Hittite Empire

The Hittites established one of the great powers of the Bronze Age in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), with their capital at Hattusa (modern Boğazköy). Their archives of over 30,000 cuneiform tablets, discovered beginning in 1906, revealed a sophisticated imperial civilization and the oldest attested Indo-European language — a discovery that revolutionized historical linguistics.[3]

• Old Kingdom (c. 1650–1500 BCE) — King Hattusili I campaigned into Syria; his successor Mursili I sacked Babylon (~1595 BCE), bringing the Old Babylonian period to a dramatic end
• New Kingdom / Empire (c. 1400–1178 BCE) — The Hittite Empire’s apex. Suppiluliuma I conquered Mitanni and dominated Syria, making the Hittites one of the “Great Powers” alongside Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria
• Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BCE) — Hittite king Muwatalli II fought Ramesses II of Egypt in the largest chariot battle of the ancient world. The resulting Egyptian-Hittite Peace Treaty is the earliest known international peace accord (copies survive in both Egyptian and Hittite versions)
• Collapse — Hattusa was destroyed around 1178 BCE during the Bronze Age collapse. Neo-Hittite/Syro-Hittite states in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria preserved aspects of Hittite culture into the Iron Age[1]

Hittite (Nesili) was deciphered by Bedřich Hrozný in 1915, who recognized it as Indo-European from the sentence nu NINDA-an ezzatteni wātar-ma ekutteni (“now you will eat bread and drink water”). The Hattusa archives preserve texts in at least eight languages: Hittite, Luwian, Palaic, Hattic, Hurrian, Akkadian, Sumerian, and Egyptian — making them an unparalleled multilingual resource.[3]