Title: The Hittites - The story of a Forgotten Empire
Author: Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry), 1845-1933
Language: English
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[Illustration: SLABS WITH HITTITE SCULPTURE.]


By-Paths of Bible Knowledge.

XII.

THE HITTITES

The Story of a Forgotten Empire.

by

A. H. SAYCE, LL.D.

Deputy Professor of Philology, Oxford;
Author of 'Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments,'
'Assyria, Its Princes, Priests and People,' etc., etc.

Second Edition



The Religious Tract Society,
56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, and 164 Piccadilly.
1890.

Oxford
Horace Hart, Printer to the University



PREFACE.


The discovery of the important place once occupied by the Hittites has
been termed 'the romance of ancient history.' Nothing can be more
interesting than the resurrection of a forgotten people, more especially
when that people is so intimately connected with Old Testament story,
and with the fortunes of the Chosen Race. How the resurrection has been
accomplished, by putting together the fragmentary evidence of Egyptian
and Assyrian inscriptions, of strange-looking monuments in Asia Minor,
and of still undeciphered hieroglyphics, will be described in the
following pages. It is marvellous to think that only ten years ago 'the
romance' could not have been written, and that the part played by the
Hittite nations in the history of the world was still unsuspected. Yet
now we have become, as it were, familiar with the friends of Abraham and
the race to which Uriah belonged.

Already a large and increasing literature has been devoted to them. The
foundation stone, which was laid by my paper 'On the Monuments of the
Hittites' in 1880, has been crowned with a stately edifice in Dr.
Wright's _Empire of the Hittites_, of which the second edition appeared
in 1886, and in the fourth volume of the magnificent work of Prof.
Perrot and M. Chipiez, _L'Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité_,
published at Paris a year ago. Profusely illustrated, the latter work
sets before us a life-like picture of Hittite architecture and art.

It cannot be long before the inscriptions left to us by the Hittites, in
their peculiar form of hieroglyphic writing, are also made to reveal
their secrets. All that is required are more materials upon which to
work, and we shall then know which, if any, of the attempts hitherto
made to explain them has hit the truth. Major Conder's system of
decipherment has not yet obtained the adhesion of other scholars;
neither has the rival system of Mr. Ball, ingenious and learned as it
is. But if we may judge from the successes of the last few years, it
cannot be long before we know as much about the Hittite language and
writing as we now know about Hittite art and civilisation. To quote the
words of Dr. Wright: 'We must labour to unloose the dumb tongue of these
inscriptions, and to unlock their mysteries, not with the view of
finding something sensational in them, or for the purpose of advancing
some theory, but for the love of knowing what they really contain; and I
doubt not that, proceeding in the right method of investigation, we
shall reach results satisfactory to the Oriental scholar, and
confirmatory of Divine truth.'

                                                        A. H. SAYCE.
  QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD.
      _October_ 1888.



TABLE OF CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                                     PAGE
     I. THE HITTITES OF THE BIBLE                             11
    II. THE HITTITES ON THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT AND ASSYRIA    19
   III. THE HITTITE MONUMENTS                                 54
    IV. THE HITTITE EMPIRE                                    73
     V. THE HITTITE CITIES AND RACE                           97
    VI. HITTITE RELIGION AND ART                             104
   VII. THE INSCRIPTIONS                                     122
  VIII. HITTITE TRADE AND INDUSTRY                           136



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                  PAGE
  SLABS WITH HITTITE SCULPTURE AT KELLER NEAR AINTAB    _Frontispiece_
  MAP ILLUSTRATING THE EXTENT OF THE HITTITE EMPIRE                 10
  A SLAB FOUND AT MERASH                                            54
  SLABS WITH HITTITE SCULPTURES FOUND AT KELLER NEAR AINTAB         63
  THE PSEUDO-SESOSTRIS CARVED ON THE ROCK IN THE PASS OF KARABEL    67
  MONUMENT OF A HITTITE KING FOUND AT CARCHEMISH                    72
  THE DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE OF EYUK                                   84
  SCULPTURES AT BOGHAZ KEUI                                         88
  SCULPTURES AT BOGHAZ KEUI                                         91
  AN INSCRIPTION FOUND AT CARCHEMISH (_now destroyed_)             122
  THE BILINGUAL BOSS OF TARKONDEMOS                                127
  THE LION OF MERASH                                               131



[Illustration: MAP ILLUSTRATING THE EXTENT OF THE HITTITE EMPIRE.
(_Copied by permission from 'The Empire of the Hittites.'_)]



THE HITTITES


THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN EMPIRE.



CHAPTER I.

THE HITTITES OF THE BIBLE.


We are told in the Second Book of Kings (vii. 6) that when the Syrians
were encamped about Samaria and the Lord had sent a panic upon them,
'they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us
the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon
us.' Nearly forty years ago a distinguished scholar selected this
passage for his criticism. Its 'unhistorical tone,' he declared, 'is too
manifest to allow of our easy belief in it.' 'No Hittite kings can have
compared in power with the king of Judah, the real and near ally, who is
not named at all ... nor is there a single mark of acquaintance with the
contemporaneous history.'

Recent discoveries have retorted the critic's objections upon himself.
It is not the Biblical writer but the modern author who is now proved to
have been unacquainted with the contemporaneous history of the time. The
Hittites were a very real power. Not very many centuries before the age
of Elisha they had contested the empire of Western Asia with the
Egyptians, and though their power had waned in the days of Jehoram they
were still formidable enemies and useful allies. They were still worthy
of comparison with the divided kingdom of Egypt, and infinitely more
powerful than that of Judah.

But we hear no more about them in the subsequent records of the Old
Testament. The age of Hittite supremacy belongs to an earlier date than
the rise of the monarchy in Israel; earlier, we may even say, than the
Israelitish conquest of Canaan. The references to them in the later
historical books of the Old Testament Canon are rare and scanty. The
traitor who handed over Beth-el to the house of Joseph fled 'into the
land of the Hittites' (Judg. i. 26), and there built a city which he
called Luz. Mr. Tomkins thinks he has found it in the town of Latsa,
captured by the Egyptian king Ramses II., which he identifies with Qalb
Luzeh, in Northern Syria. However this may be, an emended reading of the
text, based upon the Septuagint, transforms the unintelligible
Tahtim-hodshi of 2 Sam. xxiv. 6 into 'the Hittites of Kadesh,' a city
which long continued to be their chief stronghold in the valley of the
Orontes. It was as far as this city, which lay at 'the entering in of
Hamath,' on the northern frontier of the Israelitish kingdom, that the
officers of David made their way when they were sent to number Israel.
Lastly, in the reign of Solomon the Hittites are again mentioned
(1 Kings x. 28, 29) in a passage where the authorised translation has
obscured the sense. It runs in the Revised Version: 'And the horses
which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king's merchants
received them in droves, each drove at a price. And a chariot came up
and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse
for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and
for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means.' The
Hebrew merchants, in fact, were the mediatories between Egypt and the
north, and exported the horses of Egypt not only for the king of Israel
but for the kings of the Hittites as well.

The Hittites whose cities and princes are thus referred to in the later
historical books of the Old Testament belonged to the north, Hamath and
Kadesh on the Orontes being their most southernly points. But the Book
of Genesis introduces us to other Hittites--'the children of Heth,' as
they are termed--whose seats were in the extreme south of Palestine. It
was from 'Ephron the Hittite' that Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah
at Hebron (Gen. xxiii.), and Esau 'took to wife Judith the daughter of
Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite' (Gen.
xxvi. 34), or, as it is given elsewhere, 'Adah the daughter of Elon the
Hittite' (Gen. xxxvi. 2). It must be to these Hittites of the south that
the ethnographical table in the tenth chapter of Genesis refers when it
is said that 'Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth' (ver. 15),
and in no other way can we explain the statement of Ezekiel (xvi. 3, 45)
that 'the father' of Jerusalem 'was an Amorite and' its 'mother a
Hittite.' 'Uriah the Hittite,' too, the trusty officer of David, must
have come from the neighbourhood of Hebron, where David had reigned for
seven years, rather than from among the distant Hittites of the north.
Besides the latter there was thus a Hittite population which clustered
round Hebron, and to whom the origin of Jerusalem was partly due.

Now it will be noticed that the prophet ascribes the foundation of
Jerusalem to the Amorite as well as the Hittite. The Jebusites,
accordingly, from whose hands the city was wrested by David, must have
belonged to one or other of these two great races; perhaps, indeed, to
both. At all events, we find elsewhere that the Hittites and Amorites
are closely interlocked together. It was so at Hebron, where in the time
of Abraham not only Ephron the Hittite dwelt, but also the three sons of
the Amorite Mamre (Gen. xiv. 13). The Egyptian monuments show that the
two nations were similarly confederated together at Kadesh on the
Orontes. Kadesh was a Hittite stronghold; nevertheless it is described
as being 'in the land of the Amaur' or Amorites, and its king is
depicted with the physical characteristics of the Amorite, and not of
the Hittite. Further north, in the country which the Hittites had made
peculiarly their own, cities existed which bore names, it would seem,
compounded with that of the Amorite, and the common Assyrian title of
the district in which Damascus stood, Gar-emeris, is best explained as
'the _Gar_ of the Amorites.' Shechem was taken by Jacob 'out of the hand
of the Amorite' (Gen. xlviii. 22), and the Amorite kingdom of Og and
Sihon included large tracts on the eastern side of the Jordan. South of
Palestine the block of mountains in which the sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea
stood was an Amorite possession (Gen. xiv. 7, Deut. i. 19, 20); and we
learn from Numb. xiii. 29, that while the Amalekites dwelt 'in the land
of the south' and the Canaanites by the sea and in the valley of the
Jordan, the Hittites and Jebusites and Amorites lived together in the
mountains of the interior. Among the five kings of the Amorites against
whom Joshua fought (Josh. x. 5) were the king of Jerusalem and the king
of Hebron.

