Hattians

The Hattians are an ancient people who inhabit the land of Hatti in present-day central part of Anatolia, Turkey, noted at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad ca.

2300,until they were gradually displaced and absorbed ca.

2000-1700 BCE by Indo-European Hittites, who adopted their name for the "land of Hatti".As the Hattians did not have a written language (in other words, they were proto-historic), scholars rely on indirect sources or statements by other peoples.

Hattian leaders probably used scribes writing in Assyrian to conduct business with northern Mesopotamia.

Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region of Anatolia "in the third millennium [BCE] was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians.

"=The oldest name for Anatolia, "Land of the Hatti" was found for the first time on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of Sargon the Great of Akkad ca.

2350-2150 BCE: on those tablets Assyrian traders implored the help of the Akkadian king Sargon.

This appellation continued to exist for about 1500 years until 630 BCE, as stated in Assyrian chronicles.

According to later Hittite documents, Sargon the Great had fought with the Hattite king Nurdaggal of Burushanda, while his successor Naram-Sin of Akkad had battled Pamba, king of Hatti and 16 other confederates.The Hattians spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic, now believed by some scholars to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group.

Many Northwest Caucasian (Adygean) family names have prefixes like "Hath" or "Hatti" and especially one of the most known Adygean tribes have the name "Hattico" (in the meaning of "HattiSon")