The Egyptians eventually withdrew from the region after failing to gain the upper hand over the Hittites, and becoming wary of the power of Assyria, which had destroyed the Mitanni Empire.

Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hittites variously occupied the strategic ground of Syria during this period, as it was a marchland between their various empires.

Sun goddesses are found around the world ; in Arabia ( Al-Lat ), Australia ( Bila, Walo ), India ( Bisal-Mariamna, Bomong, Kn Sgni ) and Sri Lanka ( Pattini ); among the Hittites ( Wurusemu ), Egyptians ( Sekhmet ) and Babylonians ( Shapash ); in Native America, among the Cherokee ( Unelanuhi ), Natchez ( Wal Sil ), Inuit ( Malina ) and Miwok ( Hekoolas ).

The Hittites, the Egyptians and the Proto-Celtic Hallstatt culture ( 8th century BC ) figured among the early users of iron swords.

The Hittites did not use Danaja as did the Egyptians, even though the first Ahhiya reference in " Indictment of Madduwatta " precedes the correspondence between Amenhotep III and one of Madduwatta's subsequent successors in Arzawa, Tarhunta-Radu.

Egyptians and Hittites sign the earliest known peace treaty at the end of the Battle of Kadesh.

The end of the Battle of Kadesh was followed by some 15 years of border warfare ended by the signing of the earliest known peace treaty between the Hittites and Egyptians, the Treaty of Qadesh.

" This kingdom was known as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni to the Egyptians, Hurri to the Hittites and Hanigalbat to the Assyrians.

At the same time, the diplomatic relationship with Egypt went cold, the Egyptians fearing the growing power of the Hittites and Assyrians.

Hawkes noted that very little if any evidence of a Minoan male ruler exists, whereas abundant evidence of such rulers existed among the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians and other Minoan contemporaries.

Both the Egyptians and the Hittites had suffered heavy casualties ; the Egyptian army failed to break Kadesh's defenses, while the Hittite army had failed to gain a victory in the face of what earlier must have seemed certain success.

Modern historians essentially conclude the battle was a draw, a great moral victory for the Egyptians, who had developed new technologies and rearmed before pushing back against the years-long steady incursions by the Hittites, and the strategic win to Muwatalli II, since he lost a large portion of his chariot forces but sustained Kadesh through the brief siege.

One particularly important tablet, currently on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, details the terms of a peace settlement reached years after the Battle of Kadesh between the Hittites and the Egyptians under Ramesses II, in 1259 or 1258 BC.

Most notable among these is: " For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

*: And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey ; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

In the time of the prophet Elisha ( around 850 BC ) there is a passage in 2Kings: 7: 6 where the Syrians flee in the night after hearing a terrible noise of horses and chariots, believing that Israel had hired " the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians ".

*: For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

5: There went up with him also certain of the children of Israel, of the priest of the Levites, of the holy singers, porters, and ministers of the temple, unto Jerusalem, [...] 68: Now when these things were done, the rulers came unto me, and said, 69: The nation of Israel, the princes, the priests and Levites, have not put away from them the strange people of the land, nor the pollutions of the Gentiles to wit, of the Canaanites, Hittites, Pheresites, Jebusites, and the Moabites, Egyptians, and Edomites.

*: Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

These people did not come under the yoke of the Hittites, but fought beside them against the Egyptians in the Battle of Kadesh.

The encounter with other powerful Near Eastern kingdoms like Mitanni, the Hittites, and later the Assyrians and Babylonians, made it necessary for the Egyptians to conduct campaigns far from home.

Some nationalists argue that “ the nation was always there, indeed it is part of the natural order, even when it was submerged in the hearts of its members .” In keeping with this philosophy, Al-Quds University states that although “ Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Israel, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists … the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian .”

Although covenants in the Ancient Near East could have parity between parties ( i. e. such as agreements between Hittites and Egyptians ), covenants in the Torah were generally one-sided.

Among the Mesopotamians, Hittites, Phoenicians and Egyptians, interest was legal and often fixed by the state.

Anatolia has been inhabited by many peoples throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Hittites, Luwians, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Mitanni, Scythians, Cimmerians, Urartians, Carians, Commagene, Cilicians, Arameans, Kaskians, Mushki, Palaic, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Colchians, Iberians, Georgians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.

Anatolia has had many civilizations throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Luwians, Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Urartians, Cimmerians, Carians, Scythians, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Georgians, Circassians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks and Ottomans.

Unlike the Semitic Akkadians and their descendant Assyrians, whose Anatolian possessions were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia, the Hittites were centred at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia by 2000 BC.

The Assyrians and Hittites were then left in the field to battle over control over eastern and southern Anatolia and colonial territories in Syria.

This started to change around the end of the third millennium as cities started to spread to the nearby hilly country: among the Assyrians in north Mesopotamia, the Canaanites in Syria-Palestine, to the Minoans in Crete, and to the Hittites in eastern Anatolia.

The Hittites and the Assyrians supported different pretenders to the throne.

The Assyrians seem to have retreated home in the face of the superior force of the Hittites.

According to the Hittitologist Trevor R. Bryce, Mitanni ( or Hanigalbat as it was known ) was permanently lost to Assyria during the reign of Mursili III of the Hittites, who was defeated by the Assyrians in the process.

The Assyrians built a line of frontier fortifications against the Hittites on the Balikh River.

Urfa was conquered repeatedly throughout history, and has been dominated by many civilizations, including the Ebla, Akkadians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hittites, Armenians, Hurri-Mitannis ( Armeno-Aryans ), Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Macedonians ( under Alexander the Great ), Seleucids, Arameans, Osrhoenes, Romans, Sassanids, Byzantines, and Crusaders.

After their expulsion from Mesopotamia, the Amorites of Syria came under the domination of first the Hittites and from the 14th century BC, the Assyrians.

Monumental gateways had already been in use for thousands of years by civilizations such as the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians and Myceneans.

Settled since the early Bronze Age, Hatay was once of the Akkadian Empire, then the Amorite Kingdom of Yamhad and Mitannis, then a succession of Hittites, the Neo-Hittite " Hattena " people that later gave the modern province of Hatay its name, then the Assyrians ( except a brief occupation by Urartu ) and Persians.

In ancient times, first the Hittites and later the Assyrians controlled the region.

In the thirteenth century BC, invasions from the west by the Hittites and the south by the Assyrians brought the end of the Mitanni empire, which was divided between the two conquering powers.

After the fall of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni to the Hittites, Nuzi fell to the Assyrians and went into decline.

Founded by the Phoenicians, the city was then occupied by the Assyrians and Hittites.

Held in the third weekend of October, TurkFest is a festival of friendship, celebrating the cultural richness and diversity found throughout the vast geographical regions of Turkey, linking cultures east and west, from Hittites and Assyrians to Hellenes, Romans and Byzantines.