Ancient people living in Anatolia in modern Turkey, and in northern Syria. The Hittites established two Empires in recorded history, the Old Hittite Kingdom, which lasted from around about 1680 until about 1500 BCE, and the second, called the New Hittite Kingdom, which lasted from about 1400 util about 1200 BCE.

The land that the Hittites originally inhabited was known as Hatti, and their main city became Hattusha. Although the origin of the Hittites is not known, it is clear that they did speak an Indo-European language, often called Nesian.

OLD HITTITE KINGDOM (1680-1500 BCE)
This kingdom was founded by the leader, Labarna, and under later kings it was extended to cover all of central Anatolia, down to the Mediterranean Sea. The kingdom became strong enough to be able to raid Babylon in 1595 BCE.
But the kingdom itself was never stronger than its leader, and there were no clear laws for how a new king should take power. Because of weakness at the top, the Hittite kingdom entered a period of decline that lasted through the final 30 years of the 16th century.

MIDDLE KINGDOM (1500-1400 BCE)
This is the period about which the least is known. Apparently, the control over the Hittite kingdom soon passed to rulers from the Hangilbat region, who soon forged alliances with Egyptian kings. Inside Hatti, a new aristocracy took over the leading positions in the society.
To the south a new strong kingdom rose to power, Mitanni. Mitanni took control over the city, Kizzuwadna, and strong ties were also established with the Egyptians.

NEW HITTITE KINGDOM (1400-1193 BCE)
About 100 years later, the Old Kingdom disappeared, and the New Kingdom was established. During a period of weakness, a new leader took control over Hatti. While the Old Kingdom had been a strong one, the New one became one of the leading states of its time, rivalling Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria.
The Hittite kingdom, experienced, alternatively, peace and war, depending on whether the neighbours held values embraced by the Hittites, or the neighbours wanted to gain control over Hittite territory and resources.
It is believed that during its final years, the New Kingdom was weakened by migrations into the region. It’s demise resulted from attacks by the Sea people.

CITY-STATES (1193-710 BCE)
Following the fall of the New Kingdom, young, smaller states emerged. These were typical city-states (independent cities with agricultural contexts). The most important among them was Carchemish. The people living in these states were known as Syro-Hittites, but by the 10th century many cities had been taken over by the Arameans.

ECONOMY
As with most other ancient kingdoms, agriculture provided the foundation of Hittite economy. The main crops were wheat and barley, and the livestock was dominated by cattle and sheep.
The lands of the Hittites were rich, and there were good mineral reserves of copper, lead, silver and iron. It is believed that the Hittites were the first people to work iron.
It is believed that trade with other countries was limited. This was true because the kingdom so often found itself in a state of war. Hence, if the Hittites needed special natural resources, conquest provided the solution, not foreign trade.

SOCIETY and CULTURE
The Hittite governance was totally dominated by the king, who was also the supreme priest, military commander and chief judge. Still the king was defined as “first among equals”, suggesting that the Hittite society was less authoritarian than many others of its time.
During the Old Kingdom there was a council of nobles, known as pankus, serving below the king.
Territorial control over the core of the kingdom was administered by provincial governors who answered directly to the king. More distant territories were in the hands of vassal kings who acted according to treaties signed with the Hittite king.
Hittite society was much inspired by Babylonian patterns, as well as Babylonian law. The legal system was mild, and there were few examples of the death penalty. The basic penal principle was restitution or fining.
The art and architecture of Hatti was strongly influenced by neighbouring countries. They used stone and brick as well as wooden columns to erect their houses and temples. The Hittites built large palaces, temples and fortifications, upon which carved reliefs adorned walls, gates and entrances

I know that this video is not exactly history, but it was to funny not to share. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuE621j50Z0

The Hyksos were an important influence on Egyptian history, particularly at the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period. Most of what we know of the nature of the Hyksos depends upon written sources (of the Egyptians), such as the Rhind Papyrus. Also of considerable importance is the systematic excavation of their capital, Avaris (Tell el-Dab’a). 

Aamu was the contemporary term used to distinguish the people of Avaris, the Hyksos capital in Egypt, from Egyptians. Egyptologists conventionally translate aamu as “asiatics” The Jewish historian, Josephus, in his Contra Apionem, claims that Manetho was the first to use the Greek term, Hyksos, incorrectly translated as “shepherd-kings”. Contemporary Egyptians during the Hyksos invasion designated them as hikau khausut, which meant “rulers of foreign countries”, a term that originally only referred to the ruling caste of the invaders. However, today the term Hyksos has come to refer to the whole of these people who ruled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt’s ancient history, and had to be driven out of the land by the last ruler of the 17th Dynasty and the earliest ruler of Egypt’s New Kingdom.

