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Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Inscribed on the small, pillow-shaped tablet is a 3,000-year-old warning to Idanda, king of Qatna, from the Hittite general Hanutti, telling him to prepare for war. A small Bronze Age Syrian city-state, Qatna was once under Hittite control, but had been conquered by the Mitanni people from the north. The clay tablet, like others found with it, was fired twice--once just after it was written, to preserve it, and again when the ancient city was sacked and burned to the ground in 1340 B.C. by the Hittites, who ruled an empire that stretched from northern Turkey to Mesopotamia and Syria......

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...