The Hittites adopted the Mesopotamian cuneiform script. In the Late Bronze Age, Hittite New Kingdom (c. 1650 BC) was founded, becoming an empire in the 14th century BC after the conquest of Kizzuwatna in the south-east and the defeat of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. The empire reached its height in the 13th century BC, controlling much of Asia Minor, northwestern Syria, and northwest upper Mesopotamia. However, the Hittite advance toward the Black Sea coast was halted by the semi-nomadic pastoralist and tribal Kaskians, a non-Indo-European people who had earlier displaced the Palaic-speaking Indo-Europeans. Much of the history of the Hittite Empire concerned war with the rival empires of Egypt, Assyria and the Mitanni.