Daily Life

From about the seventeenth to the early twelfth centuries BCE, the Hittite kingdom and empire linked central Anatolia with territories in northern Syria. Daily life depended on households and local communities, but it was also shaped by royal administration, temple institutions, agricultural obligations, and regional traditions. Practices varied across this large realm and changed over time; life at the capital of Hattusa was not the same as life in a provincial town or rural settlement.

Excavated homes, cooking installations and tools reveal practical activities, while legal and ritual tablets name duties, payments and procedures. Read together, they show how material work sustained both a household and the larger institutions drawing on its resources.

On this page11 sections

Homes

Houses combined stone foundations with timber and mudbrick walls. At Sarissa, a provincial town, a central hall with smaller rooms around it recurs in excavated plans. Hearths, ovens and ceramic vessels identify places for cooking and keeping supplies. Rooms and courtyards brought food preparation, storage and other work into the space where a family lived.

Family life

Marriage payments and dowries connected spouses with their natal households. The laws addressed their return when an agreement broke down and divided property and children after some separations. Legal status affected the settlement: a free spouse and an enslaved spouse did not always receive the same share of children.

Queen Puduḫepa described raising children already in the palace as well as those born under her care. The royal household included several generations and children from different unions. Beyond the court, kinship likewise connected people with property and future work; parents could arrange for a child to learn a craft from an experienced worker.

The farming year

Agriculture and animal husbandry sustained households and the state. Barley and wheat were important grains, alongside legumes and other crops. In central Anatolia, cultivation depended heavily on seasonal rainfall, and limited irrigation meant that harvests could be vulnerable to poor conditions. Farmers also raised cattle, sheep, and goats. Cattle could provide meat and milk and were useful for fieldwork; sheep and goats supplied meat, milk, and wool. Horses, donkeys, and mules served transport and other specialized needs.

Archaeobotanical research on a large grain-storage complex at Hattusa has identified hulled wheat and barley cultivated using relatively extensive, low-input methods. Grain gathered through taxation helped sustain the state, and large stores could hold reserves for periods of shortage. These were not simply household pantries: they were part of a system that gathered and managed agricultural produce. Landholding could also carry duties of service, tying the use of land to obligations owed to the kingdom. When people were called away for military or other state work, their absence could affect production.

Food

Grain was made into bread and used to brew beer. Hittite texts refer to many kinds of bread, including preparations with herbs, fruit, cheese, or meat, and to offerings of bread and drink in religious settings. Households also ate products from their herds and cultivated or gathered vegetables, pulses, fruit, and nuts. Honey was another food, and animal products such as milk and fat had practical as well as dietary uses. The precise combination of foods depended on location, season, and means.

Artisans

Everyday life depended on skilled work as well as farming. Hittite legal texts name potters, smiths, carpenters, leatherworkers, wool workers, weavers, and shoemakers, and record wages or prices for some work and materials. One provision describes a child being placed with a craft worker for training, with payment due for instruction. Such clauses show that skills could be passed on through organized apprenticeship.

Potters shaped practical bowls, jars and cooking vessels on the wheel, adding parts such as handles separately before drying and firing. Bronze workers used crucibles, air-fed fires and moulds to form objects. Construction required stoneworking, timber and the preparation of mudbricks, combining different skills in the same building.

Clothing and personal care

Wool and linen were spun into yarn and woven into cloth. A spindle whorl helped maintain the rotation that twisted fibres; loom weights kept threads under tension. Tunics, robes, belts and footwear served different needs, while prescribed royal garments marked stages of a ceremony. Temple workers preparing divine food were instructed to wash, groom themselves and wear clean clothing.

Festivals

Religion was woven into the agricultural calendar, the work of temples, and royal duties. The Hittite realm contained local traditions and deities alongside religious practices shared across political centers. Temples needed people to prepare food and drink offerings, maintain cult objects, and perform ceremonies. The king and queen took part in major state festivals, while local officials, priests, performers, and other participants carried out the work that made them possible.

Some festivals involved processions, music, dancing, animal offerings, and journeys between sacred places. The spring festival called AN.TAḪ.ŠUM, named for a plant whose exact identification is uncertain, included ceremonies at Hattusa and visits to other important centers. The KI.LAM festival, associated with the gatehouse, brought the royal couple to ceremonial spaces and featured processions and offerings. These were not simply occasions for worship: they assembled people and resources, and connected the court with local cults and communities.

Burial customs

Cemeteries including Osmankayası and Ilıca preserve cremation, the burning of a body before depositing its remains, alongside burial of an unburned body. At court, a fourteen-day royal rite involved cremation, the gathering of bones with silver utensils, lamentation and meals. An image of the dead ruler became a focus for later stages, followed by continued mortuary service.

Learning

Scribes learned to form cuneiform signs on clay, read the different values a sign could have and work with multilingual texts. Copying maintained texts across generations, while closing notes identified series and the scribes responsible. Practical learning also occurred through craft training: a law specifies a silver fee when a father placed his son with a skilled worker.

Healing

Physicians and ritual specialists addressed illness through care, prepared materials and procedures intended to restore divine favour. A law made an assailant maintain an injured person, replace his lost labour and pay a physician’s fee. Named specialists such as Tunnawi performed purification with materials, actions and spoken appeals. Mursili II’s plague prayers show the royal response to an epidemic through investigation of offences and requests for divine relief.

Travel and life across the kingdom

Movement through the Hittite realm was largely overland. People travelled between settlements for work, official duties, worship, and exchange. Donkeys and other pack animals, carts, and wagons could carry people or goods, while trained horses pulled chariots. Terrain and distance shaped journeys, particularly between the central Anatolian heartland and the northern Syrian territories.

Royal travel had political and religious purposes as well as practical ones. During festivals, the king and queen visited sacred centers and performed offerings, linking the capital with provincial communities. Officials and messengers also had to move between centers of government. Such journeys depended on local supplies, transport animals, and the work of people who maintained settlements and organized provisions. In this way, daily routines in households and fields were connected to a much wider kingdom, even though the demands and opportunities of that connection differed from place to place.

For the wider setting, see Hittite History. See also Hittite historical context.