They faced Ramses II at Kadesh, signed history’s first surviving peace treaty, and smelted iron before anyone else — then vanished with the Bronze Age.
The Hittite Empire was a Bronze Age great power centered on Anatolia, in modern Türkiye, ruling from its capital Hattusa from about 1600 to 1180 BCE. Its kings fought Egypt to a standstill at Kadesh (c. 1274 BCE), signed the world’s first surviving peace treaty, and pioneered iron smelting — before the Bronze Age collapse erased the empire.
