The Hittites were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in modern-day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia, including the kingdom of Kussara, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom, and an empire centered on Hattusa. Known in modern times as the Hittite Empire, it reached its peak during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia, bordering the rival empires of the Hurri-Mitanni and Assyrians.
In the Hebrew Bible, Amraphel was a king of Shinar in Book of Genesis Chapter 14, who invaded Canaan along with other kings under the leadership of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam. Chedorlaomer's coalition defeated Sodom and the other cities in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim.
Nimrod is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore the great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of Shinar. The Bible states that he was "a mighty hunter before the Lord [and] ... began to be mighty in the earth". Some later (non-biblical) traditions, interpreting the story of Jacob’s dream in the Bible, identified Nimrod as the ruler who had commissioned the construction of the Tower of Babel or of Jacob's Ladder, and that identification led to his reputation as a king who had been rebellious against God.
Chedorlaomer, also spelled Kedorlaomer, is a king of Elam mentioned in Genesis 14. Genesis portrays him as allied with three other kings, campaigning against five Canaanite city-states in response to an uprising in the days of Abraham.
The Jebusites were, according to the books of Joshua and Samuel from the Hebrew Bible, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem, called Jebus before the conquest initiated by Joshua and completed by King David, although a majority of scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and most likely reflects a much later period. 1 Chronicles 11:4 states that Jerusalem was known as Jebus before this event. The identification of Jebus with Jerusalem is sometimes disputed by scholars. According to some biblical chronologies, the city was conquered by King David in 1003 BC.
The Hittites, also spelled Hethites, were a group of people mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Under the names בני-חת and חתי they are described several times as living in or near Canaan between the time of Abraham and the time of Ezra after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. Their ancestor was Heth.
Tudḫaliya I was a Hittite great king in the 15th century BC, ruling perhaps c. 1465–c. 1440 BC
Šuppiluliuma II, the son of Tudḫaliya IV, was the last certain great king of the New Kingdom of the Hittite Empire, contemporary with Tukulti-Ninurta I of the Middle Assyrian Empire. His reign began around 1207 BC and ended at an unknown later date.
Arioch appears in Genesis 14 as the name of the King of Ellassr who participated in the Battle of Siddim. Led by Chedorlaomer, the four kings Amraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Tidal engaged in a punitive expedition against five kings of Canaan who rebelled against Chedorlaomer, Bera of Sodom, Birsha of Gomorrah, Shinab of Admah, Shemeber of Zeboim, and Zoar of Bela. The same story is also mentioned in the Book of Jubilees, where Arioch is called "king of Sellasar". According to Genesis Apocryphon, Arioh was king of Cappadocia.
Tudḫaliya is the name of several Hittite kings or royals. It is not clear how many kings bore that name, and numbering schemes vary from source to source.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Kussara (Kuššar) was a Middle Bronze Age kingdom in Anatolia. The kingdom, though apparently important at one time, is mostly remembered today as the origin of the dynasty that would form the Old Hittite Kingdom.
Šamuḫa is an ancient settlement near the village of Kayalı Pinar, c. 40 km west of Sivas, in the Sivas Province of Turkey. Located on the northern bank of Kizil Irmak river, it was a city of the Hittites, a religious centre and, for a few years, a military capital for the empire. Samuha's faith was syncretistic. Rene Lebrun in 1976 called Samuha the "religious foyer of the Hittite Empire".
In the Hebrew Bible, Melchizedek, also transliterated Melchisedech, Melchisedec or Malki Tzedek, was the king of Salem and priest of El Elyon. He is first mentioned in Genesis 14:18–20, where he brings out bread and wine and then blesses Abram, and El Elyon or "the Lord, God Most High". Abram was returning from pursuing the kings who came from the East and gave him a "tenth of everything".
The Battle of the Vale of Siddim, also often called the War of Nine Kings or the Slaughter of Chedorlaomer, is an event in the Hebrew Bible book of Genesis 14:1–17 that occurs in the days of Abram and Lot. The Vale of Siddim was the battleground for the cities of the Jordan River plain revolting against Mesopotamian rule.
Tishdal was a Hurrian ruler from the Zagros mountains. According to David Rohl, he is identifiable with Tidal, king of Goyim from the Book of Genesis, 14:1. The word goyim in Biblical Hebrew can be translated as "nations" or "peoples" although some Bible commentaries suggest that in this verse it may instead be a reference to the region of Gutium. Tidal was one of the four kings who fought Abraham in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim.
Purushanda was an Anatolian kingdom of the early second millennium prior to the common era. It was conquered by the Hittites sometime between 1650 and 1556 BCE.
Tegarama was a city in Anatolia during the Bronze Age. It is often identified with Gürün and biblical Togarmah.
The House of Suhi was a dynasty of rulers of Carchemish. The members of this dynasty are best known to us through Hieroglyphic Luwian sources. Only one member of the house of Suhi is specifically mentioned in Assyrian sources. The House of Suhi was followed by a dynasty known as the House of Astiruwa.
Iaba (also called Yaba), Banitu, and Atalia were queens of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as the primary consorts of the successive kings Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II, respectively. Little is known of the lives of the three queens; they were not known by name by modern historians prior to the 1989 discovery of a stone sarcophagus among the Queens' tombs at Nimrud which contained objects inscribed with the names of all three women. The stone sarcophagus, believed to originally have been the tomb of Iaba since her name is on the nearby funerary inscription, presents a problem of identification as it contains objects with the names of three queens, but contains only two skeletons. The conventional interpretation is that the skeletons are those of Iaba and Atalia, but several alternate hypotheses have also been made, such as the idea that Iaba and Banitu could be the same person. Iaba and Banitu being the same person is however not supported by either historical or chronological evidence.
