The Hittites were an Indo-European-speaking people who established a kingdom in Anatolia (modern Turkey) almost 4,000 years ago. They rose to become one of the great powers of the ancient Middle Eastern world by conquering Babylon - and were destroyed in the wake of the movements of the enigmatic Sea Peoples around 1180 BC. Macqueen's study investigates such intriguing topics as the origins of the Hittites, the sources of the metals which were so vital to their success, and their relations with their contemporaries in the Aegean world, the Trojans and the Mycenaean Greeks.

Excerpt from The Land of the Hittites: An Account of Recent Explorations and Discoveries in Asia Minor, With Descriptions of the Hittite Monuments The history of ancient Oriental civilisation is slowly revealing itself to the excavator and archæologist. Scientific excavations have been carried on in Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, and Palestine; it is now the turn of Asia Minor, both north and south of the Taurus; and there are indications that the revelation which Asia Minor and the neighbouring lands of Syria have in store for us will be even more startling than that which has come from Egypt and Babylonia. There we already knew that great empires and wide-reaching cultures had once flourished; the earlier history of Asia Minor, on the other hand, was a blank. But the blank is beginning to be filled up, and we are learning that there too an empire once existed, which contended on equal terms with those of the Nile and the Euphrates, and possessed a culture that formed a link between the east and the west. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Land of the Hittites: An Account of Recent Explorations and Discoveries in Asia Minor, With Descriptions of the Hittite Monuments Since Professor Sayce and Dr. Wright first called atten tion, more than thirty years ago, to the forgotten empire and civilisation of the Hittites, no book has appeared to keep the English reader abreast of the further informa tion which has since come to light upon that subject. In the meantime researches made by British and German explorers in northern Syria and Asia Minor, and the studies of numerous scholars who have applied them selves to this problem, have advanced the position so far that the Hittites are nebulous no longer, but stand revealed in the clear light of history, claiming the attention of all those interested in the story of the Bible Lands, of Asia Minor, and of early Greece. The position and character of Asia Minor lend a wide interest and charm to its past no less than its present. The present volume aims at filling the gap which has already grown too wide. It starts ab initio with a rapid survey of the Hittite lands, and an outline of their history. The Hittite monuments are then passed in review, each described separately and independently, in such a way as to be useful to any one visiting them in situ or in the museums of Constantinople and Berlin, where there are departments devoted specially to this branch of archaeology. The bibliography and numerousxii the land OF the hittites. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The rediscovery of the ancient empire of the Hittites has been a major achievement of the last hundred years. Known from the Old Testament as one of the tribes occupying the Promised Land, the Hittites were in reality a powerful neighbouring kingdom: highly advanced in political organization, administration of justice and military genius; with a literature inscribed in cuneiform writing on clay tablets; and with a rugged and individual figurative art, to be seen on stone monuments and on scattered rock faces in isolated areas. This classic account reconstructs, in fascinating detail, a complete and balanced picture of Hittite civilization, using both established and more recent sources.