Josephus claims to quote directly from Manetho, who’s original history is lost to us, when he describes the conquest and occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos:

“By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow; and having overpowered the rulers of the land, they hen burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of gods…Finally, they appointed as king one of their number whose name was Salitis.”

Some of this rings true, while other parts seem not to be. It appears that the Hyksos left much of Egypt alone. It is clear that Avaris (Tell el-Dab’a) was occupied by a people who exhibited specifically non-Egyptian cultural traits. We find this in the layout of the town itself, the houses, and particularly the burials, which were intermixed with the living community, unlike those of the Egyptians. While we know that the Hyksos established centers, as their influenced gradually moved towards Memphis along the eastern edge of the Delta, at Farasha, Tell el-Sahaba, Bubastis, Inshas and Tell el-Yahudiyas, very little of this particular culture has been found at other Egyptian sites.  At the same time, the Hyksos living in Egypt have been described as “Peculiarly Egyptian”. They were great builders and artisans. And little seems to have changed between the Egyptian style of governing, and that of the Hyksos. While the Hyksos imported some of their own gods, they also appear to have honored the Egyptian deities as well, such as Seth, who became assimilated with some Hyksos deities. Of course, we must also recall that Egypt already had somewhat of a history with the “Asiatics”, including wars and considerable trade, so it would not be surprising to find some mix of cultures even among the Egyptians of the Delta. 

The Hyksos were basically a Semitic people who were able to wrestle control of Egypt from the early Second Intermediate rulers of the 13th Dynasty, inaugurating the 15th Dynasty. Their names mostly come from the West Semitic languages, and earlier suggestions that some of these people were Hurrian or even Hittite have not been confirmed. However, it is not easy to determine their origins within that Asiatic region, and at Tell el-Dab’a, the culture of the people was not static, but rapidly developed new traits and discarded old ones. Yet the reason for, and method of  the cultural mixing and rapid development of Asiatics at Tell el-Dab’a remains unclear.

One hypothesis is that the basic population of Egyptians allowed, from time to time, a new influx of settlers, first from the region of Lebanon and Syria, and subsequently from Palestine and Cyprus. The leaders of these people eventually married into the local Egyptian families, a theory that is somewhat supported by preliminary studies of human remains at Tell el-Dab’a. Indeed, parallels for the foreign traits of the Hyksos at Tell el-Dab’a have been found at southern Palestinian sites such as Tell el-Ajjul, at the Syrian site of Ebla and at Byblos in modern Labanon.

Hence, the Hyksos rule of Egypt was probably the climax of waves of Asiatic immigration and infiltration into the northeastern Delta of the Nile. This process was perhaps aided by the Egyptians themselves. For example, Amenemhat II records, in unmistakable language, a campaign by sea to the Lebanese coast that resulted in a list of booty comprising 1,554 Asiatics, and considering that Egypt’s eastern border was fortified and probably patrolled by soldiers, it is difficult to understand how massive numbers of foreign people could have simply migrated into northern Egypt. These people migrated, or otherwise moved to the region from the 12th Dynasty onward, and by the 13th Dynasty, this migration became widespread. 

The Hyksos did eventually utilize superior bronze weapons, chariots and composite bows to help them take control of Egypt, though in reality, the relative slowness of their advance southwards from the Delta seems to support the argument that the process was gradual and did not ultimately turn on the possession of overwhelming military superiority. Hence, by about 1720 BC, they had grown strong enough, at the expense of the Middle Kingdom kings, to gain control of Avaris in the northeastern Delta. This site eventually became the capital of the Hyksos kings, but within 50 years, they had also managed to take control of the important Egyptian city of Memphis.

Given this slow advance by the Hyksos rulers into southern Egypt, it seems reasonable to infer that the superior military technology of the Hyksos was but an adjunct to their exploitation of the political weakness of the late Middle Kingdom. 

However, the Hyksos never really ruled Egypt completely. Their expansion southwards was eventually checked. In fact, at least early on, this may have been the result of a massive plague, for at Tell el-Dab’a we find mass graves with little attention to the burials. Though the ruler of Avaris claimed to be King of Upper and Lower Egypt, we know from a stelae dating to the 17th Dynasty king Kamose, that Hermopolis marked the Avaris’ king’s theoretical southern boundary, while Cusae, a little further south, was actually the specific boarder point. Yet Southern, or Upper Egypt was reduced to a vassaldom, probably as a result of the effectiveness, eventually, of the Hyksos military forces, at least until the reign of Kamose. Therefore, we do regard them as the legitimate rulers of the whole country during parts of the Second Intermediate Period, considered a chaotic time which the Hyksos at least partially helped to create in Egypt. 

