1
THE ANCIENT HITTITES & PHOENICIANS
Introduction to the Ancient Hittites
Until about a century ago little was known of the Hittites except their
name that was mentioned infrequently in the Old Testament. They were
commonly assumed to have played no role of any significance in history.
This also gave others the impression that they were little more than a minor
barbarian tribe. However, in 1870 a discovery of some curiously inscribed
stones found in Hama in Syria began an extensive inquiry, which has
continued. It was not long before scores of other monuments and clay
tablets were discovered over a large region in the Middle East. In 1907
evidence of an ancient city was unearthed near the village of Boghazkoy in
Turkey. Eventually it was determined that these were the ruins of a great
fortified capital, called Hattusas or Hittite City. Within the walls of this city
more than 20,000 clay tablets were discovered. On the basis of these finds
it was clear that the Hittites were the rulers of a mighty empire, covering
most of Asia Minor and into the Middle East, including at its height Syria and
parts of Palestine.
Where did the Hittites come from? Most modern scholars trace their
origin to Turkestan, and they probably were related to the Greeks.
Philologists after World War I deciphered their language, discovering it was
not related to the Semitic languages of the Near East, but was the oldest
2
example of what is called the Indo-European script originating from the
Sanskrit. This language is the basis of later Greek, Latin and ultimately
English. It is surmised that the Hittites reached Anatolia (modern Turkey)
by 1800-2000 B.C.E. Over the course of the next three centuries they
gradually imposed their rule as warrior elites over the indigenous
inhabitants. By 1353 B.C.E. the Hittite Empire was rivaled in size and power
only by the Ancient Egyptians.
In that year the Hittite King Suppiluliuma
received an astonishing message from Egypt’s young Queen Ankhesenamen,
the widow of King Tutankhamen, who had recently died before reaching the
age of twenty. “My husband has died and I have no sons. They say about
you that you have many sons. If you would send me one of your sons, he
could become my husband.” The widowed Queen who lacked political
support within Egypt probably wanted the security that a Hittite Prince’s
army would provide. Such a marriage might have altered the course of
history. Suspecting trickery, King Suppiluliuma dispatched an emissary to
find out what was really going on. The Emissary was apparently not tactful
as the Egyptian Queen replied: “I was insulted at having my motives
questioned.” Nevertheless, she renewed and even strengthened her offer.
“If King Suppiluliuma would send her a son, then he would be my husband
and king in the country of Egypt.” Still the Hittite monarch delayed,
dragging out negotiations for almost a year. Satisfied at last the Hittite King
sent a son to marry the Egyptian Queen, but it was too late. By then an
3
Egyptian official named Ai had preempted Ankhesenamen’s throne. Upon his
arrival in the land of the Nile, the unfortunate Hittite prince was seized and
put to death.
Political Structure of the Hittities
Politically, there were kings or emperors that ruled the Hittites from
the capital city of Hattusas. The Hittite king was not only the chief ruler,
military leader, and supreme judge but also the earthly deputy of the storm
god; upon dying, he himself became a god. Hattusas was located 6000 feet
above sea level, and it appears the climate was much better then than now.
There was a three and one half mile wall around the city for fortification.
Built in the thirteenth century there was a sphinx gate, with a huge rock
rampart, quite small compared to the Sphinx in Egypt. There was a secret
passageway through to the fortified city that used a corbel arch. They used
limestone on the floor to reflect light for those going through this remarkable
edifice. For the health and safety of the inhabitants, a clay pipe water
supply was constructed with seven reservoirs holding two million gallons of
water.
The Development of Iron Ore
Economically, the ancient Hittites are given credit for developing the
mining of iron ore smelting it into wrought iron and eventually making steel.
