Hattians

The Hattians (/ˈhætiənz/) were an ancient Bronze Age people that inhabited the land of Hatti, in central Anatolia (modern Turkey).

[1][2][3] Complex questions related to etymology of native names for Hattians, their land, language and capital city (Hatti, Hattili, Hattush) are debated among scholars.

The Hattians eventually merged with people who spoke Indo-European languages of the Anatolian group, including Hittite, Luwian, and Palaic.

Several archeological sites in central Anatolia, dating from the Early Bronze Age (second half of the 3rd millennium BC) are attributed to ancient Hattians.

The structure of archeological finds in some sites, like Hattush, reveal the existence of a complex culture with distinct social stratification.

In that case, the narrative would contain a trustworthy tradition, thus providing a base for an assumption that the ancient Kingdom of Hatti existed already during the period of the Akkadian Empire.

[13] Trevor Bryce writes: Evidence of a 'Hattic' civilization is provided by the remnants of one of the non-Indo-European languages found in the later Hittite archives.

Ekrem Akurgal wrote, "the Anatolian princes used scribes knowing Assyrian for commerce with Mesopotomia as at Kanesh (Kültepe)" to conduct business with Assyria.

Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region of Anatolia "in the third millennium [BC] was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians."

It involved worship of the earth, personified as a mother goddess, whom the Hattians honored in order to ensure bountiful harvests and their own well-being.

The storm gods of Anatolia were written with about one hundred catalogue variants of dU, mostly described as the Stormgod of Hatti or with a city name.