The Hittites and Hattusha

The Hittites were an ancient near eastern civilization located in what is now the modern day country of Turkey, between 1640 and 1200 BC. The ancient history of the Hittites is from cuneiform writings on fired clay tablets recovered from the capital city of the Hittite empire, Hattusha, near the present-day village of Boğazköy. Hattusha was an ancient city when the Hittite king Anitta conquered it and made it his capital in the mid-18th century BC; the emperor Hattusili III expanded the city between 1265 and 1235 BC, before it was destroyed at the end of the Hittite era about 1200 BC. Following the collapse of the Hittite Empire, Hattusha was occupied by Phrygians, but in the provinces of northwestern Syria and southeastern Anatolia, the Neo-Hittite city states emerged. It is these Iron Age kingdoms that are mentioned in the Hebrew bible.

Thanks are due to Nazli Evrim Serifoglu (photos) and Tevfik Emre Serifoglu; main text source is Across the Anatolian Plateau.