The Hittites were an important tribe in what is modern day Turkey and down to what is modern day Israel. Bronze an alloy of Copper and Tin was in common use in the Middle East at the time. It was easily made and was easily tooled, suitable for weapons and tools. Iron was more difficult to extract because it required a higher furnace temperature.
Iron was harder that bronze and could damage bronze weapons in combat. Iron was not yet Steel which is an alloy of Iron. Steel making was not well understood at the the time and large scale steel production did not happen until the s CE. The Hittites use 3 man Chariots in battle. One man to drive and 2 others to use bows or spears. This gave them a distinct advantage of mobility against other armies which were more large masses of men.
The Hittites would have used groups of massed infantry as well. They were thus seeking to base the law on legal precedents. The Hittites seem to have placed more emphasis than other legal systems of the time on ascertaining the facts in a case. Some court records have survived, and show considerable efforts to make detailed enquiries, which have a quite a modern ring to them.
Hittite law was humane by the standards of the time. The only capital offenses were for rape, intercourse with animals and defiance of the state. Slaves, as ever, were in a worse position, being liable to the death penalty for disobedience to masters, and sorcery, and mutilation for lesser crimes.
For free men and women, the penalty for most crimes was restitution of damaged or stolen property, or compensation for injury — though offenders were often required to pay several times the value of the damage caused.
In most cases the reparation expressed in silver value. Careful distinction was made between violations committed in anger or on purpose, and those committed by accident — a distinction not made in some other law codes. In the first instance, cases came before the local elders. In more serious cases a local royal officer such as a local garrison commander would be required to be involved, in conjunction with the elders. Appeals went to the king or in practice more likely his judicial advisors , and also, it seems, to the Assembly.
The core of the Hittite army was the light horse-drawn chariot; indeed their chariotry was second to none, especially in later periods. Hittite chariots were probably heavier than those of their enemies, particularly the Egyptians, and appear to have carried three men instead of two. Otherwise they were very similar in design. The infantry were probably more numerous than the chariots, but played a subordinate role in battle.
The active campaigning season was confined to spring and summer. At the beginning of spring as order for mobilization would be sent out to those territories chosen to take part that year, and a rendezvous named near the relevant frontier.
At the appointed time and place the king would review the army and take command in person. The Hittites were masters of strategy and cunning. They executed feints, marches and counter-marches to confuse enemy, and before the battle of Kadesh succeeded in concealing their whole army from the Egyptians. Their objective always was to catch the enemy army in the open, where their chariots could be deployed to maximum effect.
Exactly what the weapons and armor of Hittite soldiers was is not clear. The weapons used by the chariot-borne warriors were apparently the lance and the bow. However, Hittite carved figures show warriors wearing only belted kilt and helmet, and carrying short sword and battle axes, and on Egyptian carvings Hittite soldiers appear in long robes and armed with long spears. Perhaps these varied representations show the heterogeneous nature of Hittite forces, drawn as they were for a wide variety of peoples.
The army which fought at the battle of Kadesh , for example, the largest ever mustered by a Hittite king, included contingents from every part of his empire, and from every possible ally and vassal. The Hittite army contained sappers in connection with the construction of fortifications and for use in siege warfare.
Prolonged sieges were sometimes required, and the Hittites had battering-rams and siege towers. They were also masters of defense — massive defensive walls surrounded their cities and fortresses, with gateways designed to make it as hard as possible to fight a way through. On the north and west frontiers of the empire, where wild tribes threatened to raid, lines of fortresses guarded Hittite territory.
The garrisons of these fortresses must have been permanent troops, rather than those mustered for a particular campaign. These garrison troops were probably made up of mercenaries, at least in part. In the accounts of the victories and conquests of Hittite kings there is a complete absence of lust for torture and cruelty which characterized the annals of the Assyrian kings. There was no Hittite navy; this is somewhat surprising as they possessed territories in Cyprus, and trade extensively with that island.
They filled the highest offices of state, such as chiefs of the bodyguard, chief of the courtiers, chief of the wine pourers, chief of the treasurers, chief of the scepter-bearers, and chief of the overseers of a thousand.
In particular they held the top military commands. Under them came a host of courtiers, bodyguards, grooms, cup-bearers, scepter-men, overseers of thousands, chamberlains, and warriors. These were the elite of Hittite society, and with the royal family, their leading members formed a hereditary nobility.
This class possessed large estates, apparently fiefs conferred by kings on condition of providing military forces for the royal army. This is no doubt how the very effective — and expensive — chariot arm of the Hittite army was raised and trained.
Temples also had large estates, and formed virtual states within a state. Along with the vast royal estates and noble estates, much of the productive land must have been owned by a comparatively small section of society. The vast majority of the population lay outside this elite group. The individual towns and districts had their own local elites, who were the elders of their communities. These were probably made up of the richer traders and small landowners.
There was a large class of slaves, These are mentioned in the laws as possessing specific rights, and were able to possess property; nevertheless, the quality of their lives would have been completely dependent upon whether or not they had a just and considerate master or not. The Hittites engaged in a lucrative trade with neighboring lands, particularly with the wealthy urban societies of Mesopotamia.
