a people who lived in the central part of the Hittite empire.

There are various hypotheses regarding how the Hittites migrated to Asia Minor. According to the western hypothesis, the Hittites came by way of the Balkans, and according to the eastern hypothesis, by way of the Caucasus. According to still another hypothesis, they were among the most ancient peoples of Asia Minor. Judging from the borrowings from the Hittite language and the proper names appearing in documents written in the Old Assyrian dialect of Akkadian that were found in Anatolia in trading centers with colonies of Assyrian merchants, the Hittites were already living in Asia Minor by the beginning of the second millennium B.C. Hittite works of art from the second millennium B.C. clearly show that physically the Hittites were of the Caucasoid anthropological type. Hittite culture shows influences of both the Hattian and Hurrian cultures. From the 14th to early 12th centuries B.C. (New Kingdom) the Hittites were no longer the predominant ethnic group, although the Hittite language, with some Luwian elements, remained the major language of official documents. Bearers of the late Hittite culture in southeastern Asia Minor and northern Syria, who are often referred to as Hittites in foreign texts, in particular, the Old Testament, were Luwians linguistically.

Hittite art is associated with the artistic traditions of earlier peoples of Asia Minor. The proto-Hittite period was characterized by gold, bronze, and copper standards and emblems, by animal figurines (bulls and deer), executed in a generalized style and frequently decorated with incised geometric designs (second half of the third millennium B.C.), and by monochrome black polished pottery (pitchers resembling teapots and jugs with a long, narrow neck). It was also characterized by polychrome pottery, called Cappadocian pottery, decorated with designs of wavy lines and depictions of animals, similar to the articles of Cyprus; such pottery was found at Alişar Hüyük (Alacahöyök), Hattusas, and Kültepe (late third to early second millennia B.C.). During the second millennium B.C., Hittite art, while retaining its originality, absorbed influences of the ancient Egyptian and Sumero-Babylo-nian cultures and itself, in turn, exerted an influence on Syrian and Assyrian art.

In the second millennium B.C., the open settlements, with round or rectangular clay dwellings on stone foundations, were replaced by fortress refuges and fortress settlements, such as Samal, which were round in layout and had complex systems of fortifications made of stone monoliths. Stone foundations, stone socles, and wooden and stone free-standing supports are characteristic of Hittite buildings. Dwellings, sometimes two-storied, usually had a flat roof and an open court in front. The bit-hilani, a widely used style of building for houses, palaces, and temples, had a porticoed entrance hall on the longitudinal side framed with rectangular towers. The lower parts of the external walls of such buildings were often faced with slabs having bas-reliefs (orthostats). The sculptures in the round and reliefs developed by the Hittites were, as a rule, subordinate to the rock slab, such as the massive figures of lions and sphinxes half-protruding from stone blocks framing the gates of the external wall in Hattusas (15th to 12th centuries B.C.) and the massive statues of gods. Bas-reliefs on buildings and stelae depicting sacred animals, gods, kings praying, and scenes from court life, executed in a generalized style and having poorly delineated forms, are noted for their monumentality and static quality and the austere power of the images. Similar to Assyrian reliefs, they differ, however, in their comparatively greater freedom of composition, poses, and movements. More canonical are the sacred rock reliefs at the Yazili-kaya sanctuary near Hattusas, depicting two converging processions of gods (end of the second millennium B.C). Hittite art of the mid-ninth to sixth centuries B.C. had lost its originality owing to increased Assyrian and Aramaic influences (the stelae with reliefs at Samal and Sakce Gozu).