The Hittites and Amorites were therefore mingled together in the
mountains of Palestine like the two races which ethnologists tell us go
to form the modern Kelt. But the Egyptian monuments teach us that they
were of very different origin and character. The Hittites were a people
with yellow skins and 'Mongoloid' features, whose receding foreheads,
oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws, are represented as faithfully
on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot
accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies. If the
Egyptians have made the Hittites ugly, it was because they were so in
reality. The Amorites, on the contrary, were a tall and handsome people.
They are depicted with white skins, blue eyes, and reddish hair, all the
characteristics, in fact, of the white race. Mr. Petrie points out their
resemblance to the Dardanians of Asia Minor, who form an intermediate
link between the white-skinned tribes of the Greek seas and the
fair-complexioned Libyans of Northern Africa. The latter are still found
in large numbers in the mountainous regions which stretch eastward from
Morocco, and are usually known among the French under the name of
Kabyles. The traveller who first meets with them in Algeria cannot fail
to be struck by their likeness to a certain part of the population in
the British Isles. Their clear-white freckled skins, their blue eyes,
their golden-red hair and tall stature, remind him of the fair Kelts of
an Irish village; and when we find that their skulls, which are of the
so-called dolichocephalic or 'long-headed' type, are the same as the
skulls discovered in the prehistoric cromlechs of the country they
still inhabit, we may conclude that they represent the modern
descendants of the white-skinned Libyans of the Egyptian monuments.

In Palestine also we still come across representatives of a
fair-complexioned blue-eyed race, in whom we may see the descendants of
the ancient Amorites, just as we see in the Kabyles the descendants of
the ancient Libyans. We know that the Amorite type continued to exist in
Judah long after the Israelitish conquest of Canaan. The captives taken
from the southern cities of Judah by Shishak in the time of Rehoboam,
and depicted by him upon the walls of the great temple of Karnak, are
people of Amorite origin. Their 'regular profile of sub-aquiline cast,'
as Mr. Tomkins describes it, their high cheek-bones and martial
expression, are the features of the Amorites, and not of the Jews.

Tallness of stature has always been a distinguishing characteristic of
the white race. Hence it was that the Anakim, the Amorite inhabitants of
Hebron, seemed to the Hebrew spies to be as giants, while they
themselves were but 'as grasshoppers' by the side of them (Numb. xiii.
33). After the Israelitish invasion remnants of the Anakim were left in
Gaza and Gath and Ashkelon (Josh. xi. 22), and in the time of David
Goliath of Gath and his gigantic family were objects of dread to their
neighbours (2 Sam. xxi. 15-22).

It is clear, then, that the Amorites of Canaan belonged to the same
white race as the Libyans of Northern Africa, and like them preferred
the mountains to the hot plains and valleys below. The Libyans
themselves belonged to a race which can be traced through the peninsula
of Spain and the western side of France into the British Isles. Now it
is curious that wherever this particular branch of the white race has
extended it has been accompanied by a particular form of cromlech, or
sepulchral chamber built of large uncut stones. The stones are placed
upright in the ground and covered over with other large slabs, the whole
chamber being subsequently concealed under a tumulus of small stones or
earth. Not unfrequently the entrance to the cromlech is approached by a
sort of corridor. These cromlechs are found in Britain, in France, in
Spain, in Northern Africa, and in Palestine, more especially on the
eastern side of the Jordan, and the skulls that have been exhumed from
them are the skulls of men of the dolichocephalic or long-headed type.

It has been necessary to enter at this length into what has been
discovered concerning the Amorites by recent research, in order to show
how carefully they should be distinguished from the Hittites with whom
they afterwards intermingled. They must have been in possession of
Palestine long before the Hittites arrived there. They extended over a
much wider area, since there are no traces of the Hittites at Shechem or
on the eastern side of the Jordan, where the Amorites established two
powerful kingdoms; while the earliest mention of the Amorites in the
Bible (Gen. xiv. 7) describes them as dwelling at Hazezon-tamar, or
En-gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, where no Hittites are ever known
to have settled. The Hittite colony in Palestine, moreover, was confined
to a small district in the mountains of Judah: their strength lay far
away in the north, where the Amorites were comparatively weak. It is
true that Kadesh on the Orontes was in the hands of the Hittites; but it
is also true that it was 'in the land of the Amorites,' and this
implies that they were its original occupants. We must regard the
Amorites as the earlier population, among a part of whom the Hittites in
later days settled and intermarried. At what epoch that event took place
we are still unable to say.



CHAPTER II.

THE HITTITES ON THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT AND ASSYRIA.


In the preceding chapter we have seen what the Bible has to tell us
about 'the children of Heth.' They were an important people in the north
of Syria who were ruled by 'kings' in the days of Solomon, and whose
power was formidable to their Syrian neighbours. But there was also a
branch of them established in the extreme south of Palestine, where they
inhabited the mountains along with the Amorites, and had taken a share
in the foundation of Jerusalem. It was from one of the latter, Ephron
the son of Zohar, that Abraham had purchased the cave of Machpelah at
Hebron; and one of the wives of Esau was of Hittite descent. In later
times Uriah the Hittite was one of the chief officers of David, and his
wife Bath-sheba was not only the mother of Solomon, but also the distant
ancestress of Christ. For us, therefore, these Hittites of Judæa have a
very special and peculiar interest.

The decipherment of the inscriptions of Egypt and Assyria has thrown a
new light upon their origin and history, and shown that the race to
which they belonged once played a leading part in the history of the
civilised East. On the Egyptian monuments they are called Kheta (or
better Khata), on those of Assyria Khattâ or Khate, both words being
exact equivalents of the Hebrew Kheth and Khitti.

The Kheta or Hittites first appear upon the scene in the time of the
Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The foreign rule of the Hyksos or Shepherd
princes had been overthrown, Egypt had recovered its independence, and
its kings determined to retaliate upon Asia the sufferings brought upon
their own country by the Asiatic invader. The war, which commenced with
driving the Asiatic out of the Delta, ended by attacking him in his own
lands of Palestine and Syria. Thothmes I. (about B.C. 1600) marched to
the banks of the Euphrates and set up 'the boundary of the empire' in
the country of Naharina. Naharina was the Biblical Aram Naharaim or
'Syria of the two rivers,' better known, perhaps, as Mesopotamia, and
its situation has been ascertained by recent discoveries. It was the
district called Mitanni by the Assyrians, who describe it as being 'in
front of the land of the Hittites,' on the eastern bank of the
Euphrates, between Carchemish and the mouth of the river Balikh. In the
age of Thothmes I., it was the leading state in Western Asia. The
Hittites had not as yet made themselves formidable, and the most
dangerous enemy the Egyptian monarch was called upon to face were the
people over whom Chushan-risha-thaim was king in later days (Judg. iii.
8). It is not until the reign of his son, Thothmes III., that the
Hittites come to the front. They are distinguished as 'Great' and
'Little,' the latter name perhaps denoting the Hittites of the south of
Judah. However this may be, Thothmes received tribute from 'the king of
the great land of the Kheta,' which consisted of gold, negro-slaves,
men-servants and maid-servants, oxen and servants. Whether the Hittites
were as yet in possession of Kadesh we do not know. If they were, they
would have taken part in the struggle against the Egyptians which took
place around the walls of Megiddo, and was decided in favour of Thothmes
only after a long series of campaigns.

Before Thothmes died, he had made Egypt mistress of Palestine and Syria
as far as the banks of the Euphrates and the land of Naharina. One of
the bravest of his captains tells us on the walls of his tomb how he had
captured prisoners in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and had waded through
the waters of the Euphrates when his master assaulted the mighty Hittite
fortress of Carchemish. Kadesh on the Orontes had already fallen, and
for a time all Western Asia did homage to the Egyptian monarch, even the
king of Assyria sending him presents and courting, as it would seem, his
alliance. The Egyptian empire touched the land of Naharina on the east
and the 'great land of the Hittites' on the north.

