Skip to main content
HISTODEX

Expansion of the Hittite Empire

c. 1650 BC–c. 1200 BC

From the seventeenth through the thirteenth century BCE, the Hittite kingdom centered at Hattusa expanded from Anatolia into northern Syria.

Scribes and soldiers studying a royal map before the gates of Hattusa
Reconstruction note: This educational reconstruction is not a primary-source image of the event.
Period
c. 1650 BC–c. 1200 BC
Kind
Cultural event
Regions
East Asia
Keywords
Anatolia · kingdom · diplomacy · chariots · Bronze Age

Follow the story · Four stages

  1. Background

    Anatolian kings combined chariots, fortresses, treaties, and vassal relationships amid competition for cities and trade routes.

    • Anatolian kingdoms consolidated around Hattusa
    • Chariots and metal resources supported military power
    • Syrian cities and trade routes became a field of rivalry
    An Anatolian royal city with walls and temples on a highland

  2. Course

    The campaigns of Mursili I, Suppiluliuma I’s Syrian conquests, and rivalry with Egypt around Kadesh extended the empire’s sphere of influence.

    • Campaigns extended influence into northern Syria
    • Egypt and the Hittites clashed around Kadesh
    • War and diplomacy shaped an interstate order
    A campaign of chariots and infantry moving through a mountain pass

  3. Outcome

    The Hittites became a regional power across Anatolia and northern Syria and left diplomatic records such as a peace treaty with Egypt, before their core collapsed early in the twelfth century BCE.

    • Treaties and marriages moderated rivalry
    • Palace and temple administration expanded
    • A crisis around 1200 BCE disrupted the system
    A scribe recording an interstate treaty on a clay tablet

  4. Historical significance

    Hittite history reveals not only conquest but also vassal rule, diplomacy, multilingual cuneiform administration, and the international relations of the Bronze Age.

    • It reveals international relations in the Bronze Age
    • It preserves an imperial politics of both war and treaty
    • Texts and ruins make ancient states recoverable
    Ruins and tablets preserving the international order of the Bronze Age

Related figures

Related events

  1. c. 1650 BC

    The Hattusa state

    The hill of Hattusa with monumental gates and temples

    A kingdom formed in central Anatolia with palaces, temples, and fortified approaches.

  2. c. 1595 BC

    Mursili’s campaigns

    Chariots and soldiers moving along a mountain road

    Armies moved south, extending Hittite influence toward the Syrian cities.

  3. c. 1400 BC–c. 1300 BC

    Expansion into Syria

    Current event

    Envoys and carts entering a Syrian trading city

    Competition for cities and trade routes brought Hittite and Egyptian power into contact.

  4. c. 1274 BC

    Kadesh diplomacy

    Envoys from two kingdoms facing a clay tablet

    Conflict eventually created a setting in which the two kingdoms adjusted relations by treaty.

  5. c. 1200 BC

    The Bronze Age crisis

    A collapsed storeroom and abandoned vessels suggesting palace-network crisis

    Migration and political instability shook the palace-centered networks of the region.

Sources