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The Hittites

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire based in the Land of Hatti during the Late Bronze Age, in modern Turkey, and the discoveries there over the last century.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the empire that flourished in the Late Bronze Age in what is now Turkey, and which, like others at that time, mysteriously collapsed. For the next three thousand years these people of the Land of Hatti, as they called themselves, were known only by small references to their Iron Age descendants in the Old Testament and by unexplained remains in their former territory. Discoveries in their capital of Hattusa just over a century ago brought them back to prominence, including cuneiform tablets such as one (pictured above) which relates to an agreement with their rivals, the Egyptians. This agreement has since become popularly known as the Treaty of Kadesh and described as the oldest recorded peace treaty that survives to this day, said to have followed a great chariot battle with Egypt in 1274 BC near the Orontes River in northern Syria.

With

Claudia Glatz
Professor of Archaeology at the University of Glasgow

Ilgi Gercek
Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages and History at Bilkent University

And

Christoph Bachhuber
Lecturer in Archaeology at St John鈥檚 College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Available now

52 minutes

Last on

Thu 23 Dec 2021 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

CONTRIBUTORS








READING LIST

Gary M. Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts (Society of Biblical Literature, 2nd ed., 1999)

Trevor Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World (Oxford University Press, 2002)

Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2006)

Trevor Bryce, The Trojans and their Neighbours (Routledge, 2006)

Trevor Bryce, Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age (Routledge, 2014)

Trevor Bryce, Warriors of Anatolia: A Concise History of the Hittites (Tauris, 2018)

Billie-Jean Collins, The Hittites and their World (Society of Biblical Literature, 2007)

M. Dogan-Alparslan and M. Alparslan, Hittites: An Anatolian Empire (Yay谋nlar谋, 2014)

Hermann Genz and Dirk Paul Mielke (eds.), Insights into Hittite History and Archaeology (Peeters, 2011)

陌lgi Ger莽ek, The Kaska and the Northern Frontier of Hatti (De Gruyter. 2021)

Claudia Glatz, The Making of Empire in Bronze Age Anatolia: Hittite Sovereign Practice, Resistance, and Negotiation (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Harry A. Hoffner, Hittite Myths (Society of Biblical Literature, 2nd ed., 1998)

Harry A. Hoffner, Letters from the Hittite Kingdom (Society of Biblical Literature, 2009)

S. Lloyd, Ancient Turkey: A Traveller鈥檚 History (British Museum Press, 1992)

A. Sagona and P. Zimansky, Ancient Turkey (Routledge, 2009)

J. Seeher, Hattusha Guide: A Day in the Hittite Capital (Ege Yay谋nlari, 2011)

Itamar Singer, Hittite Prayers (Society of Biblical Literature, 2002)

Theo van den Hout, The Elements of Hittite (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed., 2013)


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Broadcasts

  • Thu 23 Dec 2021 09:00
  • Thu 23 Dec 2021 21:30

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