But neighbours so powerful could not remain long at peace. A fragmentary
inscription records that the first campaign of Thothmes IV., the
grandson of Thothmes III., was directed against the Hittites, and
Amenophis III., the son and successor of Thothmes IV., found it
necessary to support himself by entering into matrimonial alliance with
the king of Naharina. The marriage had strange consequences for Egypt.
The new queen brought with her not only a foreign name and foreign
customs, but a foreign faith as well. She refused to worship Amun of
Thebes and the other gods of Egypt, and clung to the religion of her
fathers, whose supreme object of adoration was the solar disk. The
Hittite monuments themselves bear witness to the prevalence of this
worship in Northern Syria. The winged solar disk appears above the
figure of a king which has been brought from Birejik on the Euphrates
to the British Museum; and even at Boghaz Keui, far away in Northern
Asia Minor, the winged solar disk has been carved by Hittite sculptors
upon the rock.

Amenophis IV., the son of Amenophis III., was educated in the faith of
his mother, and after his accession to the throne endeavoured to impose
the new creed upon his unwilling subjects. The powerful priesthood of
Thebes withstood him for a while, but at last he assumed the name of
Khu-n-Aten, 'the refulgence of the solar disk,' and quitting Thebes and
its ancient temples he built himself a new capital dedicated to the new
divinity. It stood on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of
Assiout, and its long line of ruins is now known to the natives under
the name of Tel el-Amarna. The city was filled with the adherents of the
new creed, and their tombs are yet to be found in the cliffs that
enclose the desert on the east. Its existence, however, was of no long
duration. After the death of Khu-n-Aten, 'the heretic king,' his throne
was occupied by one or two princes who had embraced his faith; but their
reigns were brief, and they were succeeded by a monarch who returned
once more to the religion of his forefathers. The capital of Khu-n-Aten
was deserted, and the objects found upon its site show that it was never
again inhabited.

Among its ruins a discovery has recently been made which casts an
unexpected light upon the history of the Oriental world in the century
before the Exodus. A large collection of clay tablets has been found,
similar to those disinterred from the mounds of Nineveh and Babylonia,
and like the latter inscribed in cuneiform characters and in the
Assyro-Babylonian language. They consist for the most part of letters
and despatches sent to Khu-n-Aten and his father, Amenophis III., by the
governors and rulers of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia, and
they prove that at that time Babylonian was the international language,
and the complicated cuneiform system of writing the common means of
intercourse, of the educated world. Many of them were transferred by
Khu-n-Aten from the royal archives of Thebes to his new city at Tel
el-Amarna; the rest were received and stored up after the new city had
been built. We learn from them that the Hittites were already pressing
southward, and were causing serious alarm to the governors and allies of
the Egyptian king. One of the tablets is a despatch from Northern Syria,
praying the Egyptian monarch to send assistance against them as soon as
possible.

The 'heresy' of Khu-n-Aten brought trouble and disunion into Egypt, and
his immediate successors seem to have been forced to retire from Syria.
So far from being able to aid their allies, the Egyptian generals found
themselves no match for the Hittite armies. Ramses I., the founder of
the Nineteenth Dynasty, was compelled to conclude a treaty, defensive
and offensive, with the Hittite king Saplel, and thus to recognise that
Hittite power was on an equality with that of Egypt.

From this time forward it becomes possible to speak of a Hittite empire.
Kadesh was once more in Hittite hands, and the influence formerly
enjoyed by Egypt in Palestine and Syria was now enjoyed by its rival.
The rude mountaineers of the Taurus had descended into the fertile
plains of the south, interrupting the intercourse between Babylonia and
Canaan, and superseding the cuneiform characters of Chaldæa by their
own hieroglyphic writing. From henceforth the Babylonian language ceased
to be the language of diplomacy and education.

With Seti I., the son and successor of Ramses, the power of Egypt again
revived. He drove the Beduin and other marauders across the frontiers of
the desert and pushed the war into Syria itself. The cities of the
Philistines again received Egyptian garrisons; Seti marched his armies
as far as the Orontes, fell suddenly upon Kadesh and took it by storm.
The war was now begun between Egypt and the Hittites, which lasted for
the next half-century. It left Egypt utterly exhausted, and, in spite of
the vainglorious boasts of its scribes and poets, glad to make a peace
which virtually handed over to her rivals the possession of Asia Minor.

But at first success waited on the arms of Seti. He led his armies once
more to the Euphrates and the borders of Naharina, and compelled Mautal,
the Hittite monarch, to sue for peace. The natives of the Lebanon
received him with acclamations, and cut down their cedars for his ships
on the Nile.

When Seti died, however, the Hittites were again in possession of
Kadesh, and war had broken out between them and his son Ramses II. The
long reign of Ramses II. was a ceaseless struggle against his formidable
foes. The war was waged with varying success. Sometimes victory inclined
to the Egyptians, sometimes to their Hittite enemies. Its chief result
was to bring ruin and disaster upon the cities of the Canaanites. Their
land was devastated by the hostile armies which traversed it; their
towns were sacked, now by the Hittite invaders from the north, now by
the soldiers of Ramses from the south. It was little wonder that their
inhabitants fled to island fastnesses like Tyre, deserting the city on
the mainland, which an Egyptian traveller of the age of Ramses tells us
had been burnt not long before. We can understand now why they offered
so slight a resistance to the invading Israelites. The Exodus took place
shortly after the death of Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression;
and when Joshua entered Palestine he found there a disunited people and
a country exhausted by the long and terrible wars of the preceding
century. The way had been prepared by the Hittites for the Israelitish
conquest of Canaan.

Pentaur, a sort of Egyptian poet laureate, has left us an epic which
records the heroic deeds of Ramses in his first campaign against the
Hittites. The actual event which gave occasion to it was an act of
bravery performed by the Egyptian monarch before the walls of Kadesh;
but the poet has transformed him into a hero capable of superhuman
deeds, and has thus produced an epic poem which reminds us of the Greek
Iliad. Its details, however, afford a welcome insight into the history
of the time, and show to what a height of power the Hittite empire had
advanced. Its king could summon to his aid vassal-allies not only from
Syria, but from the distant regions of Asia Minor as well. The merchants
of Carchemish, the islanders of Arvad, acknowledged his supremacy along
with the Dardanians of the Troad and the Mæonians of Lydia. The Hittite
empire was already a reality, extending from the banks of the Euphrates
to the shores of the Ægean, and including both the cultured Semites of
Syria and the rude barbarians of the Greek seas.

It was in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses (B. C. 1383) that the
event occurred which was celebrated by the Egyptian Homer. The Egyptian
armies had advanced to the Orontes and the neighbourhood of Kadesh.
There two Beduin spies were captured, who averred that the Hittite king
was far away in the north with his forces, encamped at Aleppo. But the
intelligence was false. The Hittites and their allies, multitudinous as
the sand on the sea-shore, were really lying in ambush hard by. In their
train were the soldiers of Naharina, of the Dardanians and of Mysia,
along with numberless other peoples who now owned the Hittite sway. The
Hittite monarch 'had left no people on his road without bringing them
with him. Their number was endless; nothing like it had ever been
before. They covered mountains and valleys like grasshoppers for their
number. He had not left silver or gold with his people; he had taken
away all their goods and possessions to give it to the people who
accompanied him to the war.'

The whole host was concealed in ambush on the north-west side of Kadesh.
Suddenly they arose and fell upon the terrified Egyptians by the waters
of the Lake of the Amorites, the modern Lake of Homs. The chariots and
horses charged 'the legion of Ra-Hormakhis,' and 'foot and horse gave
way before them.' The news was carried to the Pharaoh. 'He arose like
his father Month, he grasped his weapons, and put on his armour like
Baal.' His steed 'Victory in Thebes' bore him in his chariot into the
midst of the foe. Then he looked behind him, and behold he was alone.
The bravest heroes of the Hittite host beset his retreat, and 2500
hostile chariots were around him. He was abandoned in the midst of the
enemy: not a prince, not a captain was with him. Then in his extreme
need the Pharaoh called upon his god Amun. 'Where art thou, my father
Amun? If this means that the father has forgotten his son, have I done
anything without thy knowledge, or have I not gone and followed the
precepts of thy mouth? Never were the precepts of thy mouth
transgressed, nor have I broken thy commandments in any respect. Sovran
lord of Egypt, who makest the peoples that withstand thee to bow down,
what are these people of Asia to thy heart? Amun brings them low who
know not God.... Behold now, Amun, I am in the midst of many unknown
peoples in great number. All have united themselves, and I am all alone:
no other is with me; my warriors and my charioteers have deserted me. I
called to them, and not one of them heard my voice.'

The petition of Ramses was heard. Amun 'reached out his hand,' and
declared that he was come to help the Pharaoh against his foes. Then
Ramses was inspired with supernatural strength. 'I hurled,' he is made
to say, 'the dart with my right hand, I fought with my left hand. I was
like Baal in his hour before their sight. I had found 2500 chariots; I
was in the midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my
horses.' The ground was covered with the slain, and the Hittite king
fled in terror. His princes again gathered round the Pharaoh, and again
Ramses scattered them in a moment. Six times did he charge the Hittite
host, and six times they broke and were slaughtered. The strength of
Baal was 'in all the limbs' of the Egyptian king.