Eventually, the Hyksos tolerance of rival claimants to the land beginning in the 15th Dynasty would spell their expulsion by the end of the 17th Dynasty, beginning with the reign of Kamose. By now, the baleful experience of foreign rule had done much to shatter the traditional Egyptian mindset of superiority in both culture and the security of the Egyptian state in the face of external threats. 

Yet, Egypt would eventually benefit considerably from their experience of foreign rule, and it has been suggested that the Hyksos rule of Egypt was far less damaging then later 18th Dynasty records would lead us to believe. It would make Egypt a stronger country, with a much more viable military. Because of Egypt’s strength and ability to isolate herself from the outside world, cultural and technological growth was often stagnant. Until the Hyksos invasion, the history of Egypt and Asia were mostly isolated, while afterwards, they would be permanently entwined. The Hyksos brought more than weapons to Egypt. It was due to the Hyksos that the hump backed Zebu cattle made their appearance in Egypt. Also, we find new vegetable and fruit crops that were cultivated, along with improvements in pottery and linen arising from the introduction of improved potter’s wheels and the vertical loom. 

Perhaps one of the greatest contribution of the Hyksos was the preservation of famous Egyptian documents, both literary and scientific. During the reign of Apophis, the fifth king of the “Great Hyksos,” scribes were commissioned to recopy Egyptian texts so they would not be lost. One such text was the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. This unique text, dating from about 3000 BC, gives a clear perspective of the human body as studied by the Egyptians, with details of specific clinical cases, examinations, and prognosis. The Westcar Papyrus preserved the only known version of an ancient Egyptian story that may have otherwise been lost. Other restored documents include the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, the most important mathematical exposition ever found in Egypt. 

But it was the diffusion of innovations with more obvious military applications, such as bronze-working, which went far to compensate for the technological backwardness of Middle Kingdom Egypt, and it was these advantages that eventually allowed the kingdom at Thebes to gain back control of the Two Lands.

Despite his family’s connections to Cinna (an ally of Sulla’s enemy Marius), Pompey raised an army and sided with Sulla, when the latter returned back from his campaigns in the east.
His determination and mercilessness shown when destroying his and Sulla’s opponents in Siciliy and Africa he was nicknamed ‘teenage butcher’.
though despite having shown loyalty to Sulla, he received no advancement or help of any kind from the dictator’s will.
But Pompey soon overcame this setback. The fact that he commanded his own army, made him a force no one coudl afford to ignore. Having used his and proven his ability by putting down a rebellion, he then managed to secure, by means of intimidation, a command in Spain.
Had the commander Metellus Pius been making steady progress against the rebel general Sertorius and his forces, then Pompey, was left with a relatively easy job but received all the glory for himself.
An his return to Italy luck had him come across some of a band of fugitives of the defeated slave army of Spartacus. Once more Pompey was handed easy glory, as he now made claim to have brought an end to the slave war, despite it having evidently been Crassus who defeated Spartacus’ main force in battle.

Pompey had held no government office at all by then. And yet once more the presence of his army in Italy was enough to persuade the senate to act in his favour. He was allowed to stand for the office of consul, despite his lack of administrative experience and his being under the age limit.

