A Hittite silver drinking vessel ending in the front half of a bull
Vessel terminating in the forepart of a bull, ca. 14th–13th century BCE
Marked Hattusa

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Hittites

From their capital Hattusa in central Turkey, the Hittite kings fought Egypt for Syria. After the battle of Kadesh, about 1274 BC, the two powers made one of the oldest peace treaties that survive.

Place
Hattusa · Kadesh · YazılıkayaThe Middle East
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
5 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IHattusa
  2. IIKadesh, and two versions of one battle
  3. IIIThe first peace treaty
  4. IVQueen Puduhepa
  5. VAn empire forgotten and found

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Hattusili III
  • Puduhepa
  • Bedřich Hrozný

Objects

  • The Kadesh treaty tablet
  • The Lion Gate at Hattusa

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1650 BC to 1180 BC. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?