Now at last his servants came to his aid. But the victory had already
been won, and all that remained was for the Pharaoh to upbraid his army
for their cowardice and sloth. 'Have I not given what is good to each of
you,' he exclaims, 'that ye have left me, so that I was alone in the
midst of hostile hosts? Forsaken by you, my life was in peril, and you
breathed tranquilly, and I was alone. Could you not have said in your
hearts that I was a rampart of iron to you?' It was the horses of the
royal chariot and not the troops who deserved reward, and who would
obtain it when the king arrived safely home. So Ramses 'returned in
victory and strength; he had smitten hundreds of thousands all together
in one place with his arm.'

At daybreak the following morning he desired to renew the conflict. The
serpent that glowed on the front of his diadem 'spat fire' in the face
of his enemies. They were overawed by the deeds of valour he had
accomplished single-handed the day before, and feared to resume the
fight. 'They remained afar off, and threw themselves down on the earth,
to entreat the king in the sight [of his army]. And the king had power
over them and slew them without their being able to escape. As bodies
tumbled before his horses, so they lay there stretched out all together
in their blood. Then the king of the hostile people of the Hittites sent
a messenger to pray piteously to the great name of the king, speaking
thus: "Thou art Ra-Hormakhis. Thy terror is upon the land of the
Hittites, for thou hast broken the neck of the Hittites for ever and
ever."'

The army of Ramses seconded the prayer of the herald that the Egyptians
and Hittites should henceforward be 'brothers together.' A treaty was
accordingly made; but it was soon broken, and it was not until sixteen
years later that peace was finally established between the two rival
powers.

The act of personal prowess upon which the heroic poem of Pentaur was
built may have covered what had really been a check to the Egyptian
arms. At all events, it is significant that no attempt was made to
capture Kadesh, and that even the poet acknowledges how ready the
Egyptian soldiers were to come to terms with their enemies. Equally
significant is the fact that the war against the Hittites still went on;
in the eighth year of the Pharaoh's reign Palestine was overrun and
certain cities captured, including Dapur or Tabor 'in the land of the
Amorites,' while other campaigns were directed against Ashkelon, in the
south, and the city of Tunep or Tennib, in the north. When a lasting
treaty of peace was at last concluded in the twenty-first year of
Ramses, its conditions show that 'the great king of the Hittites'
treated on equal terms with the great king of Egypt, and that even
Ramses himself, whom later legend magnified into the Sesostris of the
Greeks, was fain to acknowledge the power of his Hittite adversaries.
The treaty was sealed by the marriage of the Pharaoh with the daughter
of the Hittite king.

The treaty, of which we possess the Egyptian text in full, was a very
remarkable one, not only because it is the first treaty of the kind of
which we know, but also on account of its contents. It ran as
follows[1]:--

    [1] This translation is the one given by Brugsch in the second
    edition of the English translation of his _History of Egypt_.

'In the year twenty-one, in the month Tybi, on the 21st day of the
month, in the reign of King Ramessu Miamun, the dispenser of life
eternally and for ever, the worshipper of the divinities Amon-Ra (of
Thebes), Hormakhu (of Heliopolis), Ptah (of Memphis), Mut the lady of
the Asher-lake (near Karnak), and Khonsu, the peace-loving, there took
place a public sitting on the throne of Horus among the living,
resembling his father Hormakhu in eternity, in eternity, evermore.

'On that day the king was in the city of Ramses, presenting his
peace-offerings to his father Amon-Ra, and to the gods Hormakhu-Tum, to
Ptah of Ramessu-Miamun, and to Sutekh, the strong, the son of the
goddess of heaven Nut, that they might grant to him many thirty years'
jubilee feasts, and innumerable happy years, and the subjection of all
peoples under his feet for ever.

'Then came forward the ambassador of the king, and the Adon [of his
house, by name ..., and presented the ambassadors] of the great king of
Kheta, Kheta-sira, who were sent to Pharaoh to propose friendship with
the king Ramessu Miamun, the dispenser of life eternally and for ever,
just as his father the Sun-god [dispenses it] each day.

'This is the copy of the contents of the silver tablet, which the great
king of Kheta, Kheta-sira, had caused to be made, and which was
presented to the Pharaoh by the hand of his ambassador Tartisebu and his
ambassador Ra-mes, to propose friendship with the king Ramessu Miamun,
the bull among the princes, who places his boundary-marks where it
pleases him in all lands.

'The treaty which had been proposed by the great king of Kheta,
Kheta-sira, the powerful, the son of Maur-sira, the powerful, the son of
the son of Sapalil, the great king of Kheta, the powerful, on the silver
tablet, to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, the powerful, the
son of Meneptah Seti, the great prince of Egypt, the powerful, the
son's son of Ramessu I., the great king of Egypt, the powerful,--this
was a good treaty for friendship and concord, which assured peace [and
established concord] for a longer period than was previously the case,
since a long time. For it was the agreement of the great prince of Egypt
in common with the great king of Kheta, that the god should not allow
enmity to exist between them, on the basis of a treaty.

'To wit, in the times of Mautal, the great king of Kheta, my brother, he
was at war with [Meneptah Seti] the great prince of Egypt.

'But now, from this very day forward, Kheta-sira, the great king of
Kheta, shall look upon this treaty, so that the agreement may remain,
which the god Ra has made, which the god Sutekh has made, for the people
of Egypt and for the people of Kheta, that there should be no more
enmity between them for evermore.'

And these are the contents:--

'Kheta-sira, the great king of Kheta, is in covenant with Ramessu
Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, from this very day forward, that
there may subsist a good friendship and a good understanding between
them for evermore.

'He shall be my ally; he shall be my friend: I will be his ally; I will
be his friend: for ever.

'To wit, in the time of Mautal, the great king of Kheta, his brother,
after his murder Kheta-sira placed himself on the throne of his father
as the great king of Kheta. I strove for friendship with Ramessu Miamun,
the great prince of Egypt, and it is [my wish] that the friendship and
the concord may be better than the friendship and the concord which
before existed, and which was broken.

'I declare: I, the great king of Kheta, will hold together with
[Ramessu Miamun], the great prince of Egypt, in good friendship and in
good concord. The sons of the sons of the great king of Kheta will hold
together and be friends with the sons of the sons of Ramessu Miamun, the
great prince of Egypt.

'In virtue of our treaty for concord, and in virtue of our agreement
[for friendship, let the people] of Egypt [be united in friendship] with
the people of Kheta. Let a like friendship and a like concord subsist in
such manner for ever.

'Never let enmity rise between them. Never let the great king of Kheta
invade the land of Egypt, if anything shall have been plundered from it.
Never let Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, over-step the
boundary of the land [of Kheta, if anything shall have been plundered]
from it.

'The just treaty, which existed in the times of Sapalil, the great king
of Kheta, likewise the just treaty which existed in the times of Mautal,
the great king of Kheta, my brother, that will I keep.

'Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, declares that he will keep
it. [We have come to an understanding about it] with one another at the
same time from this day forward, and we will fulfil it, and will act in
a righteous manner.

'If another shall come as an enemy to the lands of Ramessu Miamun, the
great prince of Egypt, then let him send an embassy to the great king of
Kheta to this effect: "Come! and make me stronger than him." Then shall
the great king of Kheta [assemble his warriors], and the king of Kheta
[shall come] to smite his enemies. But if it should not be the wish of
the great king of Kheta to march out in person, then he shall send his
warriors and his chariots, that they may smite his enemies. Otherwise
[he would incur] the wrath of Ramessu Miamun, [the great prince of
Egypt. And if Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, should banish]
for a crime subjects from his country, and they should commit another
crime against him, then shall he (the king of Kheta) come forward to
kill them. The great king of Kheta shall act in common with [the great
prince of Egypt.

'If another should come as an enemy to the lands of the great king of
Kheta, then shall he send an embassy to the great prince of Egypt with
the request that] he would come in great power to kill his enemies; and
if it be the intention of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, to
come (himself), he shall [smite the enemies of the great king of Kheta.
If it is not the intention of the great prince of Egypt to march out in
person, then he shall send his warriors and his two-] horse chariots,
while he sends back the answer to the people of Kheta.

'If any subjects of the great king of Kheta have offended him, then
Ramessu Miamun, [the great prince of Egypt, shall not receive them in
his land, but shall advance to kill them] ... the oath, with the wish to
say: I will go ... until ... Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt,
living for ever ... that he may be given for them (?) to the lord, and
that Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, may speak according to
his agreement evermore....

'[If servants shall flee away] out of the territories of Ramessu Miamun,
the great prince of Egypt, to betake themselves to the great king of
Kheta, the great king of Kheta shall not receive them, but the great
king of Kheta shall give them up to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of
Egypt, [that they may receive their punishment.

'If servants of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, leave his
country], and betake themselves to the land of Kheta, to make themselves
servants of another, they shall not remain in the land of Kheta; [they
shall be given up] to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt.

'If, on the other hand, there should flee away [servants of the great
king of Kheta, in order to betake themselves to] Ramessu Miamun, the
great prince of Egypt, [in order to stay in Egypt], then those who have
come from the land of Kheta in order to betake themselves to Ramessu
Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, shall not be [received by] Ramessu
Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, [but] the great prince of Egypt,
Ramessu Miamun, [shall deliver them up to the great king of Kheta].