Then in 67 BC he received a highly unusual command. It might well have been a commission by those politicians who finally wanted to see him fail and fall from grace. For the challenge he faced was daunting. His objective was to rid the Mediterranean of pirates. The pirate menace had been steadily increasing with the growth of trade and by that time had become utterly intolerable. Though suited to such a challenge, so too the resources he was granted were extraordinary. 250 shops, 100′000 soldiers, 4000 cavalry. Additional to this other countries with interests in Mediterranean trade provided him with further forces.
Had Pompey so far proved himself a capable commander, who at times well knew how to cover himself in glory won by others, then now, alas, he showed his own brilliance.
He organised the entire Mediterranean as wellas the Black Sea into various sectors. Each such sector was handed to an individual commander with forces at his command. Then he gradually used his main forces to sweep through the sectors, crushing their forces and smashing their strongholds. In no more than three months Pompey managed the impossible. and the man, one known as the ‘teenage butcher’, had evidently begun to mellow a little. Had this campaign delivered 20′000 prisoners into his hands, then he spared most of them, giving them jobs in farming.
All Rome was impressed by this enormous achievement, realising they had a military genius in their midst.
In 66 BC, he was already given his next command. For over 20 years the King of Pontus, Mithridates, had been a cause of trouble in Asia Minor. Pompey’s campaign was a total success. Yet as the kingdom of Pontus as dealt with, he continued on, into Cappadocia, Syria, even into Judaea.
Rome found its power, wealth and territory enormously increased.
Cak in Rome all wondered what would happen on his return. Would he, like Sulla, take power for himself ?
But evidently Pompey was no Sulla. The ‘teenage butcher’, so it appeared, was no more. Rather than to attempt taking power by force, he joined up with two of Rome’s most outstanding men of the deay, Crassus and Caesar. He even married Caesar’s daughter Julia in 59 BC, a marriage which might have been made for political purposes, but which became a famous affair of true love.
Julia was Pompey’s fourth wife, and not the first he had married for political reasons, and yet she was also not the first one he had fallen in love with. This soft, loving side of Pompey, won him much ridicule by his political opponents, as he stayed in the countryside in romantic idyll with his young wife. If there was plenty of suggestions by political friends and supporters that he should go abroad, the great Pompey found no end of excuses to stay in Italy – and with Julia.
If he was in love, then, no doubt, so too was his wife. OVer time Pompey had won quite a reputation as a man of great charm and a great lover. The two were utterly in love, while entire Rome laughed.
But in 54 BC Julia died. The child she had born died soon after. Pompey was distraught.

But Julia had been more than a loving wife. Julia had been the invisible link which tied Pompey and Julius Caesar together. Once she was gone, it was perhaps inevitable that a struggle for supreme rule over Rome should arise between them.
For much like gunfighters in cowboy movies, trying to see who can draw his gun faster, Pompey and Caesar would sooner or later want to find out just who was the greater military genius.

Curus

The cursus honorum (Latin: “course of honour”) is the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Respublica. It is designed for men of senatorial rank. The cursus honorum is comprised of a mixture of military and political administration posts. Each office has a minimum age for election. There are minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbid repeating an office. For example, Gaius Marius held consulships for five years in a row between 104 BC and 100 BC. Officially presented as opportunities for public service, the offices often became mere opportunities for self-aggrandizement. The reforms of Lucius Sulla require a ten year period between holding offices or before another term in the same office

The Amorite EmpireAbout 2000 BC, they followed in the footsteps of the Akkadians. They came from the south and west, speaking a similar Semitic language. The Akkadians called them the Amurru, which may mean “westerners” or “nomads.” From this name, we call them the Amorites. They came to Canaan and to the small Akkadian town Bab-ilum (“gate of god”), which the Hebrews called Babel.

Babel was an undistinguished town on the Euphrates that had been dominated by Kish. The Amorites who settled there were successful in taking over the rulership, and by 1850 BC the Amorites had overtaken Ashur and were using it as a base to trade with Asia Minor. Free from the influence of Ur, Ashur became a very rich and prestigious town. In 1814 BC the first Amorite king emerged, Shamshi-Adad I. He controlled all of northern Mesopotamia, taking over another trading town, Mari, to establish a very rich realm. His dynasty would last a thousand years.

But in Babel there rose another king, Hammurabi. He became ruler in 1792 BC, and it would have been understandable for him to merely rule quietly; he was stuck between the strong Assyria of Shamshi-Adad I in the north and the united south of Rim-Sin. Hammurabi, however, was a military genius and a master of diplomacy. He knew his two rivals were old and tired, and would never unite. Hammurabi just waited for one of them to die. Shamshi-Adad went first, in 1782 BC, and Assyrian power declined almost instantly. Hammurabi turned his attention to Rim-Sin, and in 19 years conquered the entire south of Mesopotamia. He sacked Mari in 1759 BC and finally brought Ashur to heel, allowing its ruler to remain on the throne but turning it into a tribute kingdom. Hammurabi only lived another four years, but during that time he became the second ruler to rule a united empire in Mesopotamia. He retained Babel as his capital, turning it into a beautiful and powerful city better-known by its Greek name: Babylon.

Hammurabi is best-known, of course, for his code of laws. Actually, his laws are more primitive and violent than the laws of Ur-Nammu 200 years earlier, but Hammurabi’s are notable for being the oldest we have nearly in their entirety. They are also heavily business-oriented, showing again that Mesopotamia banded together for reasons of trade.

Anarchy

Meanwhile, a revolution was taking place on the Russian steppes. In 2000 BC, nomads had tamed the wild horse. In 1800 BC, the chariot followed. Raids on civilization had always been a reality, but with horses and chariots they became tremendously effective. A group of nomadic tribes called the Hurrians swept into Mesopotamia and chipped away at it, establishing small principalities that would band together in a kingdom called Mitanni in 1500 BC. The Hurrians became a major power in Mesopotamia even before Hammurabi’s death. In the Bible, the Hurrians are called Horites; in Egypt, they were known as the Hyksos. They conquered the northern half of Egypt and ruled it for 150 years.

