BC) - he created the so-called Ancient Hittite state. Over time, the state became noticeably stronger, under King Mursili I (1620-1590 BC) the Hittites captured and plundered powerful Babylon, but left this city. Later, Mursili I was killed as a result of a palace conspiracy; strife within the dynasty suspended the development of the country for decades.
The Hittites were almost the first to master the secret of iron making in the Bronze Age. Products made from it were valued above gold. The then kings and leaders in every way tried to get an iron dagger from Anatolia. They were first forged from meteorites - pieces of metal falling from the sky, later the Hittites learned to mine and smelt ore. The production of blades, before which no bronze could resist, immediately earned this people fame among their neighbors and enriched the state.
The Hittites stood out among their contemporaries in spiritual terms. They worshiped not only their gods (their main god was the "thunder god" - the "weather god"), but also the gods of neighboring peoples and trade partners. They borrowed the god Baal from defeated Babylon, and attracted the god of fertility from Egypt to their pantheon. Such polytheism had, from the point of view of the Hittites, one indisputable advantage: one god did not hear their prayers, another would hear, a third …
Excavations in the eighties of the XX century showed that all this doubt of the gods is embodied in stone, however, the gods were not depicted separately, but usually in rows.
Archaeologists discovered one of the most curious havens of the Hittite gods quite recently, in 1993. It is not like those that other peoples arranged for their shrines. In this temple of the Hittites, everything is subordinated to the plan, in which spatial geometry apparently played a leading role. At that time, the neighbors of the Hittites did not know such places of worship.
The history of its discovery is as follows. Scientists were looking in the deserted steppe for some sign that speaks of the life of ancient people. Fate threw them a fragment of a clay tablet with a wedge-shaped inscription. The text was familiar - about sacrifices made to some god. But cuneiform is a sure sign that other traces of human activity can be found here. Indeed, the excavations, or rather geomagnetic studies of the area, have revealed the foundations of dense, geometrically thought-out urban development covered with soil. It was the city of Sarissa, founded in the 16th century BC. e. southeast of the capital Hattusas in a clean place. The temple in question was also opened here. In terms of its size: 50ґ36 meters, which is equal to a quarter of the area of a modern football field.
FIRST TREATY OF PEACE
The most striking event that happened at the beginning of the XIII century BC. e. in the history of the Hittite state - the war with Egypt. Both powers have long been at enmity, seeking to establish their power over Syria, a country where the most important trade routes crossed, connecting Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Egypt and Arabia. Controlling the small Syrian principalities and taking tribute from them was equally tempting to both Egypt and the Hittite kingdom.
But the Hittites had an advantage, they were adjacent to Syria, and the Egyptians had to overcome almost a thousand kilometers to be at the borders of the desired land. However, Pharaoh Thutmose III (reign: 1525-1473 BC) nevertheless managed to conquer many lands in Western Asia, in particular Syria and Palestine, turning them into provinces of Egypt.
When the energetic king Suppilulium I (1380-1340 BC) appeared on the Hittite throne, happiness turned towards the young kingdom. It expelled the Egyptians from Syria, who had owned this rich land for over a hundred years.
Years passed. Once a secret messenger delivered to the Hittite king Muwatalla a letter from a Hittite agent operating in Egypt. The report said: the young Pharaoh Ramses II (he began to reign in 1292 BC) is preparing his army for a campaign against the Hittites. This message came as a surprise: Ramses is only five years on the throne. Is he able to assemble a strong army?
At the royal council, Muwatallah laid out his plan: to lure the army of Ramses into a trap and defeat the Egyptians. Mobilizing the country, Muwatallah ordered all the provinces and allies to gather troops and move them to the gathering place, to the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River. From a military point of view, Kadesh was convenient: located on a hill, he dominated the river valley. It was possible to observe the movement of the enemy from afar unnoticed. And then trade and strategic roads crossed here, from here the routes went to northern Syria and to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
In April 1288 BC. e. the army of Ramses II went on a campaign. The Egyptians went to Kadesh. Ramses' headquarters, like himself, was in the first detachment named after the god - Amun. Three more detachments followed him with a lag. Approaching Kadesh, Ramses gave the army a rest: there was a difficult crossing over the Orontes River. (We have survived several detailed descriptions of this battle, drawings, and even a poem composed by the Egyptian Pentaura.)
The next day, two horsemen, the Hittites, were caught at the crossing. They said they were deserters from the army of Muwatallah and reported that the king of the Hittites avoided meeting the Egyptian at Kadesh and led his army to the north. Ramses, anticipating an easy victory and not waiting for the approach of the troops walking behind, began to ferry Amon's detachment across the river. He was in a hurry. Not all the soldiers had yet crossed the river, when the pharaoh, together with his palace soldiers, took up a position at the northwestern fortress walls of Kadesh.
Muwatalla's cunning plan worked: Ramses believed the king's agents who played the role of deserters. In fact, the Hittite troops were on the other side of the fortress. With any movement of the Egyptians, the king constantly moved his troops (as children play now, hiding behind a thick tree). Ramses II set up camp at the walls of Kadesh. The pharaoh's tent was placed in the center, and a circular barrier was erected from the chariots that delivered provisions. One of the Egyptian sentries noticed two spies. Under torture, they confessed that the Hittite army was nearby, on the other side of the fortress.
