Hittites (Hittite Empire), (New) Kingdom of the
State | Defunct
1430 BCE to 1178 BCE
Under Suppiluliuma I and Mursili II, the Hittite Empire is extended to most of Anatolia and parts of Syria and Canaan, so that by 1300 BCE the Hittites are bordering on the Egyptian sphere of influence, leading to the inconclusive Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE.Civil war and rivaling claims to the throne, combined with the external threat of the Sea Peoples, weakens the Hittites and by 1160 BCE, the Empire has collapsed.
"Neo-Hittite" post-Empire states, petty kingdoms under Assyrian rule, may have lingered on until ca.
700 BCE, and the Bronze Age Hittite and Luwian dialects evolve into the sparsely attested Lydian, Lycian and Carian languages.Remnants of these languages linger into Persian times (6th–4th centuries BC) and are finally extinguished by the spread of Hellenism that follows Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor in the 4th century BCE.
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The Near and Middle East (2637 – 910 BCE): Bronze and Early Iron — Empires, Incense, and the First Great Corridors
Regional Overview
During the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, the Near and Middle East stood at the center of Afro-Eurasian innovation.
From the Tigris–Euphrates to the Nile, from the Caucasus uplands to the Arabian Sea, irrigation, metallurgy, and overland and maritime trade linked highlands, deserts, and fertile deltas into a single interdependent world.
By the close of this epoch, the region had evolved into a mosaic of palace-states, caravan polities, and incense ports that prefigured the classical empires of the first millennium BCE.
Geography and Environment
The region spanned three great ecological belts:
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the alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia and Egypt,
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the mountain and plateau arcs of Iran, Armenia, and Anatolia, and
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the arid steppe and coastal deserts of Arabia and the Levant.
Rivers such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, and Jordan supplied irrigation, while the Zagros and Caucasus offered pastures and metals.
The Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and eastern Mediterranean served as maritime corridors binding these lands into one economic sphere.
Climate and Environmental Shifts
Late-Holocene arid pulses intensified after 2000 BCE.
Mesopotamian salinization and river avulsion forced canal redirection and crop rotation, while the Caucasus and Zagros pastures remained comparatively stable.
Along the Red Sea and Arabian coasts, fog oases and mountain terraces mitigated drought.
This interplay of aridity and adaptation produced the region’s hallmark—hydraulic ingenuity.
Societies and Political Developments
In the Mesopotamian and Iranian highlands, Elamite, Susian, and Zagros polities balanced urban irrigation systems with pastoral hinterlands.
Metal-rich Transcaucasia (Trialeti, Kura–Araxes legacies) supplied arsenical bronzes and stimulated north-south trade.
By the late second millennium BCE, the foundations of Assyria, Urartu, and Syro-Anatolian kingdoms were emerging.
To the south and east, Southeast Arabia developed terraced oases in Hadhramaut and Dhofar, expanding goat-camel herding and pioneering the frankincense and myrrh trades.
Socotra’s resins and dried fish entered long-range exchange networks that reached the Gulf and the Red Sea.
In the Near East proper, the Nile and Aegean worlds intertwined.
Egypt’s New Kingdom power extended into the Levant, while Aegean mariners and Anatolian city-states (Minoan–Mycenaean, later Aeolian and Ionian) connected the Mediterranean coasts.
Tyre, within this subregion, grew into a Phoenician entrepôt, while western Arabia’s oases and Yemeni highlands cultivated incense gardens and terraced cereals—the first outlines of the later incense road.
Economy and Technology
Across the region, Bronze-Age craft economies reached maturity.
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Bronze metallurgy dominated tools, weapons, and luxury goods; iron-smelting appeared near the end of the period in Anatolia and Iran.
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Wheeled transport and pack-camels widened caravan trade.
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Canal agriculture, terrace farming, and oasis irrigation supported dense populations.
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Sewn-plank dhows and sail-rigged ships carried pearls, dates, metals, and incense along the Gulf and Red Sea.
