Hittites and Mitanni
Indo-European speaking peoples began moving across Europe and western Asia before 2000 BCE. Some settled in Anatolia and became the Mitanni and Hittites. Others settled on the Greek mainland, eventually becoming the Mycenaean civilization, and still others migrated into Italy and the west of Europe. Still others moved into what is now Iran, and became the ancestors of the Medes and Persians.
The Hurrians spoke a language neither Indo-European nor Semitic. Cuneiform texts of their language have been found at the palace of Mari on the middle Euphrates. They borrowed religious and cultural ideas from the Mesopotamians, and passed these along to the Hittites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and indirectly to the Greeks and the Western world. The religious texts of the Hittites indicate a profound influence from the Hurrians.
The new Kingdom of Mitanni with its capital of Wassukanni, yet to be discovered by archaeologists, brought together Hurrian states. This capital is thought to have been in the Khabur River region in northeastern Syria. The Mitannians adopted the Hurrian language, but took personal names very similar to those of the Indo-Europeans in India. The Mitannian deities were called Mitra, Varuna and Indra, just as were those in India, and acknowledged the Hurrian weather-god Teshub and his consort Hebat, Queen of heaven.
Mitanni was a major power in western Asia, checking the Hittites to its west, the Egyptians to its south, and the Assyrians to the east, even forcing the latter to serve as its vassal. Since the Hurrians had written handbooks on the subject of horse-training, the Mitanni were said to have been masters of chariot warfare. They introduced the light horse-drawn chariot to the Near East.
Egypt came into conflict with the Mitannians and Hittites, until Pharaoh Tutmosis III defeated them in battle in the early 1400s BCE. Tutmosis IV then allied with Mitanni against the Hittites of Anatolia, and welcomed a Mitannian princess into his royal harem. Despite this alliance, Mitanni fell to the Hittites, while Egypt was ruled by Akhenaton, around 1353 to 1337 BCE. Mitanni's king Tushratta was challenged for the throne by several members of his royal family. Then the Hittites annexed all Mitanni's Syrian possessions, allowing the shrunken Mitannian state to serve as a buffer in northern Mesopotamia against the Assyrians.
With Mitanni having collapsed, however, Assyria expanded westward from its heartland, conquering and annexing what was left of Mitanni in the thirteenth century BCE.
The Hittites possibly originated somewhere in the area of southeast Europe along the Black Sea to the northern foothills of the Caucasus. They eventually learned the cuneiform script, and wrote in several different languages. They penetrated the central plateau of Anatolia and its flourishing Bronze Age culture by the close of the third millennium BCE. Establishing themselves as a ruling minority, the Hittites assimilated many of the ways of the indigenous people. At first they were organized into a number of city-states, but around 1700 BCE one of their kings fused these all into a larger kingdom. They were called the Hatti by their neighbors. A succeeding ruler extended the kingdom about 1650 BCE and built his capital at Hattusas, modern Bogazkoy and named himself Hattusilis, or man from Hattusas.
Hattusilis ruled until 1620 and his grandson Mursilis I succeeded him, reigning until 1590 BCE. They penetrated northern Syria and deeply into Mesopotamia, Mursilis capturing Babylon in 1595 BCE in a lightning campaign that led to the shrinking of Hammurabi's old empire and the incursion of the Kassites. But soon after Mursilis returned home to Hattusas, he was murdered in a palace conspiracy. The next two centuries were generally chaoic for the Hittites, characterized by a series of royal assassinations and the loss of Hittite territory in northern Syria to the expanding Mitannian empire.
Around 1370 BCE, the Hittites re-emerged with a more energetic monarchy under Suppiluliumas I, perhaps the most brilliant military strategist since Tutmosis I of Egypt. Suppiluliumas campaigned in western Anatolia, but spent most of his attention on Mitanni. He broke its power and took over its former northern Syrian possessions, ruling them through subject states with Carchemish as their center and increasing tension between the Hittites and the Egyptians, currently ruled by Akhenaton. Years later, when Pharaoh Tutankamun died without an heir, his widow Ankhesenamun sent a plea to Suppiluliumas for a marital alliance with one of his sons, who would then succeed to the Egyptian throne. Suppililiumas was suspicious of this extraordinary request, but eventually sent one of his sons. Unfortunately, the prince was murdered at the Egyptian borders, and Ankhesenamun married her elderly adviser Ay. Suppiluliumas died shortly thereafter of a pestilence.
When Egypt re-emerged as a military power under Seti I, who reigned about 294-1279 BCE, and his son and successor Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE, the Hittites and the Egyptians clashed. Ramesses pushed his frontiers from southern Syria up to the Euphrates during the Hittite reign of Muwatallis, the final serious Egyptian attempt to take northern Syria from the Hittites. Ramesses fought Muwatallis near the Syrian city of Qadesh about 1274, and although he claimed victory for the Egyptians, the outcome was actually indecisive. Ramesses marched back empty-handed to Egypt, but the Assyrians began to advance from the east towards the Euphrates. This Assyrian incursion actually encouraged the Hittite king Hattusilis III, reigning from 1262 to 1238 BCE, to propose a defensive alliance with Egypt. Ramesses agreed and they concluded their pact around 1258. A few years later, Hattusilis sent his eldest daughter to become one of Ramesses' wives, followed shortly thereafter by a second Hittite princess, both accompanied by fabulous dowries.
Even with the Egyptian alliance, the Hittite Empire was in decline. The Assyrians had absorbed Mittanian territory as far as the Euphrates, the Syrian vassals were shirking their obligations, western Anatolia was shaking off Hittite control. All this weakened the Hittites, so much so that around 1180 BCE, migrating maritime raiders called the Sea Peoples ravaged coastal Anatolia and northern Syria, severing the lines of Hittite trade and leaving its weakened center easy prey for additional enemies who surged down from the northern hills.