Scholars give them credit for helping to initiate the Iron Age. The iron ore
4
came from their mineral-rich mountains of Anatolia, where forests provided
the energy source for the necessary hot fires. While bronze was used for a
long time, which was made from copper and tin, it was expensive to produce
and not everyone could afford bronze weapons. Iron was not necessarily an
improvement over other metals in hardness and sharpness, but it was more
plentiful, and thus cheaper. All ranks of warriors could now have iron
weapons. The Hittites were known for generations as the finest metal
workers of the Ancient Middle East. Agricultural tools were also made and
exported by the Hittites, adding to the economic viability of their
Mediterranean trading endeavors. By adapting the Sumerian chariot, the
Hittites replaced the heavy solid wooden wheels with iron spoked wheels,
which was light but strong. These chariots were drawn by horses that were
especially bred and trained for combat. The new chariot could charge into
battle at high speed, and by using three people in a chariot instead of the
traditional two, it became both a defensive and offensive weapon. This
Hittite chariot was widely copied by other Near Eastern empires, and
chariots dominated warfare for several centuries. About 900 B.C.E. chariots
were superseded by cavalry and massed infantry, but in later centuries the
ancient Celts did use chariots to fight up to the first century B.C.E., and of
course the ancient Romans continued to use them for sporting events in the
Circus Maximus.
Hittite System of Law
5
One of the most significant achievements of the Hittites was their
human system of law. It was more humane than that of the Old
Babylonians. Hittites were known as “People of 1000 laws.” Incorporated
into their laws were divorce customs and legal limits of rulers, and the
drastic punishment of death was used for only eight offenses, including
witchcraft, theft of property from the palace, bestiality, and rape. There was
an interesting distinction made in defining rape. If you seized and raped a
married woman in the mountains, it was a capital crime because her cries
for help could not be heard in the villages and towns. If a male attacked a
woman in her house, then that woman could be heard if she cried out for
help. If she did not, then she would be put to death for adultery as
apparently it was the idea that she must have willingly committed adultery.
Even premeditated murder was punishable only by a fine. The basic principle
of Hittite law was one of restitution instead of retribution. For instance,
arsonists were required to replace the property they had burned. Even
murderers could go free after remunerating their victim’s heirs, by a
payment of silver, slaves, land or a house together with the costs of burial.
There is not a single example of such sadistic punishments as flaying,
castration and impalement which the Assyrians and others in the ancient
Near East seemed to think was necessary for maintaining order.
Hittite Social and Economic Customs
6
Other interesting social and economic customs were practiced by the
Hittites. Prices were fixed in law for an enormous number of commodities.
Not only was the price fixed for luxurious articles, but products of
manufacturing, food and clothing. All wages and fees for service were
likewise prescribed, with the pay of women fixed at less than half the rate
for men. The family structure was based on the patriarchal system with the
father having the power of life and death over his children. There is also
evidence of the first levirate marriage. “If a man has a wife and a man dies,
his brother shall take his wife, then his father shall take her. If also his
father dies, his brother shall take his wife [and also] the son of his brother
shall [take her].
Hittite Religion
Located at Yazilkia is a rock sanctuary and burial site for the Hittite
Kings. Carvings of twelve gods on the left and twelve goddesses on the
right determine the entrance to this site, indicating the polytheistic practices
of these people. Hittites were also known as “People of one thousand gods.”
As they were a tolerant polytheistic culture, they also incorporated Hurrian
and Syrian deities into their religious pantheon. The Hittites also worshipped
the sun goddess, Arinna, who was also known as the mother goddess, and
queen of heaven and earth. A golden pendant has been found that
worshipers must have worn around their neck, showing Arinna with a sun
halo. There was also the weather and storm god Teschub and his wife
7
Hepat. Interesting is the double-headed eagle image as a sign of the royal
kingdom, an icon that was used subsequently by many cultures throughout
history.
Interaction between the Ancient Hittites and the Egyptians
In the last years of the Hittite Empire, Egyptians were their major
enemies, and there is the famous Battle of Kadesh fought in 1274 B.C.E.,
where for the first time in written records of battles, the make-up of the two
armies with their chariots and battle plans are known. Ramses II was the
ruler of Ancient Egypt and King Muwatalli was the ruler of the Hittites. There
is not a consensus by scholars as to the outcome of this famous battle. Did
the Egyptians win or lose, or was it a draw?
Eventually both the Egyptians
and the Hittites agreed to refrain from warring against each other, and fight
others as allies. It is thought that the first international treaty was struck
after this battle, circa 1270 B.C.E. Two years after this agreement was
reached the pharaoh Ramses II took a Hittite princess as his bride.