The interplay of highland ores, lowland crops, and coastal markets created a vertically integrated economic web unmatched elsewhere in the ancient world.
Belief and Symbolism
Ritual and kingship centered on divine mediation of fertility and order.
Highland peoples carved rock reliefs and tended fire altars; Mesopotamian and Levantine cities built temple precinctsaligned with stars and rivers.
In Egypt, solar and funerary cults radiated outward; in Aegean Anatolia, maritime sanctuaries honored capes and storms; in Arabia, ancestor tombs and incense offerings sacralized the desert routes.
The region’s mythic imagination—of gods ruling sky, sun, and flood—underpinned later Zoroastrian, Hebrew, and Hellenic traditions.
Movement and Interaction Corridors
Trade and migration moved through a network of interlocking routes:
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Overland Zagros–Tigris and Caucasus–Ararat–Urmia corridors moved metals and livestock.
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The Royal Road precursors tied Susiana to Anatolia.
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The Gulf and Red Sea coasts hosted pearl fishers, incense ports, and ferry routes linking Arabia, Egypt, and the Levant.
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Nile–Aegean maritime lanes ferried copper, tin, and luxury goods.
Together these paths created the first durable framework of continental-scale commerce.
Environmental Adaptation and Resilience
Societies balanced extremes through ecological complementarity:
mountain pastures fed lowland markets; oases and terraces offset desert risk; multi-crop rotations and canal maintenance curbed salinity.
Pastoral mobility and diversified trade insulated economies from drought and political upheaval.
By coupling agriculture, herding, and commerce, the region sustained continuity through climatic and dynastic flux.
Regional Synthesis and Long-Term Significance
By 910 BCE, the Near and Middle East had matured into a highly interconnected world system.
Its urban irrigation states, steppe-oasis alliances, and maritime incense routes linked Africa, Asia, and Europe.
The technological and cultural legacies of this era—bronze metallurgy, writing, monumental architecture, and long-distance exchange—formed the enduring template for the imperial and religious civilizations that would dominate the first millennium BCE and beyond.
Middle East (2,637 – 910 BCE) Bronze and Early Iron — Highland–Oasis Symbiosis, Steppe Links
Climate & Environment
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Aridity pulses increased; alluvial avulsion and salinization risks rose; Caucasus/Zagros pastures remained reliable.
Societies & Settlement
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Elamite–Susiana sphere influenced Khuzestan; Zagros polities (Lullubi, Gutian forebears) persisted; northern Syrian/Cilician towns grew; Transcaucasian metal zones (Trialeti, Kura–Araxes legacies) supplied copper/arsenical bronzes.
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Nomadic/pastoral networks (steppe links via Caspian–Caucasus) interacted with oases.
Technology
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Bronze weaponry/tools; early iron appears by the end; wheeled transport; canalized agriculture scaling.
Corridors
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Zagros–Tigris caravan lines; Caucasus–Ararat–Lake Urmia nodes; Gulf coasting (pearls, dates) with the Arabian littoral.
Symbolism
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Highland rock reliefs; fire altars; ancestor cults; temple precincts in oases.
Adaptation
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Highland–oasis complementarity (pasture vs. irrigation); distributed canal networks and multi-crop rotations resisted salinization.
Transition
By 910 BCE, the matrix exists for the Neo-Assyrian, Urartian, and Syro-Anatolian polities that will dominate early Iron Age corridors intersecting our region.
Near East (2,637 – 910 BCE) Bronze and Early Iron — Delta Kingdoms, Aegean City-Coasts, Arabian Caravan Seeds
Geographic and Environmental Context
The Near East includes Egypt, Sudan, Israel, most of Jordan, western Saudi Arabia, western Yemen, southwestern Cyprus, and western Turkey (Aeolis, Ionia, Doris, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Troas) plus Tyre (extreme SW Lebanon).-
Anchors: the Nile Valley and Delta; Sinai–Negev–Arabah; the southern Levant (with Tyre as the sole Levantine node in this subregion); Hejaz–Asir–Tihāma on the Red Sea; Yemen’s western uplands/coast; southwestern Cyprus; western Anatolian littoral (Smyrna–Ephesus–Miletus–Halicarnassus–Xanthos; Troad).
