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Who were the Hittites? Many people might recognize their name from several stories in the Christian Bible, but they also had an entire culture and history based around their home in Anatolia. Unfortunately, this entire civilization was mostly lost until developments in the last century revealed that it was not a mythological kingdom from the Bible, but a genuine, once-thriving culture which had been buried by time.

Because the Hittites are an extremely old civilization, archaeologists and historians face difficulties when trying to find the truth about their history, culture, successes, and failures. Many documents have been lost to the sands of time, assuming they were even written in the first place. Most people were illiterate and could not record the things they saw, thought, or did on a regular basis. Information which was written was not always stored, as many scribes relied on clay slabs or plates which could be easily erased by smoothing out the material. Only when baked could a tablet possibly survive.

Another problem in identifying information is the myriad of languages which dominated Anatolia. The Hittites had a tendency to lend and borrow their words as well as their practices, and historians and linguists have a difficult time picking out how their language developed over time. Even so, it was discovered that the Hittites did have their own Indo-European language written in cuneiform. Many of these records have been discovered, but as mentioned before, many others continue to be gone forever.

Despite being over 4,000 years old, most of the knowledge about the Hittite civilization did not reach modern audiences until the last century. Although the first ruins were discovered in 1834, the French scholar who found them did not realize their origin. Other evidence about the possibility of the Hittites being real, and not just figures mentioned in the Bible, appeared when Assyrian tablets began mentioning a group of people from a place called Hatti. Records would also be found in Egypt which referenced a kingdom of Kheta. Scholars connected Kheta with Hatti and eventually with the biblical Hittites. This theory became accepted throughout the late 19th century and would dominate during the 20th century, when the majority of the Hittite knowledge became known.

Archaeologist Hugo Winckler discovered the most important key leading to knowledge about the Hittites—a royal archive with over 10,000 clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform and in an unknown language which matched one uncovered in Assyrian and Egyptian works. Eventually, professionals determined that recently unearthed ruins in Boğazköy, Turkey belonged to a group which controlled the area and the surrounding region, indicating there was a missing power in Syria which was unaccounted for. Winckler also proved that the ruins were part of a capital city, which would later be revealed as the Hittite center of Hattusa.

Beginning in 1907, archaeological excavations led by the German Archaeological Institute have been underway in and around Boğazköy. There were some interruptions during World War I and II, but scholars have been able to uncover more records, burial sites, pieces of art, and stone reliefs belonging to the Hittites ever since the disruption. It is from these findings that contemporary audiences are able to catch a glimpse of the complex and sometimes confusing society which dominated ancient Syria during the Bronze Age.

Despite being militaristic, the lasting legacy of the Hittites is one of diplomacy, trade, and syncretism. Documents indicate that Hittite rulers were some of the first to conduct a form of international diplomacy between the many peoples that occupied Anatolia. They were also unwilling to send trade routes through particularly dangerous areas to avoid the unnecessary loss of human life, no matter how valuable the resources might have been. Although this approach varied based on the monarch in charge, the Hittites created a lasting precedent of diplomatic relations in the Far East and Asia Minor. For these reasons, as well as the Hittites’ cultural and religious syncretism, they continue to be one of the most influential ancient civilizations of the early Bronze Age and deserve a spot in history.