one of the meanings of 'Heth'

<<Heth: dread, a descendant of Canaan, and the ancestor of the Hittites,
who dwelt in the vicinity of Hebron. The Hittites were a Hamitic race. 
They are called "the sons of Heth".>>

A BRIEF SUMMARY
The Hittites ruled over a large part of Anatolia and northern Syria in
the second millennium B.C. for about 400 years. We suppose that they came
from outside of Anatolia since the language they spoke belong to the
Indo-European group. It is not certain when or from where they came. They
are thought to have arrived Anatolia in small groups some centuries before
the founding of their kingdom. Apparently they gradually gained power and
established the Hittite state, the first central state in Anatolia.
Assimilating the existing cultural accumulation of the local culture, the
Hittites forged a new synthesis in central Anatolia.

Around 1650/1600 B.C. Hattushili founded the first Hittite kingdom at
Hattusha / Bogazköy in the modern-day Çorum province at the center of
Anatolia. During the reign of his successor Mursili I, the borders of
the kingdom were expanded to the south as far as Babylon. With ups and
downs after this, the Hittites achieved brilliance during the reign of
dynamic king Suppiluliuma I in the mid- 14th century B.C. The Hittite
state became a super power and one of the leading empires of the Near
East. Only some hundred years after this peak, the Hittite Empire
collapsed around 1200 B.C., because of internal and external unrest and
the capital Hattusha was abandoned.

After the collapse of the central power in Anatolia, which marked also
the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, semi-nomadic
tribes established a sparse settlement pattern in the area within the bend
of Kızılırmak-River, the Empire's nucleus. In southeastern Anatolia small
city-states known as the Late Hittite Kingdoms continued to exist from 1100 to 700 B.C.

The empire, which had a feudal structure had under its hegemony a series
of kingdoms. They were obliged to pay taxes but had their own kings and
were free in their internal affaires. The king, who resided at Hattusha
and called himself the "Great King" was also chief-commander, high priest
and judge. Nevertheless the decisions of the Great King had to be approved
by an assembly of nobles known as the 'panku'.

Affairs of state were conducted by civil servants, temples had their own
personal. While merchants, officials and artisans lived in the cities,
the peasants, who made their living by agriculture, lived in villages.
Income was taxed according to definite rules. The law system was highly
developed, even the slaves possessed certain rights. Although there was
a permanent army, the number of soldiers could be increased in case of war.
The Hittite religion was a form of polytheism. The main gods of the country
were the Weather God and the Sun Goddess. The king was ruling the country in
the name of the Weather God. In the capital Hattusha thirty-one temples have
been brought to light by the excavations up to now. The large number of
deities stems from the policy of religion of the Hittites: instead of
incurring the wrath of the gods of the lands, which they conquered, they
expressed their respect for them in many ways and incorporated them into
their own pantheon. A number of these deities are depicted as rock reliefs
in the open air rock-temple of Yazılıkaya near Hattusha.