At this time, the Hittite chariots unnoticed wade across the river and rushed to the second detachment of Ramses, who had not yet fully crossed the river. The chariots broke through the center of the detachment, which was moving in marching order. Part of the Egyptians ran to the Pharaoh's headquarters, but the Hittite chariots rushed after them. True, the palace guards repulsed this onslaught, but a wave of 2500 Hittite chariots rushed after the pharaoh's camp, they surrounded the pharaoh's camp with a ring. Amon's detachment, which found itself without commanders (they conferred with Ramses), was confused. Panic arose, it was intensified by the soldiers who came running from the defeated detachment, and the two combat-ready detachments were still far away.
The Egyptians lost almost all chances of salvation. But Ramses II, gifted with military talent and courage, decided to break through the ring of Hittite chariots and, having managed to find a weak spot in the encirclement ring, pushed the Hittites into the river. The bravery and decisiveness of Ramses added the word "Great" to his title, although many attribute this epithet to the violent construction activities of the pharaoh in subsequent years.
King Muwatalla and his eight thousandth infantry stood on the other side of the river. He saw how his soldiers were dying, but the king did not leave the hope of success. Indeed, the Hittite chariots made their way to the center of the Egyptian camp, and victory seemed to be near. And then the unexpected happened: the Hittite warriors, amazed by the luxury and wealth of Ramses's tent and the tents of his retinue, could not resist the plunder - the military spirit was replaced by the spirit of marauding. At that time, a small Egyptian detachment came from the side of the sea. The Hittite robbers faced brutal reprisals. The approaching detachment of the Egyptians, together with the surviving remnants of the second detachment, enabled Ramses to attack the troops of Muwatalla several times. By evening, the third Egyptian detachment arrived - the Hittites were forced to take refuge in the city. Ramses never took Kadesh, but the Hittites also failed to drive out his troops.
The course of the Egyptian-Hittite battle near the city of Kadesh is given in the Egyptian interpretation: Ramses II ordered to knock out on the walls of one of the temples in Abu Simbel reliefs telling about the clash of two great powers. Its artists did not spare dark colors when painting the actions of the Hittites. But outside observers of these battles testify that it was sometimes very difficult for the Egyptians: by the beginning of the war, the Hittites had improved their war chariots, and these shock troops prevailed over the Egyptians.
The war dragged on. For fifteen years there have been battles on the plains of Syria and Palestine. When King Muwatalla died, he was replaced, most likely, by his brother, Hattusili III. At this time, the Hittite state was in a difficult situation: the mountain tribes attacked from the north, Assyria started a war from the east.
And then a significant event in the human chronicle happened: in 1272 BC. e. Hattusili III sent a silver plate to Egypt, on which 18 paragraphs of the peace treaty were engraved. The first ever diplomatic document of this kind. It said that the kings swear allegiance to each other, promise to help in wars against other states, hand over defectors and never fight among themselves. The current diplomats also attach epoch-making significance to this event: the treaty between the Hittites and the Egyptians laid international relations as we understand them now.
Diplomacy, both at that time and later, backed up its agreements with marriage unions. Ramses II the Great married two princesses at once, the daughters of Hattusili III. Egyptian drawing depicts Hattusili III, who came to Egypt for a wedding celebration.
ORDERS WITHIN THE KINGDOM
Until 1978, German archaeologists explored the surroundings of the main temple in the ruins of the capital Hattusas and found the remains of the royal palace. The foundations helped to restore the general plan of the building - not separate rooms or halls, but connected together like a suite. The size of the premises is striking, in Europe there would be no castle with such impressive apartments.
In the remains of the royal palace of the ancient Hittite capital, a rich library was found - tens of thousands of clay tablets. Many are written in Babylonian, but most are in Hittite. Among them there are many donative records. For example, King Arnuvandasha II gives his entourage to the ownership of land and into slavery of prisoners captured in campaigns. A tablet was found with a description of the campaigns of the Hittite king Suppilulium, from which it can be seen: the king was a skillful commander, but he acted with the defeated in the spirit of his time. Here is one of the records of the deeds of this king:
“Akia, the king of Arahati and their soldiers in their entirety, together with their property, I took prisoner and took them to the country of the Hittites. The city of Katana, together with its goods and property, I took to the country of Hatti. When I went on a campaign to the country of Nukhashshi, I took possession of all her property. The king was killed, his mother, his brothers, his sons, I captured and took them to the land of the Hittites. King Kadesh, together with his son and his soldiers, his brothers, together with his property, I captured and took me to the land of the Hittites …"
Within one year, the king of Suppilulium defeated the kingdom of Mitanni, overthrew its king and made many other robber escapes. He was the most successful conqueror of all the Hittite kings, and when Egypt lost its former strength, Suppiluliuma, who turned his country into a powerful power, seized all the lands conquered by Egypt in Syria. The son of Suppilulium Mursili II ruled in the same way. This is how the Hittites became famous for their aggressive, predatory policy.
