The Hittites lived among gods and kings and captivated the mysterious Sir Lawrence of Arabia, among many eager minds. Who were they? Simply warlike conquerors on a mission to impose Hittite power on the world? How did they become part of the elite highly-exclusive club of kings as great as Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires of the second millennium BCE? Inside you will read about... ✓ Sources ✓ Sir Lawrence of Arabia, Helen of Troy, Origins and Remarkable Missing Links ✓ The Bronze and Iron Age – Hittites and their Contemporaries ✓ Life and Times of the Hittites and Notable Kingdoms and Empire-Building ✓ Notable Achievements, Ongoing Exploration and Unraveling their Extraordinary Mysteries They created a complex system of collective governance and changed the metallurgy of the ancient world. This mysterious empire remained the unknown fourth empire and thanks to their tradition of preservation we continue solving mysteries buried in their ancient past.
short review for busy readers: An overview of the 500-year history of the Hittites, focusing on excavations, war, diplomacy, and a bit on the culture plus the recent connections to Homer's Trojan War and the city of Troy. Very awkwardly written.
in detail: The information is fine, and even quite interesting at times, but the book is written in an extremely awkward and often confusing fashion. The style is more a high school essay than what you'd assume to find in a book and not nearly up to the level of the other Hourly Histories I've read.
Examples of awkwardness:
About laws: "Their list of offenses with prescribed punishments included homicide, bodily injury, matrimony, private property, sexual taboos, witchcraft and other matters"
(Happy to see matrimony and private property listed as offences!)
General info: "During their formative years in the 18th and 17th centuries BCE, the Hittites bent the natural landscape to their will in order to fit their needs."
(What other reason would you have to bend a landscape to your will other than to fit your needs? Hobby gardening? )
"While some depictions have shown the fierceness of this warlike people, it's important to also understand that they also typically instituted a submission at the place of conflict to a besieged town to allow them to preserve the town from destruction..."
(Happy to also hear they also "instituted submissions" right at the walls and didn't make the besieged people travel to the capital city to open their gates to the guys standing right outside. Nice of them.)
And just irritating: T.E. Lawrence being referred to multiple times as "Sir Lawrence of Arabia".
Like it's the reason for a read, this one provides both helpful information and lessons.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 2-3) ...Those who dared venture into Hittite territory encountered worthy opponents skilled in the art of war and diplomacy, equally at ease with conducting embargoes and raids for both conquest and peace. The great Egypt, during an era of unprecedented power and wealth, had a Hittite problem. Their wartime efforts secured for them vast resources, but also led to meaningful "brotherly" relations with the key players of the region. They were legendary, significant and meticulous. The Hittites lived in a time when heroes and heroines of ancient civilizations could take actions that could direct entire civilizations. They asserted their ambition to be an international power and in the process have left our human story a rich treasure trove of their complex civilization as it related to the three superpowers of the time...For 3000 years, while the Hittites were the unknown fourth empire that held power between 1800 and 1200 BCE, their influence and their complex system of collective governance—seen as an early example of early Middle Eastern democracy that did not give a king absolute power in decision-making—guides us in gaining informed insight into their strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and what destabilized them and eventually led to their ruin.
The book begins with a great entr' /intr'o-duct'ion and in-form'ation while ends with also a great con-clos'/ -clus'ion! This book is definitely a complete work and ready for the readers who seek knowledge in the subject.
It is EVEN BETTER to read this one after reading books about Egyptian history both to be followed by hi-stories of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon and Assyria.
This book provides both helpful information and lessons as it is the main role of books for us.
A good piece of information to enlighten the readers: (Kindle Ed. pp. 6-7) ...The archived tablets are in no fewer than eight languages. There are testaments that record kings' speeches and provide rare glimpses into the actual personalities and emotions of Hittite kings, appeals from Egyptian wives to Hittite kings in times of great tragedy, descriptions of strict conditions of hygiene that kept subjects far from kings and their nearest relations, duties and regulations for reporting officials on day-to-day operations in the service of the king, as well as proclamations and various reports.
What a cosmopolitan society it must have been, right?
A gr’eat piece of advice and lesson for our societies to gr’ow stronger: (Kindle Ed. p. 21) ...The ruling elite executed the king's will. Their sacred bond with each other was a unity of service to the king and it was not the kind of unity that could be broken. They burned effigies of their enemies and designed monuments as evidence of strength and power. The enormity of the architecture that has been found in their vast capital of Hattusa and their other cities stand as remarkable testimony to the attitude they held about how they could grow and fulfill their empire's vision...
No wonder it was one of the early imperial powers seeking hegemony of the known world: UNITY, which gave them strength to gather a significant sum of manpower and resources together as a society. Of course it might not that convincing in the common people's sense. Nonetheless, we will have to work on it for our future strides.
(Kindle Ed. p. 22) While we will discuss their complex system of gods and how they lived their lives despite their prevalent political ambitions in a moment, let's first consider what they looked like, the Hittite world view, how the kings ruled and what the responsibilities of the king's subjects were, and then how they cultivated their culture through literature, sports and art. Then, we will briefly look at their economy and return to the earlier discussion about how their imperialism fit in with the different empires nearby while they reached their zenith and ended up ultimately collapsing despite their earlier power.
