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Hi. I’m answering voicemails. Let’s give one a listen.
“Hello. My name is Michael. I live in Prague, Eastern Europe, and I would like to ask you about
the Hittite kingdom, the Hittites, and I would like you to talk a little bit about
the history of the Hittite kingdom or empire, about the archaeology, and also about….
I’m interested in what it meant basically for the world, for the western world especially,
the Christian world, when this once considered-to-be mystical maybe, biblical,
yeah I imagine like a fairy-tale-like kingdom, basically was made…it became real.
How did it impact society? I’m very interested in that. So keep the good job up and thank you.”
Thank you for your question, Michael. The Hittites are a fascinating culture. We don’t have time to
go over the whole history of the Hittites, but how they got their name and their connection with the
Bible is interesting, and also very complicated. So I will lay it out for you as best I can.
The name “Hittites” comes from the Bible, and before the archaeological culture of
the Hittites was ever discovered, we had that name, and people wondered who they were. Then
in the late 1800s, material evidence began to be found, which indicated the existence of a
kingdom in Anatolia called Hatti or the Land of Hatti, which scholars at the time equated with
a kingdom called Kheta in Egyptian documents and also with the biblical Hittites. So it has
become customary to refer to the inhabitants of this kingdom after their biblical name.
The people we call the Hittites referred to themselves as the People of Hattusa,
which is a reference to their main city. It turns out this city was named by an earlier
people who lived in the area. In a way, you could call them the original Hittites,
but they are not the same people as the ones we call Hittites, so today we just
call these earlier people Hattians. At some point the Hattians were displaced
or conquered by the ones we call Hittites, who spoke Neshite, an Indo-European language.
They used cuneiform to write it. It has been deciphered, and we can read their documents.
These Neshites we call Hittites had a long history. Prior to 1750 BCE, they had a
kingdom called Kuššar (Kussara). Then a kingdom called Kanesh or Nesha from about 1750-1650 BCE.
Then we have a Hittite Old Kingdom, a Middle Kingdom, and a New Kingdom. The Old Kingdom
and New Kingdom were very powerful, the New being the most powerful, and the Middle Kingdom
was weaker. During this period, the Neshite language began to be spoken less commonly,
and a closely-related tongue called Luwian became more popular. We’re able to read this as well.
The New Kingdom, which we also sometimes refer to as the Hittite Empire,
was brought down around 1180 BCE, during the Bronze Age Collapse. After that, we have what are
sometimes called the Neo-Hittite or Syro-Hittite states, which were a bunch of regional polities
that existed in southeastern Anatolia and Syria between then and the 8th century BCE.
Some prefer to call them the Luwian-Aramean states, after their main languages. The
states in the north tended to use the Luwian language and the ones in the south
Aramean. These states were highly decentralized. They ended up being gobbled up by Assyria.
Interestingly, when the Bible refers to the Hittites, it doesn’t seem to be referring to the
Hittite Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, or Empire. Thus, for example, when the promised land for the
Israelites is said to include the land of the Hittites, it is unlikely to refer to Anatolia.
The Bible refers to the Hittites as being in the land of Canaan itself.
These could be references to the Syro-Hittite peoples in the post-Hittite period that I just
told you about. It might have been customary in those days to refer to these smaller kingdoms
as Hittite, because they are pretty much all that was left of the Hittites at the time.
Some scholars even think that the Bible means a people completely unrelated to the Hittites
we’ve been talking about. Maybe we should never have called the Anatolian civilization
“Hittite” at all. The similarity in name could be a coincidence. Maybe the biblical Hittites
are a group of Canaanites we haven’t yet found evidence for, who lived even further south.
So as for your specific question about how the Hittites of the Bible were once thought
to be mythical and then it was shown they were real, that’s not actually how it played out.
There have been times when scholars have doubted the existence of something
mentioned in the Bible and then were shown to be wrong. This happens with other ancient writings
too. The Trojan War in Homer, for example, is generally considered to be real now.
I don’t know if the general consensus was ever that the Hittites were mythical. Whenever an
ancient people or person or state is mentioned in any work of ancient literature, there is going to
be discussion as to its historicity. In all those cases, there are scholars who are more skeptical
and scholars who are less skeptical. I don’t know how many doubters there were of the Hittites, but
I’m sure there were many scholars generally open to their existence. Now it turns out
that the biblical Hittites may still not have been found. We may have jumped the gun here.
But again, I have no doubt there are many scholars even today who,
though they believe the biblical Hittites haven’t been discovered archaeologically yet,
are open to the idea that they could be. Hopefully, time will tell.
Regardless, I am sure it was exciting back in the day to hear about the discovery of Hattusa
and all that went with it. And we still discover more about the Hittites of Anatolia year after
year. That’s thrilling too. If you want more information about the Hittites,
I can recommend a few good books. I’ll leave links in the description box below the video.
If anyone else would like to leave me a question on my voicemail, you can do so
at speakpipe.com/DavidMiano. I can’t guarantee that I will answer every voicemail I receive.
It depends on how many I get and what you ask about. If it is a question about prehistoric
times, or about medieval times, I am less likely to answer it. Ancient history questions are best,
and how interesting I think the general audience will find it is important too.
Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.
You might like my little e-booklet, "Why Ancient History Matters." It's designed to persuade people
that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it
to help spread the word, so feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who
wants it. I've left the link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy.
Catch you later.