Probably during the fifteenth century BC the Hittite ruling elite developed a second script, the Anatolian hieroglyphs, out of an already existing repertoire of symbols whose roots may go back to the Old Assyrian period. Egyptian inspiration for this script seems unlikely. Typologically, it fits in with an Aegaean script like Linear B but it may well be an originally Anatolian creation. Given the fact that the Luwian language became increasingly widespread within central Anatolia, that, where visible, Luwian is the language of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, and that the imported cuneiform and the Hittite language were never used for publicly displayed inscriptions, the creation and promotion of the hieroglyphs were part of the same attempt at unifying the kingdom. This chapter ends with a brief introduction to the Anatolian hieroglyphic script and system.

An overview of various kinds of sources shows the extent of script usage during the Old Kingdom well into the fifteenth century BC to have been relatively modest. There is evidence for some monumental and administrative use as well as for texts as aide-mémoire. The existence of an extensive chancellery with an organized tablet storage system cannot be proven. With the shift to writing in Hittite, however, came the recording of foundational texts (e.g., Anitta Text, Zalpa Tale, indigenous Anatolian myths), bolstering a sense of common identity of the young kingdom. In the same period the old so-called Palace Chronicles may have developed into the Hittite Law collection. On the whole, the Central Anatolian Hittite kingdom was still very much an oral society.

The later, typically Hittite form of the cuneiform script is a later development of the Old Babylonian cursive but finds its closest match in the cuneiform variant used in the Syrian kingdom of Yamhad. The mixture of sign shapes is the only one that adequately explains the particular Hittite variant. The heavy diplomatic and military involvement of the Old Kingdom kings Labarna, Hattusili I, and Mursili I provides the historical circumstances, in which the borrowing of the Syrian cuneiform could take place. This chapter ends with a brief introduction to the Hittite cuneiform script and system.

Having adopted the cuneiform writing system from Mesopotamia, geared towards writing Semitic languages, the Hittites had to adapt it to their Indo-European language. Ignoring the Semitic distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants they devised a system of single and double written consonants to express what was probably a distinction between short and long consonants. They also significantly restricted the use of multiple readings for single signs, standardized the shape of several signs, introduced reader-friendly spaces to separate words, and developed new cuneiform signs to render texts in other, related Indo-European (Palaic) and non-Indo-European (Hattian, later also Hurrian) languages. The latter innovation enabled the recording of non-Hittite liturgy as part of a national religious system and was part of a deliberate politics to unify Central Anatolian population groups into a single kingdom. The creation of a national literature was also part of this.

Hittite records can be classified as either short-term or long-term texts. Within the latter group we distinguish semi-current and permanent records. The various tasks of scribes working for the state are discussed in this chapter: drafting new documents, either from scratch or using earlier, related documents, copying and editing existing compositions, and reading. As part of the discussion about editing, an attempt is made to make sense of a number of closely related but still largely unclear technical terms found in many colophons. Finally, the question of tablet storage is addressed. Given the confusing archaeological context in which most Hittite tablets and fragments have been found there is little certainty to be gained. A case is made for a smaller rather than larger number of scribal “offices” and estimates of the original total of tablets present at any time in the tablet collections of the thirteenth century are discussed. An appendix gives a concrete example of what text editing might have looked like.

An overview of all documents (originals) that were written until late in the sixteenth century BC shows that besides occasional experimenting Akkadian was the predominant language of writing. The shift to writing in the vernacular, that is, Hittite, came slowly and received a decisive push in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Hittite king Telipinu (ca. 1525 BC), the probable driving force behind the collection of the Hittite Laws, may have been instrumental in this development. From now on Hittite was the language of all written communication. Akkadian was only for diplomatic purposes and sometimes for prestige on seals and in titulature.

An overview of all possible terms denoting wooden tablets indicates that few can be regarded as positive evidence. As a result, it is argued that wooden tablets played a secondary and even modest role in scribal communication. There is also no real evidence for the theory that they were inscribed in hieroglyphs instead of cuneiform. The strong Luwian character of the terms discussed reinforces the picture of a Luwian speaking population in the chancellery. Other issues discussed here are the objects often identified as styli and assumed to be used for writing hieroglyphs, the cursivization of the hieroglyphic script, and Hittite terms for writing.

This chapter describes the various kinds of scribes, their societal status and organization, as distinguished by different terms in the Hittite texts: regular scribes, so-called wood-scribes, chief scribes, apprentices, elite scribes, and scholars. The latter would sometimes show off their learned status by deliberately using archaic sign shapes and rare expressions. To them are also ascribed the tablet catalogs or tablet inventories. These scholar-scribes seem to have engaged with the texts by memorizing them.

How the Hittite kingdom broke up still eludes us. Current archaeological thinking envisions a deliberate abandonment of the capital Hattusa by its elite. Evidence of migrations pushing eastwards from the west, recent interpretations of the Sea People’s movements in a similar direction, and the emergence of three Great Kings in Hittite fashion after 1200 in inscriptions from the eastern Konya plain (Kızıldağ, Karadağ), at KarahÖyÜk near Elbistan, and several inscriptions from the Malatya area further east may hint at where they went. Did they try to settle down and continue at Tarhuntassa, Karkamish, or elsewhere in that region? Using the fall of Ugarit around 1190 or, as some claim, the end of Emar in the late 1180s as termini post quos for the end of the kingdom one might argue for an awareness of a still existing Hittite kingdom into the early twelfth century bc but we do not know whether that was at Hattusa or already elsewhere.