Asia Minor was rich in metals, and they traded copper, silver and iron in exchange for luxury textiles and jewelry from Mesopotamia, tin from Iran and Europe, and olive oil from Cyprus. Their smiths also manufactured bronze objects with tin. Hittite society included a small class of professional craftsmen — builders, weavers, leather-workers, potters and smiths are specifically mentioned. Most of the common people, however, were cultivators of the the land or herdsmen.
Many of these, perhaps the majority, were probably tied in some way to the many large estates which covered the land. As well as having obligations to their lords, they were subject to labor and military service when called on by the state. Silver was the medium of exchange, as it was throughout the Middle East at that time. This silver took the form of bars or rings. In earlier times, sliver was reckoned by measures of barley; later, the silver was measured by weight, adopting the Babylonian units of weight, the shekel and mina.
For smaller transactions, lead was used. Maximum prices were set by law although whether these were adhered to in practice is not known. The Hittite family was of the usual patriarchal type found in most pre-modern societies.
What the Hittite had that other cultures in the region did not was the knowledge of how to make iron. The Hittite had learned the secretive process for extracting iron from rocks containing iron ore. That is not to say that other cultures had not attempted to do the same, but the Hittite were able to understand the best methods for increasing the heat in their forges to a massive degree in order to separate the ore from the base rocks.
This concept alone is the main reason that the Hittite was able to unify their nation and expand it to neighboring borders. The Hittite used this new found metal as a way to create stronger weapons. Their swords, shields, and armor were all crafted using iron as opposed to bronze.
The iron was more durable and held a sharper edge over a longer period of time. Considering that many of the military campaigns fought throughout this time were hand-to-hand combat, this gave the Hittite a massive edge over their competitors.
The Hittite used these stronger, sharper weapons to continually expand their empire and to overcome rebellions within their own borders. The Hittite conquered the then existing city-states of the region and unified them all under one authority using their iron weapons and other military technology. At that time, many of these city-states were at war with one another.
With the introduction of iron, the Hittite were able to improve not just their military capabilities, but also the tools related to daily functioning.
The Hittites were an agriculturally based society. With the inclusion of iron, farmers were able to begin using iron plows that allowed them to till land that had previously been unusable due to soil conditions. It allowed the Hittite to increase dramatically their output of crops and to support their ever-growing empire.
Another piece of technology that the Hittite utilized was the chariot. The Hittites were not the only race in this region to have access to horses and chariots. While one or two soldiers may have used a standard chariot, the Hittite designed their chariots to be used by three soldiers. So why would this be advantageous? Consider this notion. In some ways the basic technology, if more refined and systematized, has changed little in years. The goal of the modern blast furnace, to produce a pure iron product, is the same as that of the ancient furnace or oven.
The modern furnace may generate hotter temperatures and better iron, but the basic idea revolves around heat generation and temperature. Iron, in its natural state, has a tendency to combine with oxygen, producing iron oxide, commonly observed as rust.
Removing impurities, starting with oxygen, has been the universal problem encountered by iron makers. The secret to eliminating oxygen is to use a substance, known as a reducing agent, with a greater affinity for oxygen than iron.
Charcoal and coke have been the two most commonly used reducing agents. Both serve dual purposes. As fuels, they generate the temperatures capable of melting iron. As carbon sources coke is nearly 90 percent carbon , they carburize the iron, reducing its melting point and also serve as reducing agents to remove the oxygen.
Oxygen is not the only impurity found in iron ore. Some can be removed with limestone, which, like a reducing agent, will combine with such impurities, lowering their melting point. The slag which forms separates from the iron and floats to the surface.
One of the problems faced by the Hittite iron makers involved the amount of carbon to be added. Additional amounts of carbon may lower the melting point of iron, but also make it extremely difficult to shape. Cast iron, the product, can only be shaped by use of a mold. As the liquid cools it assumes the shape of the mold. Wrought iron, in contrast, contains far less carbon, but requires a temperature close to the melting point of pure iron.
The advantage over cast iron is malleability. Normally wrought iron is made with an additional ingredient, silica, found in sand. Steel includes a limited amount of carbon or the addition of other elements, such as manganese or nickel.
The Hittites appear to have produced an iron which could be reheated and worked, suggesting that their product was a form of wrought iron or some version similar to carbon steel. Charcoal was used as the reducing agent, layered with the iron ore in shallow hearths. The temperatures may not have reached the melting point, but they were sufficient to remove the oxygen after several hours, leaving a shiny metal.
Limestone may have been used to remove other impurities or iron workers may have reheated the iron and hammered out the impurities which were left. The study of human origins has often tried to trace a direct line of evolution from ancient species down to modern man.
The Neanderthals and Australopithecus are not considered direct ancestors of today's humans. They represent instead, side-branches which died out. The key question, in relation to the Hittites, is not whether they deserve the credit for being the first to discover iron, but whether it was their discoveries which set the stage for the Iron Age.
In other words, did they represent the true ancestors of the Iron Age or, like the Neanderthals, did their independence and secrecy turn their technological achievements into dead-end curiosities? In some ways the question of whether iron technology originated with the Hittites, depends on the nature of the technology.
Was it so specialized as to prevent duplication?
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