Another tribe of charioteers, the Hittites, entered Asia Minor, driving out the Assyrian merchants and taking control of the eastern half of the region. They adopted the ways of civilization, except for Semitic language. They spoke an Indo-European language.

Anarchy spread throughout Mesopotamia after the death of Hammurabi, destabilizing the region. The nomads took full advantage. Babylon’s power waned. Another tribe, the Kassites, followed the same path as the Guti out of the Zagros Mountains. In 1700 BC they took up the chariot and savagely sacked Ur. In 1595 BC, weakened by Hittite raids, Babylon was overrun by the Kassites, who occupied it. There they adopted Mesopotamian culture, including the Sumerian religion.

The nomads used the horse to conquer the Middle East, but they had also introduced the horse to the world. They would eventually have their advantage turned against them. The Egyptians mastered the chariot and drove out the Hyksos in 1585 BC. For the first time, under Pharaoh Thutmose III (the “Napoleon of Egypt”), Egyptian forces entered Asia. Thutmose defeated Canaan and destroyed the Hittite kingdom. After his death, Egyptian power weakened and receded back to Egypt itself; the Hittites reestablished their kingdom in 1375 BC and made it stronger. In 1365 BC Ashur-uballit began to revitalize Assyria; his successors defeated, conquered, and destroyed Mitanni, finally erasing it from the forward motion of history in 1270 BC.

The Assyrian Empire

Sulmanu-asarid I completed the destruction of the Mitanni and saw Assyria become the strongest power in the north. In the Bible, this king is called Shalmaneser I; he was a member of the same dynasty founded by Shamshi-Adad. Shalmaneser established the Assyrian Empire, which reached all the way to the Hittite kingdom, now at the peak of its power. Shalmaneser built a new capital, Calah.

His successor, Tukulti-Ninurta I, took the empire to its peak. He led campaigns into the Zagros Mountains to battle the Kassites and into the Caucasus Mountains to fight the Hurrians, who were establishing the kingdom of Urartu (Ararat). He turned Kassite-occupied Ur and Elam into tribute kingdoms, and the Assyrian Empire soon ruled all of Mesopotamia, a realm even greater than Hammurabi’s. Even the Hittites could not stand against it.

Tukulti-Ninurta I ruled from 1245 BC to 1208 BC before being assassinated by his own son. He had been the subject of epic poems in his lifetime, and might be the king referred to in Genesis as Nimrod. And so the cycle goes; the prosperity of his reign turned almost instantly into decline when he died.

Another tribe was coming down the Russian steppes. History knows little about them, but they might have been the Dorians, who would establish the culture we think of as Greek. They went to the west and circled the Black Sea, driving the people who already lived there into the sea. Those people, whoever they were, took up piracy and were particularly violent and destructive. The raided the coasts of Egypt, where they were referred to as simply the Peoples of the Sea. Egypt survived, but was significantly weakened. The pirates also raided Asia Minor, destroying the Hittite kingdom. Assyria, too, was weakened.

With Assyria’s hold on the Kassite rulers of Babylon loosened, there was a chance for recovery. But they were too weak to organize, and could not resist an Elamite force that sacked the city. The native Babylonians had had enough of the inept Kassite rule, and put a final end to it. A new king, a Baylonian, took control. This was Nabu-kudurri-usur; in the Bible, he is called Nebuchadrezzar I. He defeated the Elamites decisively and saved Babylon in 1124 BC.

But another revolution in warcraft would put a quick end to Babylon’s pretensions.

Archaeologist Mohammed Abdel-Maqsoud, chief of the excavation team, said the discovery was part of a joint project with the Culture Ministry that started in 1986 to find fortresses along that military road.
Abdel-Maqsoud said the mission also located the first ever New Kingdom temple to be found in the northern Sinai, which earlier studies indicated was built on top of an 18th Dynasty fort (1569-1315 B.C.).
A collection of reliefs belonging to King Ramses II and King Seti I (1314-1304 B.C.) were also unearthed with rows of warehouses used by the ancient Egyptian army during the New Kingdom era to store wheat and weapons, he said.
Abdel-Maqsoud said the new discoveries corresponded to the inscriptions of the Way of Horus found on the walls of the Karnak Temple in Luxor which illustrated the features of 11 military fortresses that protected Egypt’s eastern borders.
Only five of them have been discovered to date.