'[And if there shall leave the land of Kheta persons] of skilful mind,
so that they come to the land of Egypt to make themselves servants of
another, then Ramessu Miamun will not allow them to settle, he will
deliver them up to the great king of Kheta.

'When this [treaty] shall be known [by the inhabitants of the land of
Egypt and of the land of Kheta, then shall they not offend against it,
for all that stands written on] the silver tablet, these are words which
will have been approved by the company of the gods among the male gods
and among the female gods, among those namely of the land of Egypt. They
are witnesses for me [to the validity] of these words, [which they have
allowed.

'This is the catalogue of the gods of the land of Kheta:--

  (1) 'Sutekh of the city] of Tunep[2],
  (2) 'Sutekh of the land of Kheta,
  (3) 'Sutekh of the city of Arnema,
  (4) 'Sutekh of the city of Zaranda,
  (5) 'Sutekh of the city of Pilqa,
  (6) 'Sutekh of the city of Khisasap,
  (7) 'Sutekh of the city of Sarsu,
  (8) 'Sutekh of the city of Khilip (Aleppo),
  (9) 'Sutekh of the city of ...,
  (10) 'Sutekh of the city of Sarpina,
  (11) 'Astarta[3] of the land of Kheta,
  (12) 'The god of the land of Zaiath-khirri,
  (13) 'The god of the land of Ka ...,
  (14) 'The god of the land of Kher ...,
  (15) 'The goddess of the city of Akh ...,
  (16) '[The goddess of the city of ...] and of the land of A...ua,
  (17) 'The goddess of the land of Zaina,
  (18) 'The god of the land of ...nath...er.

    [2] Now Tennib in Northern Syria.

    [3] Also read Antarata.

'[I have invoked these male and these] female [gods of the land of
Kheta, these are the gods] of the land, [as witnesses to] my oath. [With
them have been associated the male and the female gods] of the mountains
and of the rivers of the land of Kheta, the gods of the land of
Qazauadana, Amon, Ra, Sutekh, and the male and female gods of the land
of Egypt, of the earth, of the sea, of the winds, and of the storms.

'With regard to the commandment which the silver tablet contains for the
people of Kheta and for the people of Egypt, he who shall not observe it
shall be given over [to the vengeance] of the company of the gods of
Kheta, and shall be given over [to the vengeance] of the gods of Egypt,
[he] and his house and his servants.

'But he who shall observe these commandments which the silver tablet
contains, whether he be of the people of Kheta or [of the people of
Egypt], because he has not neglected them, the company of the gods of
the land of Kheta and the company of the gods of the land of Egypt shall
secure his reward and preserve life [for him] and his servants and those
who are with him and who are with his servants.

'If there flee away of the inhabitants [one from the land of Egypt], or
two or three, and they betake themselves to the great king of Kheta [the
great king of Kheta shall not] allow them [to remain, but he shall]
deliver them up, and send them back to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince
of Egypt.

'Now with respect to the [inhabitant of the land of Egypt], who is
delivered up to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, his fault
shall not be avenged upon him, his [house] shall not be taken away, nor
his [wife] nor his [children]. There shall not be [put to death his
mother, neither shall he be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor
on the soles of his feet], so that thus no crime shall be brought
forward against him.

'In the same way shall it be done if inhabitants of the land of Kheta
take to flight, be it one alone, or two, or three, to betake themselves
to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt. Ramessu Miamun, the great
prince of Egypt, shall cause them to be seized, and they shall be
delivered up to the great king of Kheta.

'[With regard to] him who [is delivered up, his crime shall not be
brought forward against him]. His [house] shall not be taken away, nor
his wives, nor his children, nor his people; his mother shall not be put
to death; he shall not be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor on
the soles of his feet, nor shall any accusation be brought forward
against him.

'That which is in the middle of this silver tablet and on its front side
is a likeness of the god Sutekh ..., surrounded by an inscription to
this effect: "This is the [picture] of the god Sutekh, the king of
heaven and [earth]." At the time (?) of the treaty which Kheta-sira, the
great king of the Kheta, made....'

This compact of offensive and defensive alliance proves more forcibly
than any description the position to which the Hittite empire had
attained. It ranked side by side with the Egypt of Ramses, the last
great Pharaoh who ever ruled over the land of the Nile. With Egypt it
had contested the sovereignty of Western Asia, and had compelled the
Egyptian monarch to consent to peace. Egypt and the Hittites were now
the two leading powers of the world.

The treaty was ratified by the visit of the Hittite prince Kheta-sira to
Egypt in his national costume, and the marriage of his daughter to
Ramses in the thirty-fourth year of the Pharaoh's reign (B. C. 1354).
She took the Egyptian name of Ur-maa Noferu-Ra, and her beauty was
celebrated by the scribes of the court. Syria was handed over to the
Hittites as their legitimate possession; Egypt never again attempted to
wrest it from them, and if the Hittite yoke was to be shaken off it must
be through the efforts of the Syrians themselves. For a while, however,
'the great king of the Hittites' preserved his power intact; his
supremacy was acknowledged from the Euphrates in the east to the Ægean
Sea in the west, from Kappadokia in the north to the tribes of Canaan in
the south. Even Naharina, once the antagonist of the Egyptian Pharaohs,
acknowledged his sovereignty, and Pethor, the home of Balaam, at the
junction of the Euphrates and the Sajur, became a Hittite town. The
cities of Philistia, indeed, still sent tribute to the Egyptian ruler,
but northwards the Hittite sway seems to have been omnipotent. The
Amorites of the mountains allied themselves with 'the children of Heth,'
and the Canaanites in the lowlands looked to them for protection. The
Israelites had not as yet thrust themselves between the two great powers
of the Oriental world: it was still possible for a Hittite sovereign to
visit Egypt, and for an Egyptian traveller to explore the cities of
Canaan.

After sixty-six years of vainglorious splendour the long reign of Ramses
II. came to an end (B. C. 1322). The Israelites had toiled for him in
building Pithom and Raamses, and on the accession of his son and
successor, Meneptah, they demanded permission to depart from Egypt. The
history of the Exodus is too well known to be recounted here; it marks
the close of the period of conquest and prosperity which Egypt had
enjoyed under the kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.
Early in his reign Meneptah had sent corn by sea to the Hittites at a
time when there was a famine in Syria, showing that the peaceful
relations established during the reign of his father were still in
force. Despatches dated in his third year also exist, which speak of
letters and messengers passing to and fro between Egypt and Phoenicia,
and make it clear that Gaza was still garrisoned by Egyptian troops. But
in the fifth year of his reign Egypt was invaded by a confederacy of
white-skinned tribes from Libya and the shores of Asia Minor, who
overran the Delta and threatened the very existence of the Egyptian
monarchy. Egypt, however, was saved by a battle in which the invading
host was almost annihilated, but not before it had itself been half
drained of its resources, and weakened correspondingly.

Not many years afterwards the dynasty of Ramses the Oppressor descended
to its grave in bloodshed and disaster. Civil war broke out, followed by
foreign invasion, and the crown was seized by 'Arisu the Phoenician.'
But happier times again arrived. Once more the Egyptians obeyed a native
prince, and the Twentieth Dynasty was founded. Its one great king was
Ramses III., who rescued his country from two invasions more formidable
even than that which had been beaten back by Meneptah. Like the latter,
they were conducted by the Libyans and the nations of the Greek seas,
and the invaders were defeated partly on the land, partly on the water.
The maritime confederacy included the Teukrians of the Troad, the
Lykians and the Philistines, perhaps also the natives of Sardinia and
Sicily. They had flung themselves in the first instance on the coasts of
Phoenicia, and spread inland as far as Carchemish. Laden with spoil,
they fixed their camp 'in the land of the Amorites,' and then descended
upon Egypt. The Hittites of Carchemish and the people of Matenau of
Naharina came in their train, and a long and terrible battle took place
on the sea-shore between Raphia and Pelusium. The Egyptians were
victorious; the ships of the enemy were sunk, and their soldiers slain
or captured. Egypt was once more filled with captives, and the flame of
its former glory flickered again for a moment before finally going out.

The list of prisoners shows that the Hittite tribes had taken part in
the struggle, Carchemish, Aleppo, and Pethor being specially named as
having sent contingents to the war. They had probably marched by land,
while their allies from Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean
had attacked the Egyptian coast in ships. So far as we can gather, the
Hittite populations no longer acknowledged the suzerainty of an imperial
sovereign, but were divided into independent states. It would seem, too,
that they had lost their hold upon Mysia and the far west. The Tsekkri
and the Leku, the Shardaina and the Shakalsha are said to have attacked
their cities before proceeding on their southward march. If we can trust
the statement, we must conclude that the Hittite empire had already
broken up. The tribes of Asia Minor it had conquered were in revolt, and
had carried the war into the homes of their former masters. However this
may be, it is certain that from this time forward the power of the
Hittites in Syria began to wane. Little by little the Aramæan population
pushed them back into their northern fastnesses, and throughout the
period of the Israelitish judges we never hear even of their name. The
Hittite chieftains advance no longer to the south of Kadesh; and though
Israel was once oppressed by a king who had come from the north, he was
king of Aram-Naharaim, the Naharina of the Egyptian texts, and not a
Hittite prince.

