News from the ancient world
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia, in what is now Turkey. From their capital at Hattusa, near the modern village of Boğazkale, their kings built a kingdom that became one of the great powers of the Near East between about the 17th and early 12th centuries BC. They spoke an Indo-European language and wrote it in cuneiform on clay tablets, thousands of which survive. Their rivalry with Egypt over Syria led to the battle of Kadesh and later to a peace treaty. The kingdom collapsed around 1200 BC.
Recent finds add detail to that picture. At Kayalıpınar, ancient Šamuḫa, excavators recovered 131 tablets and fragments from the reign of Tudhaliya II in 2026, bringing the archive there to 184 pieces. The texts record a fever epidemic and the death of a baby princess. At Hattusa, a clay fragment of an Akkadian copy of the treaty between Ramesses II and Hattusili III preserves clauses on people fleeing between the two kingdoms.
Bronze Age · c. 1400 BC · Kayalıpınar (Šamuḫa), Sivas province, Turkey
Excavators at Kayalıpınar, ancient Šamuḫa, recovered 131 tablets and fragments from the reign of Tudhaliya II in 2026, bringing the archive to 184 pieces.
Bronze Age · c. 1259 BC · Hattusa (Boğazkale), Çorum province, Turkey
The clay piece, part of an Akkadian copy of the pact between Ramesses II and Hattusili III, preserves clauses on people fleeing between the two kingdoms.
Bronze Age · c. 1915–1595 BC · Beycesultan Höyük, Denizli Province, Turkey
Two scraps of cloth from Beycesultan Höyük, carbonised by fire nearly 4,000 years ago, include a blue hemp fabric made with a single needle around 1915–1745 BC.