Chapter 55: The New Kingdom of the Hittite

readx;? Agriculture in the Hittite New Kingdom has become a major production sector. Metal smelting has reached a very high level www.biquge.info. According to the literature, the Hittites were the first to invent iron-making technology. The New Kingdom of the Hittites was a confederation of city-states centered on Hatusa. The king is elected by the nobility, and the succession to the throne must be recognized by the Council of Nobles. The king assigned the conquered lands to the princes, and the conquered natives were either moved elsewhere or remained in place to become Hittite agricultural slaves. Slaves in general were considered the property of slave owners, and prisoners of war were the main source of slaves.

Slavery developed greatly, and frequent foreign wars caused a large number of prisoners of war and slaves to flow into the Hittites. The king gave slaves, livestock, and land plundered in the war to ministers and nobles, which promoted the development of the economy of great slavery, and the ministers, nobles, big slave owners, and temples all owned huge farms and pastures, and enslaved a large number of slaves and dependent laborers to cultivate or graze. Some slave pastures even became a state within a state, and slaves were brutally exploited and abused.

Agricultural slaves, who had existed since the time of the Hittite New Kingdom, were still in large numbers, and they had to pay heavy taxes on a certain amount of land. Domestic slaves (servants) had a higher status, they owned a certain amount of land and property, could marry a freeman woman (subject to a higher bride price), and were not slaves in the ordinary sense. In addition, there was the appearance of debt slaves.

The crown directly controlled a large amount of arable land, and in addition to rewarding ministers and nobles, a considerable part of it was allocated in the form of allotments to those who served the royal family. According to the Hittite Code, there were two classes of assignees: 1 "subordinate" or occupier of the land, and 2 "tools (weapons)", i.e., members of the artisan (artisan) caste. The status of "ministry" comes from the king, and the status of artisan comes from the magistrate. The share of land from the king cannot be bought and sold, transferred, but can only be inherited, and the condition of receiving the share of the land is to serve the royal family in the military, and after the status of the "ministry" changes, the share of the land is returned to the royal family. The land from the magistrate could be bought, sold and transferred, and the condition for receiving the land was that he was responsible for most of the ordinary municipal servitude. After the artisan status was changed, the land was taken over by the local commune.

The class of freedmen was severely divided, some of them became "hipparaas", they were bound to the public organization "labor union", and their status was akin to that of slaves, and some of them became "heirs", attached to the army (for them to cultivate the land or go on expeditions) or to the temple, and were exploited and oppressed by them.

Although the productivity of the early Hittite states belonged to the Bronze Age, the Hittite was the first country in Western Asia to invent iron smelting and use iron tools. The iron weapons of the Hittites once terrified Egypt and other countries. The Assyrians learned the art of smelting iron from the Hittites.

During the Hittite Empire, agriculture and animal husbandry were relatively developed, and bronze plows and sickles were commonly used. Silver, copper, and lead ore were mined in large quantities, and iron was mined and used to supply other civilized worlds. Trade is well developed and is one of its main economic sectors.

The Hittites were mainly agricultural, and in addition to metallurgy, there were also sub-industrial sectors such as pottery manufacturing and textiles. Commercial trade was also prosperous, with contacts with Egypt, Phoenicia, Cyprus, the Aegean islands, and other places.

There is a more detailed division of labor in the handicraft industry, with pottery, woodware, leather, tailoring, textiles and other industries. Due to economic development, the political system of the Hittite Empire was no longer a city-state or a union of city-states, but a centralized empire. The king is the supreme ruler who oversees military, administrative, diplomatic, judicial, and religious powers. The "Sun" replaced the "Tabarna" of the Old Kingdom and became the title of king. The king was revered as a god after his death.

The Hittites were a people accustomed to warfare, and generations of conquest taught the Hittites that they could not do without a strong army. The Hittite kings maintained an army of up to 300,000 men. They are advanced in weaponry, using short axes, swords, and bows and arrows. The Hittites were famous for iron smelting and were the first countries in Western Asia to invent iron smelting and use iron tools.

Hittite mythology is the main literary expression of the Hittites, including works based on the ancient Sumerian legend of creation and flooding, and the Hittite religion is also modeled after the polytheistic worship of Mesopotamia. Religious activities include divination, sacrifices, fasting, and prayer and have no ethical significance. The Hittites wrote about their Indo-European languages in cuneiform and created the Hittite cuneiform. The Hittite also had another set of hieroglyphs for inscriptions and seals, which may have been influenced by the original pictorial script of the Hattites and Egyptian hieroglyphs. But so far, these hieroglyphs have not been successfully interpreted. The most prominent cultural achievement of the Hittites was the legal system. The Hittite laws, represented by the Hittite Code, were more humane than the laws of ancient Babylon, punishing the death penalty for fewer crimes, and less of the tortures of the Assyrian laws, such as skinning, palace punishment, and nailing of stakes. The artistic talent of the Hittites was not very good. However, their sculptures are new and vivid, especially the reliefs on the stone walls. Next to the city gate and the palace gate, there are usually huge and vivid stone lions carved. Their building materials were mostly boulders, which were significantly superior to the adobe of the two river basins. The historical achievements of the Hittite civilization lie not only in the discovery and use of iron, but also in the fact that it served as an intermediary between the two river basins and the western part of Western Asia. There is no doubt that some elements of culture were transmitted from Mesopotamia to the Canaanites and Hyksos, and possibly to the islands of the Aegean Sea, through this medium, and the Hittite civilization was one of the main links between the civilizations of Egypt, the civilizations of the two river basins, and the civilizations of the Aegean region.

The goddess Alina and the god Telipinus (Terepin) held an important place among the gods of the Hittite. One of their most important deities, the goddess Alina was revered as the Queen of the Earth, the Queen of the Fields, and the protector of the Hittite kingdom and monarchy.

When the country was in danger, the king always prayed to her for help, and whenever the country won a war, he would also send a lot of loot to her temple. Her husband is the god of thunderstorms. Tielieping, known as the god of agriculture, is the son of the god of thunderstorms, and plays the role of a bartender at the feast, serving wine to the gods. The goddess Mahjura was also often treated by the Hittite kings as the goddess of the sun.

The thunderstorm (storm) god Tal Huente stood out in the Hittite temple. Thalhuente (Julian's Teshub) was called the "Conqueror", "King of Kumiya", "King of Heaven", "Lord of the Earth of Hatti". He is the lord of the gods, and the symbol is the bull. As the god Taishub, he is depicted as a bearded man who stands on two hills and supports a temple. He was the god of battle and victory, especially in times of war with foreign countries. The most famous story of Teshub is his conflict with the snake god Iruyanka.