For a brief book it shares a lot of good and useful information to en-/ in-form the readers. It is like the best among all the ancient Middle Eastern empires series I've been recently reading.
There are a few mistakes to be edited.
Typo: (Kindle Ed. p. 24) Most documents tell the story of kings that were not easily accessible neither by those in the service to them or those who he ruled over...
...n’either by those in the service to them n’or those who he ruled over...
So nor, not or.
(Kindle Ed. p. 26) ...A collection of roughly 200 Hittite laws was found among the tablets discovered in the capital in 1905 and are a single work in 2 tablets, containing laws of different periods...
This one’s grammatically a little bit messed up.
I’ve read the 1st Edition, and for a 1st Ed., I can tell that it is a complete piece of work ready to be sold on the mark’et and read.
Mycket intressant och kort och enkel genomgång. Det sägs ofta att Hettiterna var gåtfulla, vilket de säkert var, men i denna beskrivning skapar deras dåd och arkeologi en bild av dem. Väl värd att läsa, och kommer försöka hitta fler av denna serie.
We have often heard of ancient kingdoms such as Egypt, Greece, Babylon, and etc. but there was a kingdom which interacted with all these kingdoms and were a mighty kingdom in their own right, but only a very few of us have even heard of the name. This is a brief compilation of the Hittite history by Hourly History.
The book starts about with the exact location of the Hittite empire, being based in Anatolia and then, it firsts starts off with the sources of Hittite history which helps us understand as to why there is very little knowledge about them, as the excavation began very late and the information gathering is still going on. It goes on to talk about the contributions of the British archaeologist, Sir T.E. Lawrence (more famously known as Lawrence of Arabia) towards collection of the artefacts. The book covers all major aspects of the Hittite history, throughout the Bronze and Iron Age, conflict management with neighbours, the royalty, the traditions, the cities and the army.
I appreciate how the book began by explaining why people know very little about them owing to the lack of sources and also inculcating the interest by bringing in a very well known figure in history, Sir T.E. Lawrence. In fact, I have come across the name of this Empire only while reading the history of Egypt and assuming it to be more popular, the book covered all the incidents that I read about Hittites in relation to their interaction with Egypt. The book also brought out the contributions of Hittites in the field of politics and diplomacy, as to how they were perhaps the first kingdom to have documented foreign policies and ceasefire agreements. The society was also covered; as to how it was not a homogenous society and people were of different ethnicities and spoke different languages.
I would have liked it if the book had included the reasons for the eventual decline of the empire, however, I am unsure whether it was a conscious exclusion or whether there is insufficient evidence towards the same.
On the whole, this was a highly informative book about an empire which only a very few of us are aware of.
The Hittites rounded off the four great civilizations of Middle Eastern and North African antiquity. Joining the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, the Hittites formed the fourth great empire of the second millennium BCE. Avid Philologists and Linguists have been studying tablets and artifacts from the area influenced by these peoples since the late nineteenth century; considerably later than the other three civilizations, making it perhaps the less known and understood. One of the most renowned explorers of the Hittites was T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. He, in typical Victorian fashion, brought a treasure of artifacts back to Britain to be studied and displayed in various museums. This practice, which I personally consider nothing short of obscene, may now have proved to be an act of divine providence. With the recent violence, due to political, religious, and social unrest in and around Syria and Iraq (especially caused by the destruction inflicted by IS), many of the ancient sites and artifacts have been destroyed. I am a history lover. This said, to my chagrin, I must admit to a very limited knowledge of this particular civilization. My interest was piqued only with the first reports of the arbitrary and capricious destruction of the recent past. This book supplies a short summary of a history covering many centuries and hidden under the sands of time for more than two millenniums. It gives the reader a basic knowledge of the area and the times. I found this book very interesting and informative, making it well worth the investment of an hour’s time and dissipate the layers of sand and dust, revealing a civilization long gone but never forgotten.
Although parts of this book are a bit confusing, because of the subject matter, this historic group of people was treated with the respect and good research that they deserve. Most of us, including myself, do not know much about this Asian group who once inhabited parts of Turkey, Syria, and Egypt. The only plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace we see much about them now is in the Old Testament of the Bible, where they and the Israelites must fight for the land, and when the Israelites must keep themselves free from all of the Hittite gods. But this book shows us a picture we probably haven't seen before, unless we major in historic cultures and people groups. This is a fascinating and revealing study of a very complex culture which had a lot of influence on the cultures and peoples around them. In fact, there was much more cross cultural influence, according to this book, than I ever realized. This book describes a fascinating and little known part of history that may have answers to questions being asked today. It may explain some of the dynamics still ruling this region and why the people there still think as they do. This is the value of history. It helps us to understand ourselves and others and build better relationships throughout the world.