Where the Egyptian monuments desert us, those of Assyria come to our
help. The earliest notices of the Hittites found in the cuneiform texts
are contained in a great work on astronomy and astrology, originally
compiled for an early king of Babylonia. The references to 'the king of
the Hittites,' however, which meet us in it, cannot be ascribed to a
remote date. One of the chief objects aimed at by the author (or
authors) of the work was to foretell the future, it being supposed that
a particular event which had followed a certain celestial phenomenon
would be repeated when the phenomenon happened again. Consequently it
was the fashion to introduce into the work from time to time fresh
notices of events; and some of these glosses, as we may term them, are
probably not older than the seventh century B. C. It is, therefore,
impossible to determine the exact date to which the allusions to the
Hittite king belong, but there are indications that it is comparatively
late. The first clear account that the Assyrian inscriptions give us
concerning the Hittites, to which we can attach a date, is met with in
the annals of Tiglath-pileser I.

Tiglath-pileser I. was the most famous monarch of the first Assyrian
empire, and he reigned about 1110 B. C. He carried his arms northward
and westward, penetrating into the bleak and trackless mountains of
Armenia, and forcing his way as far as Malatiyeh in Kappadokia. His
annals present us with a very full and interesting picture of the
geography of these regions at the time of his reign. Kummukh or
Komagênê, which at that epoch extended southward from Malatiyeh in the
direction of Carchemish, was one of the first objects of his attack. 'At
the beginning of my reign,' he says, '20,000 Moschians (or men of
Meshech) and their five kings, who for fifty years had taken possession
of the countries of Alzi and Purukuzzi, which had formerly paid tribute
and taxes to Assur my lord--no king (before me) had opposed them in
battle--trusted to their strength, and came down and seized the land of
Kummukh.' The Assyrian king, however, marched against them, and defeated
them in a pitched battle with great slaughter, and then proceeded to
carry fire and sword through the cities of Kummukh. Its ruler
Kili-anteru, the son of Kali-anteru, was captured along with his wives
and family; and Tiglath-pileser next proceeded to besiege the stronghold
of Urrakhinas. Its prince Sadi-anteru, the son of Khattukhi, 'the
Hittite,' threw himself at the conqueror's feet; his life was spared,
and 'the wide-spreading land of Kummukh' became tributary to Assyria,
objects of bronze being the chief articles it had to offer. About the
same time, 4000 troops belonging to the Kaskâ or Kolkhians and the
people of Uruma, both of whom are described as 'soldiers of the
Hittites' and as having occupied the northern cities of Mesopotamia,
submitted voluntarily to the Assyrian monarch, and were transported to
Assyria along with their chariots and their property. Uruma was the
Urima of classical geography, which lay on the Euphrates a little to the
north of Birejik, so that we know the exact locality to which these
'Hittite soldiers' belonged. In fact, 'Hittite' must have been a general
name given to the inhabitants of all this district; the modern Merash,
for instance, lies within the limits of the ancient Kummukh; and, as we
shall see, it is from Merash that a long Hittite inscription has come.

Tiglath-pileser attacked Kummukh a second time, and on this occasion
penetrated still further into the mountain fastnesses of the Hittite
country. In a third campaign his armies came in sight of Malatiyeh
itself, but the king contented himself with exacting a small yearly
tribute from the city, 'having had pity upon it,' as he tells us,
though more probably the truth was that he found himself unable to take
it by storm. But he never succeeded in forcing his way across the fords
of the Euphrates, which were commanded by the great fortress of
Carchemish. Once he harried the land of Mitanni or Naharina, slaying and
spoiling 'in one day' from Carchemish southwards to a point that faced
the deserts of the nomad Sukhi, the Shuhites of the Book of Job. It was
on this occasion that he killed ten elephants in the neighbourhood of
Harran and on the banks of the Khabour, besides four wild bulls which he
hunted with arrows and spears 'in the land of Mitanni and in the city of
Araziqi[4], which lies opposite to the land of the Hittites.'

Towards the end of the twelfth century before our era, therefore, the
Hittites were still strong enough to keep one of the mightiest of the
Assyrian kings in check. It is true that they no longer obeyed a single
head; it is also true that that portion of them which was settled in the
land of Kummukh was overrun by the Assyrian armies, and forced to pay
tribute to the Assyrian invader. But Carchemish compelled the respect of
Tiglath-pileser; he never ventured to approach its walls or to cross the
river which it was intended to defend. His way was barred to the west,
and he never succeeded in traversing the high road which led to
Phoenicia and Palestine.

    [4] Called Eragiza in classical geography and in the Talmud.

After the death of Tiglath-pileser I. the Assyrian inscriptions fail us.
His successors allowed the empire to fall into decay, and more than two
hundred years elapsed before the curtain is lifted again. These two
hundred years had witnessed the rise and fall of the kingdom of David
and Solomon as well as the growth of a new power, that of the Syrians of
Damascus.

Damascus rose on the ruins of the empire of Solomon. But its rise also
shows plainly that the power of the Hittites in Syria was beginning to
wane. Hadad-ezer, king of Zobah, the antagonist of David, had been able
to send for aid to the Arameans of Naharina, on the eastern side of the
Euphrates (2 Sam. x. 16), and with them he had marched to Helam, in
which it is possible to see the name of Aleppo[5]. It is clear that the
Hittites were no longer able to keep the Aramean population in
subjection, or to prevent an Aramean prince of Zobah from expelling them
from the territory they had once made their own. Indeed, it may be that
in one passage of the Old Testament allusion is made to an attack which
Hadad-ezer was preparing against them. When it is stated that he was
overthrown by David, 'as he was going to turn his hand against the river
Euphrates' (2 Sam. viii. 3), it may be that it was against the Hittites
of Carchemish that his armies were about to be directed. At any rate,
support for this view is found in a further statement of the sacred
historian. 'When Toi king of Hamath,' we learn, 'heard that David had
smitten all the host of Hadad-ezer, then Toi sent Joram his son unto
king David, to salute him, and to bless him, because he had fought
against Hadad-ezer and smitten him; for Hadad-ezer had wars with Toi' (2
Sam. viii. 9, 10). Now we know from the monuments that have been
discovered on the spot that Hamath was once a Hittite city, and there is
no reason for not believing that it was still in the possession of the
Hittites in the age of David. Its Syrian enemies would in that case
have been the same as the enemies of David, and a common danger would
thus have united it with Israel in an alliance which ended only in its
overthrow by the Assyrians.

    [5] Called Khalman in the Assyrian texts. Josephus changes
    Helam into the proper name Khalaman.

As late as the time of Uzziah, we are told by the Assyrian inscriptions,
the Jewish king was in league with Hamath, and the last independent
ruler of Hamath was Yahu-bihdi, a name in which we recognise that of the
God of Israel. Indeed, the very fact that the Syrians imagined that 'the
kings of the Hittites' were coming to the rescue of Samaria, when
besieged by the forces of Damascus, goes to show that Israel and the
Hittites were regarded as natural friends, whose natural adversaries
were the Arameans of Syria. As the power and growth of Israel had been
built up on the conquest and subjugation of the Semitic populations of
Palestine, so too the power of the Hittites had been gained at the
expense of their Semitic neighbours. The triumph of Syria was a blow
alike to the Hittites of Carchemish and to the Hebrews of Samaria and
Jerusalem.

With Assur-natsir-pal, whose reign extended from B. C. 885 to 860,
contemporaneous Assyrian history begins afresh. His campaigns and
conquests rivalled those of Tiglath-pileser I., and indeed exceeded them
both in extent and in brutality. Like his predecessor, he exacted
tribute from Kummukh as well as from the kings of the country in which
Malatiyeh was situated; but with better fortune than Tiglath-pileser he
succeeded in passing the Euphrates, and obliging Sangara of Carchemish
to pay him homage. It is clear that Carchemish was no longer as strong
as it had been two centuries before, and that the power of its defenders
was gradually vanishing away. There was still, however, a small Hittite
population on the eastern bank of the Euphrates; at all events,
Assur-natsir-pal describes the tribe of Bakhian on that side of the
river as Hittite, and it was only after receiving tribute from them that
he crossed the stream in boats and approached the land of Gargamis or
Carchemish. But his threatened assault upon the Hittite stronghold was
bought off with rich and numerous presents. Twenty talents of
silver--the favourite metal of the Hittite princes--'cups of gold,
chains of gold, blades of gold, 100 talents of copper, 250 talents of
iron, gods of copper in the form of wild bulls, bowls of copper,
libation cups of copper, a ring of copper, the multitudinous furniture
of the royal palace, of which the like was never received, couches and
thrones of rare woods and ivory, 200 slave-girls, garments of variegated
cloth and linen, masses of black crystal and blue crystal, precious
stones, the tusks of elephants, a white chariot, small images of gold,'
as well as ordinary chariots and war-horses,--such were the treasures
poured into the lap of the Assyrian monarch by the wealthy but unwarlike
king of Carchemish. They give us an idea of the wealth to which the city
had attained through its favourable position on the high-road of
commerce that ran from the east to the west. The uninterrupted
prosperity of several centuries had filled it with merchants and riches;
in later days we find the Assyrian inscriptions speaking of 'the maneh
of Carchemish' as one of the recognised standards of value. Carchemish
had become a city of merchants, and no longer felt itself able to oppose
by arms the trained warriors of the Assyrian king.

