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The people known as Hattis are amongst the oldest settlers in Anatolian history. They ruled central Anatolia for about 500 years. Small city kingdoms were their favorite type of settlement units. They spoke a totally different language than the other influential Anatolian civilizations. There are signs of Mesopotamian influence on Hatti art and culture.
The main cities Mahmatlar, Horoztepe, Alacahoyuk and Hattus are inside the Kizilirmak (Red River, a large river in central Anatolia) bend.
They believed in a number of gods representing various acts of nature
in the form of animals. Some statues of their most popular gods are on
exhibition in some major museums of Turkey.
By the end of the 3rd millenium B.C. a large scale migration took place mainly from North Europe to the mild weathered south. One of the strong elements of the Indo-European people, Hittites gravitated to Anatolia through Caucasia while Hatti principalities were ruling the land.
These newcomers did not invade the land suddenly. They settled along side the existing people and set their own settlement units in time. Only after a long time, as a lot of Hittite principalities emerged, they claimed the rule of the land, Anatolia. They never destroyed the existing people and their cities. But instead, they mixed with the Hattis and other people of Anatolia. They even shared their gods, goddesses, art, culture and a large amount of words from Hatti language.
By 1750 B.C. Hittites were the only rulers of Anatolia.
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The Hurri civilization was established around eastern Anatolia and ruled by the Mitanni kingdom. The king was from an Indian descendency. The Hurrians occupied the land between the Hittites and Assyria, having descended from the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. In the late 15th century B.C. the Hittite Empire's beginning is marked by an influx of Hurrian names into the royal family.
The Hurri language was a totally separate entity from the others. The culture and the language of Hurri civilization was used or at least utilized extensively by Urartus and Hittites during the following centuries. They gods were very similar to Hittite gods which many suspected to be Hurrian.
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