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Neo-Hittite kingdom (c.1050-c.700 BC.)

The Hittites were never united in one empire. Different kingdoms flourished here and there. Some inland Anatolian power seems to have kept Aegean settlers and culture away from the Ionian coast during the Bronze Age, and that power was in all likelihood the Hatti kingdom of Cappadocia. Owing perhaps to Assyrian aggression, this power seems to have begun to suffer decay about l000 BC and thereafter to have shrunk inwards, leaving the coasts open. The powers of Phrygia and Lydia rose successively out of its ruins, and continued to offer westward passage to influences of Mesopotamian culture till well into historic times. The Neo-Hittite kingdom (c.1050-c.700 BC.) was eventually conquered by the Assyrians. The fortunes of the Neo-Hittite kingdom persisted down to 717 BC, when the Hittite empire was finally crushed on the fatal field of Carchemish.

The Greeks came too late to Asia to have had any contact with Hatti power obscured from their view by the intermediate and secondary state of Phrygia. Their earliest writers regarded the latter as the seat of the oldest and most godlike of mankind. Only one Greek author, Herodotus, alludes to the prehistoric Cappadocian power and only at the latest moment of its long decline. At the same time, some of the Greek legends seem to show that peoples, with whom the Greeks came into early contact, had vivid memories of the Hatti. Such are the Amazon stories, whose local range was very extensive, and the myths of Memnon and Pelops. The real reference of these stories, however, was forgotten.

Carchemish, which played an important part in the federation of the great Hittite power, continued its existence for several centuries. In the time of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III the kingdom of Carchemish entered into alliance with these kings and preserved its existence by becoming their vassal.

Shalmaneser died in 823 BC, but the wars between the Assyrians and the Hittites seem to have been carried on to the time of Sargon. In the annals of Sargon are two facts recorded. 'In the beginning of my reign,' says Sargon (BC 721), 'with the help of the Sun, who aided me to vanquish my enemies, I besieged, I occupied the the town of Samaria, and I brought into captivity 27,800 persons.' Four years later, in 717 BC, Sargon finally overthrew the Hittite kingdom by the defeat of Pisiri, and the capture of Carchemish. 'In the fifth year of my reign, Pisiri of Carchemish sinned against the gods.' In the sequel, the Hittites were carried into captivity, and Assyrians were placed in their cities.

Thus the Hittites, who appear for the first time in the inscriptions of Sargon I, king of Agane, cir. 1900 BC, disappear from history in the inscriptions of Sargon BC 717. They were a people before Abraham went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, and they only yielded to the arms of "Assyria after the Israelites had been swept from Samaria. During the history of the chosen people, from the time of Abraham to the captivity, the Hittites are often referred to in the Bible.