New Indo-European language discovered during excavation in Turkey
Yoooooo????
Seems to be most closely related to Luwian, but specialists can’t read it yet. It survived because the Hittites wanted to record religious rites in the original language. Thank you, Hittites.
Thank you, Hittites.
Very glad to see the Hittites getting the respect and admiration they have deserved for 3650 years. If anyone has any further questions about the Hittites please know that you can always come to me, I have a literal PhD in Hittite. That is not a joke! That is a real thing that I have!
@frostfire-17 I would love to hear some interesting things about the Hittites if you feel inclined. 🙂
Interesting things about the Hittites! Here are four.
- They were Aggressively Ecumenical. When they conquered, which they did a lot, they schlorped up everyone else’s gods and added them to their own pantheon (hence the multilingual ritual texts). They called themselves the People of A Thousand Gods. They were not exaggerating.
- Their first king, Hattusili I, has an official royal edict where he whines forever about how his family was super ungrateful and didn’t support him. His son? Gave him a vassal state, rebelled. His daughter? Left her home at the capital, she incited rebellion there. His nephew? Conspired with his mom, Hattusili’s sister, against him. We don’t know the sister’s name because he just calls her “the snake.”
- There’s a Hittite letter to the Mycenaean Greeks which indicates that they could maybe stand to cool their tits about Troy.
- The first attested treaty between equal international powers was between the Hittites and Ramses II of Egypt, ~1270 BC-ish. The Hittites had been developing the treaty for several generations prior to this, from border agreements to vassal treaties, and ended up with a six-part template including a historical preamble and lists of witnesses. There’s a copy of it on the wall of the UN in New York.