Quitting Carchemish, Assur-natsir-pal pursued his march westwards, and
after passing the land of Akhanu on his left, fell upon the town of Azaz
near Aleppo, which belonged to the king of the Patinians. The latter
people were of Hittite descent, and occupied the country between the
river Afrin and the shores of the Gulf of Antioch. The Assyrian armies
crossed the Afrin and appeared before the walls of the Patinian capital.
Large bribes, however, induced them to turn away southward, and to
advance along the Orontes in the direction of the Lebanon. Here
Assur-natsir-pal received the tribute of the Phoenician cities.

Shalmaneser II., the son and successor of Assur-natsir-pal, continued
the warlike policy of his father (B. C. 860-825). The Hittite princes
were again a special object of attack. Year after year Shalmaneser led
his armies against them, and year after year did he return home laden
with spoil. The aim of his policy is not difficult to discover. He
sought to break the power of the Hittite race in Syria, to possess
himself of the fords across the Euphrates and the high-road which
brought the merchandise of Phoenicia to the traders of Nineveh, and
eventually to divert the commerce of the Mediterranean to his own
country. By the overthrow of the Patinians he made himself master of the
cedar forests of Amanus, and his palaces were erected with the help of
their wood. Sangara of Carchemish, it is true, perceived his danger, and
a league of the Hittite princes was formed to resist the common foe.
Contingents came not only from Kummukh and from the Patinians, but from
Cilicia and the mountain ranges of Asia Minor. It was, however, of no
avail. The Hittite forces were driven from the field, and their leaders
were compelled to purchase peace by the payment of tribute. Once more
Carchemish gave up its gold and silver, its bronze and copper, its
purple vestures and curiously-adorned thrones, and the daughter of
Sangara himself was carried away to the harem of the Assyrian king.
Pethor, the city of Balaam, was turned into an Assyrian colony, its very
name being changed to an Assyrian one. The way into Hamath and Phoenicia
at last lay open to the Assyrian host. At Aleppo Shalmaneser offered
sacrifices to the native god Hadad, and then descended upon the cities
of Hamath. At Karkar he was met by a great confederacy formed by the
kings of Hamath and Damascus, to which Ahab of Israel had contributed
2000 chariots and 10,000 men. But nothing could withstand the onslaught
of the Assyrian veterans. The enemy were scattered like chaff, and the
river Orontes was reddened with their blood. The battle of Karkar (in
B.C. 854) brought the Assyrians into contact with Damascus, and caused
Jehu on a later occasion to send tribute to the Assyrian king.

The subsequent history of Shalmaneser concerns us but little. The power
of the Hittites south of the Taurus had been broken for ever. The Semite
had avenged himself for the conquest of his country by the northern
mountaineers centuries before. They no longer formed a barrier which cut
off the east from the west, and prevented the Semites of Assyria and
Babylon from meeting the Semites of Phoenicia and Palestine. The
intercourse which had been interrupted in the age of the nineteenth
dynasty of Egypt could now be again resumed. Carchemish ceased to
command the fords of the Euphrates, and was forced to acknowledge the
supremacy of the Assyrian invader. In fact, the Hittites of Syria had
become little more than tributaries of the Assyrian monarch. When an
insurrection broke out among the Patinians, in consequence of which the
rightful king was killed and his throne seized by an usurper,
Shalmaneser claimed and exercised the right to interfere. A new
sovereign was appointed by him, and he set up an image of himself in the
capital city of the Patinian people.

The change that had come over the relations between the Assyrians and
the Hittite population is marked by a curious fact. From the time of
Shalmaneser onwards, the name of Hittite is no longer used by the
Assyrian writers in a correct sense. It is extended so as to embrace all
the inhabitants of Northern Syria on the western side of the Euphrates,
and subsequently came to include the inhabitants of Palestine as well.
Khatta or 'Hittite' became synonymous with Syrian. How this happened is
not difficult to explain. The first populations of Syria with whom the
Assyrians had come into contact were of Hittite origin. When their power
was broken, and the Assyrian armies had forced their way past the
barrier they had so long presented to the invader, it was natural that
the states next traversed by the Assyrian generals should be supposed
also to belong to them. Moreover, many of these states were actually
dependent on the Hittite princes, though inhabited by an Aramean people.
The Hittites had imposed their yoke upon an alien race of Aramean
descent, and accordingly in Northern Syria Hittite and Aramean cities
and tribes were intermingled together. 'I took,' says Shalmaneser, 'what
the men of the land of the Hittites had called the city of Pethor
(_Pitru_), which is upon the river Sajur (_Sagura_), on the further side
of the Euphrates, and the city of Mudkînu, on the eastern side of the
Euphrates, which Tiglath-pileser (I.), the royal forefather who went
before me, had united to my country, and Assur-rab-buri king of Assyria
and the king of the Arameans had taken (from it) by a treaty.' At a
later date Shalmaneser marched from Pethor to Aleppo, and there offered
sacrifices to 'the god of the city,' Hadad-Rimmon, whose name betrays
the Semitic character of its population. The Hittites, in short, had
never been more than a conquering upper class in Syria, like the Normans
in Sicily; and as time went on the subject population gained more and
more upon them. Like all similar aristocracies, they tended to die out
or to be absorbed into the native population of the country.

They still held possession of Carchemish, however, and the decadence of
the first Assyrian empire gave them an unexpected respite. But the
revolution which placed Tiglath-pileser III. on the throne of Assyria,
in B. C. 725, brought with it the final doom of Hittite supremacy.
Assyria entered upon a new career of conquest, and under its new rulers
established an empire which extended over the whole of Western Asia. In
B. C. 717 Carchemish finally fell before the armies of Sargon, and its
last king Pisiris became the captive of the Assyrian king. Its trade and
wealth passed into Assyrian hands, it was colonised by Assyrians and
placed under an Assyrian satrap. The great Hittite stronghold on the
Euphrates, which had been for so many centuries the visible sign of
their power and southern conquests, became once more the possession of a
Semitic people. The long struggle that had been carried on between the
Hittites and the Semites was at an end; the Semite had triumphed, and
the Hittite was driven back into the mountains from whence he had come.

But he did not yield without a struggle. The year following the capture
of Carchemish saw Sargon confronted by a great league of the northern
peoples, Meshech, Tubal, Melitene and others, under the leadership of
the king of Ararat. The league, however, was shattered in a decisive
battle, the king of Ararat committed suicide, and in less than three
years Komagênê was annexed to the Assyrian empire. The Semite of Nineveh
was supreme in the Eastern world.

Ararat was the name given by the Assyrians to the district in the
immediate neighbourhood of Lake Van, as well as to the country to the
south of it. It was not until post-Biblical days that the name was
extended to the north, so that the modern Mount Ararat obtained a title
which originally belonged to the Kurdish range in the south. But Ararat
was not the native name of the country. This was Biainas or Bianas, a
name which still survives in that of Lake Van. Numerous inscriptions are
scattered over the country, written in cuneiform characters borrowed
from Nineveh in the time of Assur-natsir-pal or his son Shalmaneser, but
in a language which bears no resemblance to that of Assyria. They record
the building of temples and palaces, the offerings made to the gods, and
the campaigns of the Vannic kings. Among the latter mention is made of
campaigns against the Khâte or Hittites.

The first of these campaigns was conducted by a king called Menuas, who
reigned in the ninth century before our era. He overran the land of
Alzi, and then found himself in the land of the Hittites. Here he
plundered the cities of Surisilis and Tarkhi-gamas, belonging to the
Hittite prince Sada-halis, and captured a number of soldiers, whom he
dedicated to the service of his god Khaldis. On another occasion he
marched as far as the city of Malatiyeh, and after passing through the
country of the Hittites, caused an inscription commemorating his
conquests to be engraved on the cliffs of Palu. Palu is situated on the
northern bank of the Euphrates, about midway between Malatiyeh and Van,
and as it lies to the east of the ancient district of Alzi, we can form
some idea of the exact geographical position to which the Hittites of
Menuas must be assigned. His son and successor, Argistis I, again made
war upon them, and we gather from one of his inscriptions that the city
of Malatiyeh was itself included among their fortresses. The 'land of
the Hittites,' according to the statements of the Vannic kings,
stretched along the banks of the Euphrates from Palu on the east as far
as Malatiyeh on the west.