Archaeological evidence shows that the fall of the Hittite empire (c. 1193
B.C.E.) was sudden and may have been attributed to large-scale migrations
that included the Sea Peoples and to civil wars within the empire.
Introduction to The Ancient Phoenicians
The Ancient Phoenicians are thought to be the first explorers, sea
traders, and colonizers of the Ancient Western World. Originating on the
8
Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean Sea, they later expanded to the rest of
the shoreline. Their influence was felt mainly through peaceful trading not
military conquest, although later when Rome was expanding down the
Italian Peninsula, the Carthaginians (a Phoenician colony from the Eastern
Mediterranean Shore) were also attempting to expand beyond their citystate home base of Carthage in North Africa.
Political and Economic Aspects
Why have the ancient Phoenicians long been ignored by historians? As
the English and Greeks were anti-Semitic, they denigrated the Phoenicians
whenever possible. Also, in the Old Testament the Phoenicians were
considered the evil empire of the ancient world. They were the worshipers
of Baal, El, and Astarte, and included infamous people like Jezebel and
Delilah according to the Bible. It is thought by scholars today that the
original Phoenicians were hill people in Palestine, but migrated to the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea, where eventually they set up various city-states
and engaged in exporting and importing that led them to becoming like the
Japanese and Chinese today. Their system of government was the citystate, and they were governed by a commercial oligarchy. Their greatest
city-states were Berytus (present-day Beirut), Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre.1 So
attractive were the small wealthy Canaanite kingdoms (Canaanite is another
1
The Greeks would later adopt the name Byblos as the word for book, which later became the English word for
Bible
9
word for Phoenicians), that by the sixteenth century B.C.E. the Egyptians
controlled them, exacting tribute for four centuries before a series of political
convulsions racked the Near East. During this time Egypt was a major
trading partner with the Phoenicians. Once the Egyptian yoke was severed,
it set these Phoenician city-states free to expand as a maritime mercantile
power. While they had their own natural resources in two major areas,
timber from the Cedars of Lebanon, and purple dye from the sea mollusks
from the sea, they were also engaging in manufacturing and trading of items
from other natural resources like ivory, glass, copper, tin, iron, gold, and
silver. Profit margins were huge. The Greeks imported terra cotta masks,
and Olympic medals made by the Phoenician artisans. In Homer’s Ililad
Phoenician silver bowls that were offered as prizes for runners at funeral
games drew lavish praise: “For its loveliness it surpassed all others on
earth.” Ancient sources attest that the Phoenician city-states even had the
technology to get fresh water from wells dug deep into the Mediterranean
Sea basin. Strabo, the Greek historian, remarked that Aradus, a hundred
miles to the north of Tyre, tapped springs at the bottom of the Sea between
the mainland and their island, which were covered in lead housing to keep
out the salt water.
They even engaged in massive building projects of new
harbors, six storey high buildings, and were hired as contractors to build
Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah described
the leading city-state Tyre of the Phoenicians as “the crowning city, whose
10
merchants are princes, whose merchants are the honorable of the earth.”
The Phoenicians’ most famous trade products were textiles that they bought
from Egypt and purple dye. With cotton, flax and wool cloth they created
elaborate garments, in vivid contrast to the plain garments of the ancient
Egyptians and Greeks. By boiling sea mollusks the Phoenicians were able to
make soft pink to deep purple, which because of its expense became known
as royal purple, and it was reserved for monarchs and high-ranking
individuals.2 At different times the dye was worth at least ten times its
weight in gold. Both the words Phoenician and Canaan in the Greek and
Semitic languages probably means purple. By cutting down the Cedars of
Lebanon, and cypress and pine trees, timber was another natural resource
the Phoenicians traded, mostly with Egypt to build the hundreds of boats
that plied the Nile and beyond. Oil from the fragrant cedars was also used
by the ancient Egyptians for soaking linen cloth that bound the mummified
bodies of their dead.