The state structure of the Hittites is curious. Despite the power of the king, all the most important decisions were made only after their approval by the royal council. Even the beginning of the war was in the hands of the council. This is the main state document of the Hittite kingdom - this "constitution" was drawn up by the king of Telepin in the 16th century BC. e. The council was attended by the king's relatives, courtiers, high officials, military leaders and senior bodyguards. The king had no right to execute a member of the council who did not even submit to his will. For the most serious crimes, it was not the tsar who judged, but the council. Every morning he met to decide the pressing affairs of the state.
Library tablets also tell about other Hittite laws. The class of soldiers who enriched the country with plundered in campaigns and brought thousands of captive slaves enjoyed legal leniency. But nevertheless, for the murder of even someone else's slave, the warrior gave four of his own. The country's economy was based on the labor of slaves, and the law treated them with all the severity. For disobedience, witchcraft against the owner, flight, the slave was threatened with death.
The Hittite kingdom was distinguished by a very high level of centralization of power. The smallest changes in the life of any province had to get the approval of the capital. Cuneiform tablets tell today's scholars that separatist passions were always in full swing on the outskirts of the empire. Therefore, each new king had to rebuild the kingdom, as it were: in some cases - by force, in others - by handouts: land, slaves, posts. Corruption flourished. Numerous sons of the king after his death tried in every way to seize the throne, although the law ordered to plant the first-born son on the kingdom. Women - the wives, mothers of the tsars - played an active role in the palace strife.
Civil strife, which lasted for centuries, eventually weakened the state, and when in 1200 BC. e. the kingdom of the Hittites was attacked by hordes of the so-called "Sea Peoples", the empire collapsed like an old tree stump.
AZATIVATAS - THE LAST OF THE Hittites
It was in the fifties of the last century. Making their way on horseback through the thickets of the Turkish plateau, archaeologists suddenly stumbled upon a stone statue of either a lion or a leopard. The body of the beast was completely entangled in ivy, only the muzzle remained open. The age of the sculpture coincided with the period when the Hittites ruled here. The body of a huge cat, freed from ivy, turned out to be completely covered with drawings and inscriptions: they came across letters from the Semitic alphabet, familiar to the participants of the expedition, but there were also hieroglyphs that in the fifties were not yet able to read.
The huge number of cuneiform tablets found in the capital of the country Hattusas, their sorting and painstaking study over time made it possible to establish that in daily records related to everyday affairs, the Hittite scribes used Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform, known to European archaeologists. But the solemn acts of the Hittites were recorded in a pictorial way, probably in a font that preceded the adoption of the Assyrian-Babylonian cuneiform for everyday writing.
And about one of the major finds. In the area of the so-called Black Mountain, the expedition dug up the gates of the fortress bastion. In its northern part, a pair of sphinxes were found, installed as if to greet the incoming. Behind them stood the figures of two lions. The walls of the bastion were decorated with numerous relief images of various animals - a real zoo. And again, inscriptions made in different writing on the walls and on the reliefs of animals.
On the inner square of the fortification (its dimensions: 195 × 375 meters) once stood a gigantic figure of the all-powerful "thunder god". Now she was lying in the square with a thick stone log. The king, the organizer of the fortress, as scientists have found out from numerous texts, was called Aztivatas. It was at his command that the figure of the god was carved out of stone and the inscription in the Phoenician language was made: “I am Azativatas … I built this fortress and gave it the name Azativataya. And put the god of weather in it."
The inscriptions of the builder of the border fortress were of great help to archaeologists. They dated the time of construction: the records were made in the Old Phoenician language, about which it is known that it was in use only in the 8th century BC. e.
“Before we found this record,” says one of the expedition members, “it was believed that the Hittite empire was wiped out sometime around 1200 BC. As you can see, in the provinces, the empire preserved its culture for centuries, and here, on Black Mountain, it does not look provincial."
400 years after the fall of the empire, the Hittite king Azativatas, in an inscription on the wall, described his country stretching "from sunrise to sunset." Scientists did not have the opportunity to establish the true size of Azativatas' possessions; its capital, Pari, has not yet been found, as reported by the inscription. Since the king, according to him, was wise and peaceful, he lived in harmony with his neighbors. But archaeologists were unable to learn much about those times: Hittite writings were mostly crumbled.
The archaeologists decided to preserve the Azativatas fortress as a museum. But what to do with the piles of fragments of inscriptions lying in the courtyard of the fortress? An unthinkable work is to restore the signs, focusing on the similarity of the fractures of the wreckage. Again, Azativatas himself helped out: as it turned out, he repeated his characteristics, written in Phoenician, in the Hittite-Luwian way of writing (the Luwians are a people neighboring with the Hittites), which was once used in Hattusas. A computer was adapted for decryption. Things will go faster.
But the most important thing has already happened: important points of reference of the disappeared state have been found, the writing of the Hittites has been understood, there is an idea of their art and culture. It is very important that the historical period in which the now not entirely mysterious people acted has been expanded - for the historian this is tantamount to expanding the area where one can conduct a confident search. There are more than 1,500 cities yet to be found ahead!
G. ALEXANDROVSKY. Science and Life No. 1 2001