I always thought the name Uriah was quite catchy because of the melliferous smoothness in pronunciation and poetic touch on the exotic sound reminiscent of the pagan past of humankind. So the first one I came to know was the British Rock band Uriah Heep, then came the biblical Uriah, whose beautiful wife led him to death by King David infatuated with her sensuousness. So when I learned that the ancestor of Uriahs was the founder of the Hittites race, being the great-grandson of Noah, the biblical patriarch, I had a Eureka moment. Consequently, I picked up this concise but comprehensive book on the Hittites to know a little more about the people whose founder had the remarkable name.
Before the splendor of ancient Greek contributions to our human cultural progress as a collective enterprise, there was the forgotten but enduring legacy of the Hittites, the mysterious Indo-European trailblazers of civilizations at the crossroads of the East and the West in the vast plain of modern-day Turkey. The Hittites were an integral people to solve the mystery of mythological and biblical events anchored in the real world, thus dissolving fact and legend into one another like a genie from an empire that vanished into the dunes of time and comes alive in the calling. The calling of these mysteriously vanished people came first from British Reverends Archibald Henry Sayce and William Wright in the early 19th century. They discovered the artifacts and sites of the Hittites. Their discovery led to more remarkable discoveries. During the middle Bronze age and Iron age, the Hittites were the first to utilize iron from the region of present Armenia to craft tools and weapons. Also, the Hittites were deft at commerce, developing the city of Carchemish as an ancient mercantile hubbub in which they imported products from Phoenicia and exported them to Assyria (the North) and Babylon (the South) in Mesopotamia. In this fabulous ancient city, Israelites of the Old Testament acted as intermediaries in trade between Egyptians for exporting horses and chariots and the Hittites for importing them.
Like all those famous entertainers who sparkled then lost the lusters, the Hittites as a collective empire fell from splendor gradually by outside forces: some pointed the fingers at the Sea People, while the others blamed a certain barbarous Kaska people. But, perhaps, such clandestine ending of the Hittites is what makes them formidably alluring and mysteriously fascinating, blurring the boundary of fact and legend. Suppose you are keen on the history of ancient civilizations other than Greece and Egypt. In that case, this elegant primer for the history of the Hittites will equip you with fundamental knowledge enough to whet your craving for more and more profound knowledge about the Hittites.
Archeologists were aware of three major developed civilizations that were active about the same time periods (Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians). However, with the help of Lawrence of Arabia (a noted archeologist as well as famous for other things), they were able to unearth information about a fourth civilization -- the Hittites (of present-day Turkey). Fortunately for archeologists, the Hittites were consummate record-keepers. With all the technology available to current-day investigators, they are still unearthing records, seals, and other items to help tell the Hittite story.
Considering Hourly History's penchant is for one-hour stories, they did a wonderful job of explaining the Hittites in a few pages. They explain that the Hittites were 'yellow' people with black hair and of Indo-European extraction. They were active in the late Bronze Age and Iron Age. They figured out how to process iron to harden it but kept that info to themselves. They also perfected the spoked wheel chariot; which was fortunate because the Hittites were always on the prowl for more territory (for economic and political reasons).
I always appreciate it when authors take the time to tell a bit about the 'little people.' The author spent some time telling readers about the Hittite's style, culture, gods, and views. This helps the reader understand our connection to previous civilizations. The reasons for the Hittite's collapse are still being debated. The author posed some of the theories that are being inspected currently. This is a good intro to a complex civilization.
I got this to learn about the historic remains in Syria which are being lost due to current conflicts. I would have benefited from a map showing the geography and land features that influenced the trade routes. Although there were some references that I found pertinent to my goals, this book did not serve my needs.
When one thinks of Ancient cultures generally one thinks of the Egypt, Babalyon, or Israel but these book on the Hittites was enlightening quite a lot of information packed into this brief introduction I'm impressed and will seek out more on this civilization
In reading this book I found out a great deal about the Hittites. They are given a bit of a short shift because of the other powers at that time. To say they are an interesting empire is a fair assessment of them. That we know a lot is true, bug there is still more to discover about these people.
I was actually overwhelmed by this book. I had never heard of this ancient civilization before and the information overload was a bit too much. I actually got a headache from reading it!! And for something that is supposed to take an hour, it took me all day!!!
I found this book to be very insightful as to the rise and fall of the Hittite Empire. I would recomend it for anyone interested in historical civilizations.
Very dense with information as it covers quite briefly all aspects of the life and history of this people. Enough for a general approach or as an introduction for those who would like to learn more.
Wretched. It felt like a collection of stitched-together essays by high school students. You get what you pay for. The publishers should be ashamed for making it available to readership.
Interesante libro sobre una cultura asentada en la region de Anatolia en la actual Turquia. Invita a seguir investigando sobre esta y otras culturas que se desarrollaron en la zona.
A brief history of the Hittites civilization. I do not think I have ever studied the Hittites In school because I had no knowledge of them. Interesting and amazing what they discovered and how they lived.
I liked it. My knowledge on Hittites were bare minimum and this book did give me an insight. There were lots of things I was unaware about them and was quite fascinated to learn what I've learnt from this book. I don't think it's got it all but what it has is sufficient.