Phoenicians’ invention of the first true alphabet
To simplify all these lucrative trading transactions, the Phoenicians invented
the true alphabet around 1000 B.C.E. By that time written languages had
evolved from pictographic systems, to having each symbol represent spoken
sound. By using crosses, circles, and slanting lines, the Phoenicians
2
Actually scholars now give credit to the ancient Minoans for using sea mollusks to obtain purple dye before the
Phoenicians.
11
simplified the alphabet, which was ideal for busy accountants making
notations on papyrus. Twenty-two signs of the Phoenician alphabet stood
for both vowels and consonants. Greeks perfected the Phoenician alphabet
that was then modified slightly by the ancient Romans, which we use today.3
This new alphabet gave the Phoenician merchants a definite advantage over
their competitors.
Religious Practices
Phoenician religious practices are encumbered by lack of detailed
information even though there are 6000 extant primary sources. According
to the scholar, Richard J. Clifford, these original sources do little more than
mention deities, clients, and rituals, and there is no deity list. Lambasted by
the Hebrews in the Bible, historians also need to be leery of the work of the
Hellenistic Philos of Byblos when reconstructing the Phoenicians’ religion.
Although names of the deities in the Pantheon varied from city-state to citystate, a triad of deities prevailed. Their principal god was El or Baal, and the
mother goddess was Astarte or Asherah. The young god Adonis was often
Astarte’s son, whose yearly death and resurrection reflected the annual cycle
of the seasons. It appears that the mother goddess Astarte was the premier
deity worshiped by the Phoenicians. Great temples were built by the
Phoenicians to honor these three deities, and pigs were the animal usually
3
They are detailed charts that show this transformation.
12
sacrificed. Later on in the city-state of Carthage, it is thought that young
children were sacrificed, but this will be discussed under the Punic Wars in
the Roman History section.
Colonization of the Phoenicians – specifically the Carthaginians
Gradually the Phoenicians grew more adventurous as they travelled
and traded to the islands of Malta, Sicily, and Sardinia. Phoenicians claimed
that they were the first to undertake regular trips beyond the sight of land,
and to travel at night, steering by the stars. They founded settlements just
about everywhere they went: Cyprus, North African Coast, Spain, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica. Then their next step was navigating through the
Straits of Gibraltar, 2500 miles from their home ports on the Lebanese
Coast, trading with the people on the Moroccan Coast.4 How were the
ancient Phoenicians able to communicate and trade with other peoples who
did not speak the Phoenician language? According to the Greek Historian
Herodotus, their trading tended to follow certain rituals. Phoenicians would
spread their wares on the beach, then return to their ships, and start a
smoky fire to signal their presence. Local people would then go down to the
beach, inspect the goods, and put down what they felt was an appropriate
amount of gold, and then withdraw. Then the Phoenicians would return, and
collect the gold if they deemed it was adequate. If it was not then they
4
In the book America B.C., it even relates the Phoenicians’ travels to New England and up the Mississippi River to
copper resources. It is even postulated that the Phoenicians may have circumnavigated the African continent.
13
would go back to their ships while the buyers added to the payment pile.
Surprised at the efficacy and fairness of this silent bargaining, Herodotus
wrote: “Neither side cheats the other because the sellers did not touch the
gold until it seemed to them to have reached the value of the goods, and the
others did not touch the goods until the Phoenicians had taken up their
money.”
Conflict between Carthage and the Romans
Carthage, located today in the country of Tunisia, was the most
important of the new colonies that the Phoenicians founded. According to
the Greeks, its foundation in 813 B.C.E. was done by Elissa, sister of King
Pygmalion, who fled with her followers when the King plotted to murder her
husband.
5
Over the next centuries the Phoenician homeland on the Eastern
Mediterranean seaboard was conquered by the Assyrians and Greek
expansion in the Western Mediterranean threatened the rest of Phoenician
trade, but Carthage managed to maintain power until it was conquered by
the Romans after three famous wars from the 3rd century B.C.E. to the 2nd
century B.C.E., called the Punic Wars (Punic is Latin for Phoenician). In the
end Carthage was destroyed in the final war, even though under their
famous General Hannibal they won the important battle at Cannae in the
Second Punic War.
5
There is another interesting tale that relates how she outfoxed the indigenous people when purchasing land.