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c. 1600 BCEReputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Hattusa Rises as the Hittite Capital

A Bronze Age superpower rules Anatolia from a city carved into the hills near the Kizilirmak River

On the timeline · around c. 1600 BCE · Ancient and Byzantine AnatoliaAncient and Byzantine AnatoliaHattusa Rises as the Hittite Capital1,500 BCE1,250 BCE1,000 BCE750 BCE500 BCE250 BCE1 CE250 CE

Quick facts

Capital
Hattusa, near modern Bogazkale, Turkey
Peak under
Suppiluliuma I, c. 1344-1322 BCE
Estimated peak population
40,000-50,000
Hittite Old Kingdom / New Kingdom
1700-1500 BCE / 1400-1200 BCE

What happened

The Hittites occupied Anatolia before 1700 BCE, developing their culture from the indigenous Hatti and Hurrian peoples, and built their empire around the city of Hattusa in north-central Anatolia, 150 kilometers east of modern Ankara. Hattusa itself had existed since the Hatti founded it around 2500 BCE, but it became a Hittite capital once a king took the name Hattusili, meaning one from Hattusa, and the city grew into the seat of a power that at its height under Suppiluliuma I in the mid-14th century BCE controlled most of Anatolia along with parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. At its peak Hattusa held an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people, divided between a lower city built around the main temple and an upper city of fortified palaces.

Why it matters

Hattusa shows that Anatolia was home to a literate, treaty-making, chariot-fielding great power a thousand years before the Greeks reached Troy's shores, one that fought Egypt to a standstill and signed the oldest peace treaty whose full text survives. The Hittite state set a pattern that would recur across Anatolian history: a land bridge between Europe and Asia that repeatedly produces empires strong enough to worry Egypt, Assyria, Byzantium, or Europe in turn.

How we know

Hattusa's ruins near modern Bogazkale have been excavated since the early 20th century, yielding tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets from the royal archives alongside the city's fortifications, temples, and the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya, and UNESCO inscribed the site as a World Heritage property in 1986.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Turkey27 events · A land bridge fought over by Hittites, Greeks, Romans, and Turks, and the republic that Mustafa Kemal built on its ashes in a single decadeView all →