Climate & Environment
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Nile floods oscillated; Aegean coastal plains fertile; Arabian west slope aridity increased, highland terraces scaled slowly.
Societies & Settlement
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Lower/Upper Egypt (full Pharaonic cores just south but contiguous influence); Aegean Anatolia (Minoan/Mycenaean interactions; later Aeolian/Ionian/Dorian successors).
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Levantine Tyre (within this subregion) arose as Phoenician node; Arabian west oases supported caravan precursors; Yemen west highlands nurtured terrace farming and incense beginnings.
Technology
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Bronze widespread; early iron in Anatolia/Levant; sail-powered shipping matured; terracing and cisterns in Hejaz–Yemen highlands.
Corridors
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Nile–Delta–Aegean maritime bridge; Tyre connected to Cyprus/Anatolia; Red Sea coastal cabotage began; Incense path seeds in Yemen–Hejaz.
Symbolism
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Egyptian temple cosmology radiated north; Aegean cults at capes; Tyrian Melqart/Asherah; Arabian highland local cults.
Adaptation
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Floodplain–coastal–terrace redundancy stabilized economies; incense gardens hedged aridity.
The first invention of ironsmithing is ascribed by Classical authors to such peoples of the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia as the Khaldi (Chaldei) and the Khalib (Chalybes), who had discovered that the rather soft wrought iron could be greatly hardened by heating it in charcoal.
Nation-states become multinational in this age, including the Shang in China; the Mitanni, the Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Kassites in West Asia, and the Mycenaeans in the Aegean.
Hittite power wanes subsequent to their conquest of Babylon, but the Hittites reemerge in the first half of the fourteenth century BCE, controlling an area that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in Mesopotamia.
The majority of well-studied early glass is found in Egypt, due to its preferable environment for preservation, although some of this is likely to have been imported.
The earliest known glass objects are beads, accidental byproducts of metal working slags or perhaps created during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing (although true glazing over a ceramic body will not be used until many centuries after the production of the first glass).
There is an explosion in glass making technology during the Late Bronze Age in Egypt and Western Asia from roughly 1600 to 1100 BCE, and extensive glass production is occurring in these regions by the fifteenth century BCE.
Archaeological finds from this period include colored glass ingots, vessels (often colored and shaped in imitation of highly prized stone ware) and the ubiquitous beads.
Dark blue glass, made by adding cobalt, is extensively used and traded during this period and it is thought that the color was associated with the concept of eternity.
It is thought the techniques and recipes required for the initial fusing of glass from raw materials was a closely guarded technological secret reserved for the large palace industries of the time.
Glass workers in other areas therefore rely on imports of pre-formed glass, often in the form of cast ingots such as those found on the Ulu Burun ship wreck off the coast of Turkey, dated from the late fourteenth century.
Increasing numbers of non-meteoritic, smelted iron objects appear in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt after 1500 BCE.
Iron objects from the Bronze Age, although found all across the Eastern Mediterranean, are statistically insignificant compared to the quantity of bronze objects during this time.
Hattic, a central Anatolian language spoken by the Hattites (and displaying no affinities with any known language) becomes extinct around 1400, by which time Luwian native speakers come to constitute the majority of the population of the Hittite capital Hattusa, where houses feature paved washroom areas with clay tubs, some with built-in seats.
The Hittites retain the primacy of the mother goddess and the weather god.
The Hittite alphabet makes the transfer from picture writing to word writing.
A Hittite horse-training text survives, attributed to Kikkuli the Mitanni (fifteenth century BCE).