Hantili I has ruled the Hittites for…

The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, one of the oldest surviving astronomical documents, a copy of which will be found in the ruins of the eighth century BCE library of Ashurbanipal, is a twenty-one-year record of the appearances of Venus (which the early Babylonians called Nindaranna).

It takes some time before the Hittites establish themselves, as is clear from some of the texts.

For several centuries there have been separate Hittite groups, usually centered around various cities, but strong rulers with their center in Boğazköy succeed in bringing these together and conquering large parts of central Anatolia to establish the Hittite kingdom about 1700 BCE.

The Assyrian trading colonies in Anatolia come to an end, as the Hittites begin to take over Anatolia and Assyria loses its independence to a dynasty of Amorite descent.

The kingdom’s founder (according to tradition) is a leader named Labarnas, who is said to have established the seas as his boundaries and made his sons governors of seven major conquered territories.

Labarnas’ successor rules the Hitttites from about 1586 BCE as Hattusilis I, apparently establishing his capital in the fortress city of Hattusa (Bogazkale), the reoccupied site of the Assyrian merchant colony destroyed in 1720.

Under Hattusilis I, the Hittite kingdom begins to expand into northwest Syria.

His “Annals” tell of the king’s penetrations into that region and eastward across the Euphates River to Mesopotamia.

The Hittites’ legal code concedes that slaves are human beings, although of an inferior order.

The so-called Old Hittite Kingdom maintains internal strength and military security for the first century and a half of its existence, achieving the enduring political unification of Anatolia.

Whereas the earlier Hittite kings had based their court at Neša, Labarna II is the first king of the Hittites to reign from Hattusa, the modern Bogazkale, where he builds a hilltop citadel and takes the throne name of Hattusilis.

Under his rule, the Hittites have penetrated south to the plains of northern Syria near Antioch and southwest in Anatolia through Cilicia, incurring the enmity of the Syrians of Aleppo and the Hurrians also: his “Annals” tell of the king’s penetrations into that region and eastward across the Euphates River to Mesopotamia Cilicia, having come under Hurrian control about 1660, had, with help from Aleppo, been reacquired about 1556 in a battle that proves fatal to Hattusilis.

His military capital, Hattusa, remains the principal Hittite administrative center.

His adopted son and heir ascends the Hittite throne as Mursilis I, and soon launching a series of forays down the Euphrates Valley.

Ammunu, who is the son of Hantili, succeeds Zidanta to Hittite throne around 1550.

The Hurrians of Mitanni retake Cilicia and establish the subkingdom of Kizzuwatna, …

…then, to deprive the Hittites of access to northern Syria, establish a southeastern kingdom, Hanilgalbat.

The Iranian Kassites control the Southern Mesopotamian Kingdom of Babylon and the Semitic Assyrians the kingdom upriver, with the Mitanni kingdom on the upper Euphrates serving as a buffer to the Hittite Empire.

Puzur-Ashur III of Assyria and Burna-Buriash I, a king in the Kassite dynasty of Babylon, sign a treaty agreeing the border between the two states in the mid sixteenth century BCE.

Rebellious Theban kings Kamose and Ahmose (Ammasis, or Amosis) drive the Hyksos from Egypt and, about 1550, establish the native New Kingdom, inspiring the growth of nationalist feeling.

Ahmose, rebelling against Egypt’s Hyksos overlords, weakens their power with his capture of Avaris, their citadel in the north.

Pharaoh Ahmose I, following his capture of Avaris, pursues the enemy across the Sinai Peninsula to Sharuhen, near Gaza, a Hyksos stronghold in Palestine.

He reduces the city after a three-year siege, after which the site is abandoned, marking the sudden end of Canaanite influence there.