Ancient History - Part 51: The Iron Age Is Born

The aforementioned horde that consumed Hatta was restricted to Cappadocia, including the Hittites' capital city, Hattusa. All of Syria was left untouched by this damning incursion. The Egyptian records state that other nations who stood before this horde included the Amorite and the Kedi people, but like the Hattans before them, fell underfoot to this bloody conquest, any survivors press-ganged into the invading army's frontline.

Due to the outside nature of Egypt's perspective, the genetic and cultural identity of this horde remains an unknown. There is speculation that this was a maritime tribe whose warriors landed in the northwestern Anatolia region, newly discovering a weakened force of natives to oppose them. Others theorize that this horde was none other than a conglomeration of north Cappadocian people, who simply decided to march from their steep lands while the Hattic lands were undefended and ripe for plundering hands.

Whether they came from the west or the north, as well as the composition of soldiers, those details make little difference in the final result: Imperial Hatta as Asia Minor knew it ended by 1200 B.C.

Microregions broke apart following the collapse of this once great empire, where warlords and other would-be leaders raced to make their claim for power amongst the ashes of Hatta, but none of these client-states would amount to anything worthy of being called an empire until the days of Sargon II many centuries ahead.

Prior to his death, king Hattushil II ushered large deposits of iron shipments into Egypt, and thereby the Near East, as a whole. This is a monumental achievement that the Hittites do not receive enough credit for because in doing this, they birthed the beginning of the Iron Age. While their civilization and history is long dead and ended, this final act of the Hittites and their last great king is something very much alive and still felt by the modern world today. 

Ancient History - Part 50: The Fall Of Hatta

By the middle of the 13th century BC, warm relations grew to see Hatta become the chief supplier of iron to Egypt, this resource soon to rapidly spread throughout Asia Minor by the time Hattushil II passed. Two decades later, the venerable Ramses II followed. Hattushil's son, Dudkhalia II, named after the original Dudkhalia, the Great Uniter of the Hattic peoples, inherited the throne. Sadly, much historic record is missing, that which might have covered both his reign, and the life of his son, prince Arandas.

One thing that we know for certain about these lost years is that Carchemish and Aleppo, who historians theorize the Hittites lost control of, were firmly back in the possession of the Hattic empire, if they were ever lost to begin with. Carchemish was a focal city and absorbed into the greater part of Hattusa's capital, whereas Aleppo remained within Hatta's sphere of influence, its prince a loyal subject to his king.

During Ramses III's time, there is record that accounts for a great horde who conquered and ended Hattusa, with Dudkhalia possibly being the last ruling king, though internet sources, i.e. Wikipedia, dispute this and list Shubbiluliuma II as the Hittites' final monarch. Some suggest that both kings were one and the same. But as to the ultimate fate of the Hittites, the fact remains that Ancient Egyptian sources cite a wave of devastation in this unnamed horde who engulfed the entirety of the Cilician Plain, including Carchemish, Alashiya, and Arwad, and the Hittite people and their empire with it.

It has been covered previously that Assyria defeated both the Hittites followed by Babylonia, when the latter failed to arrive to her ally's aid. This call-to-arms, or rather, lack thereof, resulted in Assyria shattering the military of Hatta, leaving her indefensible to the savage hordes of the upper northern plains of Cappadocia, and later, Assyria's rule and total conquest of Babylonia.

Egypt opted not to aid nor abet, acting merely as a witness to the fall of her once enemy turned ally. The once great Empire of the Nile's full attention was heavily weighed by the rapid decline from within her own borders as internal decay began to rot down to the core. One positive for future nations that would spawn from this era of the collapsing dynasties is an emphasis placed upon the importance of border-security, in the forms of mitigation of the great migrations of people, as well as protection against organized foreign attack.

[DUDKHALIA II - The forgotten king]

Ancient History - Part 47: A Changing of the Guard

Egypt and Hatta continued to battle along their Syrian borderlands, where one such engagement claimed the life of Muwatallis. Sensing the void in leadership, Ramses II mustered three more armies and began to reinforce the frontlines in preparation for another full-scale invasion from the south. Upon a civil war that erupted between rival leaders in Hattusa, king Hattushil II (III according to some modern historians) emerged. His reign lasted a great many years.

While Egypt managed to plague the Hattic kingdom's forces, Hatta still managed not to lose much ground, and once Hattushill II had fully ascended to the throne, still possessed a sphere of influence that running from northern Syria to the topmost border of Palestine. This fertile area continued to fund the entirety of the Hattic kingdom as its chief source of revenue.

Ruling with a firm hand, Hattushil eliminated the question as to who controlled Syria, and despite their vast forces, the pending Egyptian invasion never arrived, the territorial lines once again respected by the two superpowers of Hatta and Egypt. 

Later, the Kassite king of Babylonia corresponded with Hattushil regarding the migratory shift of the Amorite population fleeing Hittite-occupied Syria into the desert with some even making their way into Babylonia. A man of surprisingly great eloquence, Hattushil II transformed from a fiery war chief to a charming elder statesman, and in a successful exchange managed to curb Babylonia's cautiousness, offer explanation that the movement of peoples was not intentional but rather a side effect of the war. In the end, the Hattic king gained a powerful new alliance in this unforeseen friendship with the superpower of the southeast, Babylonia.

Egypt then followed the footsteps on Babylonia, sealing an agreement of friendship, and a new peace treaty was actualized with Hatta.

Some battles are won not by the sword, but by the pen (or the chisel by what 1300 B.C.'s cuneiform standards would suggest) and Hattushil managed to do what years of blood-soaked violence could not. Simply treating with the rival power of Babylonia was enough to intimidate a peaceful result with Egypt thus demonstrating that while no monarch's rule is infallible, a simple change in leadership followed by immediate action is usually enough to gain the attention of all friend and foe.

[KING MUWATALLIS REMEMBERED upon his death]