Artlessness of War

Have you ever wondered where the term Iron Age comes from?

The Bronze Age ended with the beginning of the Iron Age. Unfortunately there is no agreement on just when the Iron Age began. Some date its beginnings to 1500 B.C., about the time the Hittites started working with iron. Others give it a range of between 1500 and 1000 B.C.

The Iron Age began when iron replaced bronze as the most popular metal used for weapons, armor and chariots. This was the accomplishment of a civilization known as the Hittites.

The Hittites were an ancient people from Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 B.C., the Empire reached its height during the mid-14th century B.C. under King Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Anatolia as well as parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Fertile Crescent.

The Hittites monopolized iron smelting, and can attribute much of their success to their adeptness for metallurgy, which, is the use of metals and the science of separating metals from their ores, resulting in the production of steel. They developed their new techniques for using iron around 1500 B.C. Up until then, weapons were generally made from bronze, which, is harder but heavier than iron.

The use of iron weapons, armor and chariots, remained unique to the Hittites, helping them achieve unprecedented conquests and military campaigns, until the decline of their Empire, when iron-smiths migrated into other areas, taking with them their knowledge of ironwork.

The Hittites Empire was the first model of United Kingdoms under one rule and Indo-European language. Hattusilis, who was a High-Priest and a King, established the Hittite capital Hattusa, Bogazkoy (modern-day Bogazkale, Turkey). The city was set on a steep slope, had spectacular fortifications, was self-contained, and had at least five great temples.

Hattusa was originally founded by the Hatti in 2500 B.C., who's culture may have been the basis for that of the Hittites. This very important complex and those who built it along with their vast Empire, remained almost unknown until their writings were deciphered. The Hittites, although repeatedly mentioned in the Bible, had been virtually forgotten until their tablets were found first by the Irish missionary William Wright in 1884 C.E., and then by the German archaeologist Hugo Winckler in 1906 C.E.

It was obvious that the Hittites aspired to build a formidable Empire by enhancing their military might, expanding their territories in concurring Aleppo, Babylon. reducing the Kingdom of Mittani to a Hittite vassal state, and the Levant region, overtaking port cities like Byblos, from the Egyptians, thus, rivaling, their Kingdom and threatening Pharaohs Akhenaten and his son Tutankhamun.

Hattusilis had brought scribes from Syria, who could document in cuneiform, which, is an ancient Akkadian and Sumerian form of writing using wedge shapes. The Hittite cuneiform tablets although using Akkadian script but in the Indo-European language proved to be a challenge to decipher, but among the best sources of information on lost chapters in history. By the year 1912 CE, Winckler “had recovered 10,000 clay tablets from the Hittite royal archives” (Scarre & Fagan, 206). 

These ancient tablets, on which they had recorded their history and transactions, were painstakingly deciphered by historians such as Erdal Yavuz among lead scholars most notably Archibald Sayce.

The tablets surprisingly also revealed that the use of biological weapons dates back more than 3300 years. The Hittites may have produced the first documented example of biological warfare by sending contaminated rams (possibly infected with tularaemia) behind enemy lines to weaken their opponents.

Dr. Siro Trevisanato, a molecular biochemist, has claimed that many of the Hittites' glorious victories were down to their use of infected sheep, which they infiltrated into cities they wanted to conquer.

"There is no doubt that these were the first weapons of mass destruction," he said.

The sheep carried tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, a devastating bacterial disease that is a potential threat even today, since there is no known vaccine. The disease can pass from animals to humans, causing enormous skin ulcers and respiratory failure. Modern medication can stop the tularemia from becoming fatal. But without proper antibiotic treatment, no less than 15% of the infected entities would die.

Dr. Trevisanato said, he had spent years searching through ancient accounts of Hittite conquests. In 1325 B.C., when the Hittites sacked the Phoenician city of Symra, on what is now the border of Lebanon and Syria, a mysterious plague was recorded.

"This is the first time we hear of the so-called Hittite Plague," he said. "It appears in several documents. In my view, it is no accident that it coincides with the first documented description of tularemia."

The plague was described in letters to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. The letter reports that donkeys, that also carry the disease, were banned from the city, in an attempt to stop the illness.

The method of attack was simple. The Hittites would leave the sheep outside the targeted city. Locals would bring them in and either breed them or eat them, spreading the disease...

However, Dr Trevisanato noted, the Hittites may have paid a high price themselves for their tactics. An epidemic of the disease may have also weakened their ranks a few years after the Symra attack. Suppiluliuma I died in the plague which spread across the region in 1322 B.C. It is thought that the Egyptian captives he brought back as slaves from his conquests carried the plague with them to Hattusa. Suppiluliuma I was succeeded by his son Arnuwanda II who also died from plague and was thereafter succeeded by his younger brother Mursilli II.

A lesson for the ages to learn from…

Food for thought!