The History and Patrimony of the Hittites in Syria is in Danger

The air strikes destroyed more than 60% of the Ain Dara Temple located in the enclave of Afrin, which dates back to the Iron Age (around 1300-700 B.C.). The Syrian Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums confirmed the partial destruction of this important site. The former director, Maamoun Abdelkarim, compared the damage to that caused by the ISIS troops in 2015 to the ancient site of the city of Palmyra. Except that the Ain Dara Temple was built eight centuries before the temple of Bel, which the jihadists destroyed with explosives.

The Turkish offensive also threatens ancient cities dating back to the early days of Christianity and included on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.

For a long time, the Hittite civilization was known only through the Bible (II Kings 7:6 for example), and stubborn, rationalistic, or skeptical minds saw it as either a mistake in the sacred text or the invention of an imaginary and mythical people. In the 19th century, archeologists and orientalists rediscovered traces of the forgotten civilization’s glorious past, providing another proof of the reliability of the Bible.

Researchers divide the history of this people into three main periods.

That of the Old Hittite Kingdom or Old Kingdom, around 1600-1400 B.C., with King Hattusili I who built the capital Hattusa, in Anatolia, and conquered the kingdom of Aleppo in Syria.

That of the New Kingdom or Hittite Empire, with the conquest of Babylonia. King Suppiluliuma I established his dominion over vast territories reaching all the way to the Euphrates, before occupying Damascus, then under Egyptian control, and the better part of Syria. The famous battle of Kadesh between King Muwatalli and Ramses II took place around the year 1274 B.C.

Beginning in the 12th century B.C. and for the next five centuries, the Hittite civilization experienced a long decline, that historians call the Neo-Hittite or Syro-Hittite period. The Hittite people were definitively crushed around 734, during the campaigns led by Pul, king of Assyria (see II Kings 15:19), also known as Tiglath-Pileser III or Teglath Phalasar (See I Chronicles 5). The Ain Dara Temple damaged by the Turkish army dates back to this period.