Around 2000 B.C., central Anatolia was invaded by an "Indo-European" people migrating from either Europe or Asia, who subdued the indigenous Hatti kingdoms, appropriating their language, customs, and women. The Hittites assumed Hatti names and adopted the practice of worshipping multiple deities, usually in the form of animals or representative of a force of nature. Even the term "Hittite" derives from the Hittite expression for "people in the land of the Hatti." The Hittites were also the first known literate civilization in Anatolia, having adopted a cuneiform script imported from Mesopotamia.
The Hittites built an empire of city-states in this manner, the most important of which was Hattusas ("Land of the Hatti," in the Hittite language) outside what is now Bogazköy. By the mid-century B.C., the Hittites had taken control of a large part of Anatolia, and under Suppiluliumas I managed to extend their borders to the south and east. Persistent invasions by Hittite successors created border tensions with Egypt, leading to the historic battle of Kadesh (ca. 1300 B.C.) between Hittite Emperor Muwattalis and Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. The Hittites are famed for their military prowess, and their deployment of the three-wheeled chariot probably gave them a huge advantage. Although historical accounts of the battle are contradictory (both sides claimed victory), the Hittites continued their hold on Syria. Later, and for the first time in the history of mankind, a written treaty between the two countries was concluded, between Hattusil III, Muwattalis's successor, and Ramses II (ca. 1284 B.C.), who eventually married two of Hattusil's daughters to seal the pact. A copy of the treaty is in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The Hittite Empire soon fell into decline and was finally destroyed by the invasion of a "Sea People."