The Hittites of the Assyrian monuments lived to the south-west of this
region, spreading through Komagênê to Carchemish and Aleppo. The
Egyptian records bring them yet further south to Kadesh on the Orontes,
while the Old Testament carries the name into the extreme south of
Palestine. It is evident, therefore, that we must see in the Hittite
tribes fragments of a race whose original seat was in the ranges of the
Taurus, but who had pushed their way into the warm plains and valleys of
Syria and Palestine. They belonged originally to Asia Minor, not to
Syria, and it was conquest only which gave them a right to the name of
Syrians. 'Hittite' was their true title, and whether the tribes to which
it belonged lived in Judah or on the Orontes, at Carchemish or in the
neighbourhood of Palu, this was the title under which they were known.
We must regard it as a national name, which clung to them in all their
conquests and migrations, and marked them out as a peculiar people,
distinct from the other races of the Eastern world. It is now time to
see what their own monuments have to tell us regarding them, and the
influence they exercised upon the history of mankind.



[Illustration: A SLAB FOUND AT MERASH.]



CHAPTER III.

THE HITTITE MONUMENTS.


It was a warm and sunny September morning when I left the little town of
Nymphi near Smyrna with a strong escort of Turkish soldiers, and made my
way to the Pass of Karabel. The Pass of Karabel is a narrow defile, shut
in on either side by lofty cliffs, through which ran the ancient road
from Ephesos in the south to Sardes and Smyrna in the north. The Greek
historian Herodotos tells us that the Egyptian conqueror Sesostris had
left memorials of himself in this place. 'Two images cut by him in the
rock' were to be seen beside the roads which led 'from Ephesos to
Phokaea and from Sardes to Smyrna. On either side a man is carved, a
little over three feet in height, who holds a spear in the right hand
and a bow in the left. The rest of his accoutrement is similar, for it
is Egyptian and Ethiopian, and from one shoulder to the other, right
across the breast, Egyptian hieroglyphics have been cut which declare:
"I have won this land with my shoulders."'

These two images were the object of my journey. One of them had been
discovered by Renouard in 1839, and shortly afterwards sketched by
Texier; the other had been found by Dr. Beddoe in 1856. But visitors to
the Pass in which they were engraved were few and far between; the
cliffs on either side were the favourite haunt of brigands, and thirty
soldiers were not deemed too many to protect my safety. My work of
exploration had to be carried on under the shelter of their guns, for
more than twenty bandits were lurking under the brushwood above.

The sculpture sketched by Texier had subsequently been photographed by
Mr. Svoboda. It represents a warrior whose height is rather more than
life-size, and who stands in profile with the right foot planted in
front of him, in the attitude of one who is marching. In his right hand
he holds a spear, behind his left shoulder is slung a bow, and the head
is crowned with a high peaked cap. He is clad in a tunic which reaches
to the knees, and his feet are shod with boots with turned-up ends. The
whole figure is cut in deep relief in an artificial niche, and between
the spear and the face are three lines of hieroglyphic characters. The
figure faces south, and is carved on the face of the eastern cliff of
Karabel.

It had long been recognised that the hieroglyphics were not those of
Egypt, and Professor Perrot had also drawn attention to the striking
resemblance between the style of art represented by this sculpture and
that represented by certain rock-sculptures in Kappadokia, as well as by
the sculptured image of a warrior discovered by himself at a place
called Ghiaur-kalessi, 'the castle of the infidel,' in Phrygia, which is
practically identical in form and character with the sculptured warrior
of Karabel.

What was the origin of this art, or who were the people it commemorated,
was a matter of uncertainty. A few weeks, however, before my visit to
the Pass of Karabel, I announced[6] that I had come to the conclusion
that the art was Hittite, and that the hieroglyphics accompanying the
figure at Karabel would turn out, when carefully examined, to be Hittite
also. The primary purpose of my visit to the pass was to verify this
conclusion.

    [6] In the _Academy_ of Aug. 16th, 1879.

Let us now see how I had arrived at it. The story is a long one, and in
order to understand it, it is necessary to transport ourselves from the
Pass of Karabel in Western Asia Minor to Hamah, the site of the ancient
Hamath, in the far east. It was here that the first discovery was made
which has led by slow degrees to the reconstruction of the Hittite
empire, and a recognition of the important part once played by the
Hittites in the history of the civilised world.

As far back as the beginning of the present century (in 1812) the great
Oriental traveller Burckhardt had noticed a block of black basalt
covered with strange-looking hieroglyphics built into the corner of a
house in one of the bazaars of Hamah[7]. But the discovery was
forgotten, and the European residents in Hamah, like the travellers who
visited the city, were convinced that 'no antiquities' were to be found
there. Nearly sixty years later, however, when the American Palestine
Exploration Society was first beginning its work, the American consul,
Mr. Johnson, and an American missionary, Mr. Jessup, accidentally
lighted again upon this stone, and further learned that three other
stones of similar character, and inscribed with similar hieroglyphics,
existed elsewhere in Hamah. One of them, of very great length, was
believed to be endowed with healing properties. Rheumatic patients,
Mohammedans and Christians alike, were in the habit of stretching
themselves upon it, in the firm belief that their pains would be
absorbed into the stone. The other inscribed stones were also regarded
with veneration, which naturally increased when it was known that they
were being sought after by the Franks; and the two Americans found it
impossible to see them all, much less to take copies of the inscriptions
they bore. They had to be content with the miserable attempts at
reproducing them made by a native painter, one of which was afterwards
published in America. The publication served to awaken the interest of
scholars in the newly discovered inscriptions, and efforts were made by
Sir Richard Burton and others to obtain correct impressions of them. All
was in vain, however, and it is probable that the fanaticism or greed of
the people of Hamah would have successfully resisted all attempts to
procure trustworthy copies of the texts, had not a lucky accident
brought Dr. William Wright to the spot. It is to his energy and
devotion that the preservation of these precious relics of Hittite
literature may be said to be due. 'On the 10th of November, 1872,' he
tells us, he 'set out from Damascus, intent on securing the Hamah
inscriptions. The Sublime Porte, seized by a periodic fit of reforming
zeal, had appointed an honest man, Subhi Pasha, to be governor of Syria.
Subhi Pasha brought a conscience to his work, and, not content with
redressing wrongs that succeeded in forcing their way into his presence,
resolved to visit every district of his province, in order that he might
check the spoiler and discover the wants of the people. He invited me to
accompany him on a tour to Hamah, and I gladly accepted the invitation.'
Along with Mr. Green, the English Consul, accordingly, Dr. Wright joined
the party of the Pasha; and, fearing that the same fate might befall the
Hamath stones as had befallen the Moabite Stone, which had been broken
into pieces to save it from the Europeans, persuaded him to buy them,
and send them as a present to the Museum at Constantinople. When the
news became known in Hamah, there were murmurings long and deep against
the Pasha, and it became necessary, not only to appeal to the cupidity
and fear of the owners of the stones, but also to place them under the
protection of a guard of soldiers the night before the work of removing
them was to commence.

    [7] _Travels in Syria_, p. 146.

The night was an anxious one to Dr. Wright; but when day dawned, the
stones were still safe, and the labour of their removal was at once
begun. It 'was effected by an army of shouting men, who kept the city in
an uproar during the whole day. Two of them had to be taken out of the
walls of inhabited houses, and one of them was so large that it took
fifty men and four oxen a whole day to drag it a mile. The other stones
were split in two, and the inscribed parts were carried on the backs of
camels to the' court of the governor's palace. Here they could be
cleaned and copied at leisure and in safety.

But the work of cleaning them from the accumulated dirt of ages occupied
the greater part of two days. Then came the task of making casts of the
inscriptions, with the help of gypsum which some natives had been bribed
to bring from the neighbourhood. At length, however, the work was
completed, and Dr. Wright had the satisfaction of sending home to
England two sets of casts of these ancient and mysterious texts, one for
the British Museum, the other for the Palestine Exploration Fund, while
the originals themselves were safely deposited in the Museum of
Constantinople. It was now time to inquire what the inscriptions meant,
and who could have been the authors of them.

Dr. Wright at once suggested that they were the work of the Hittites,
and that they were memorials of Hittite writing. But his suggestion was
buried in the pages of a periodical better known to theologians than to
Orientalists, and the world agreed to call the writing by the name
of Hamathite. It specially attracted the notice of Dr. Hayes Ward
of New York, who discovered that the inscriptions were written in
_boustrophedon_ fashion, that is to say, that the lines turned
alternately from right to left and from left to right, like oxen when
plowing a field, the first line beginning on the right and the line
following on the left. The lines read, in fact, from the direction
towards which the characters look.

Dr. Hayes Ward also made another discovery. In the ruins of the great
palace of Nineveh Sir A. H. Layard had discovered numerous clay
impressions of seals once attached to documents of papyrus or parchment.
The papyrus and parchment have long since perished, but the seals
remain, with the holes through which the strings passed that attached
them to the original deeds. Some of the seals are Assyrian, some
Phoenician, others again are Egyptian, but there are a few which have
upon them strange characters such as had never been met with before. It
was these characters which Dr. Hayes Ward perceived to be the same as
those found upon the stones of Hamah, and it was accordingly supposed
that the seals were of Hamathite origin.

In 1876, two years after the publication of Dr. Wright's article, of
which I had never heard at the time, I read a Paper on the Hamathite
inscriptions before the Society of Biblical Archæology. In this I put
forward a number of conjectures, one of them being that the Hamathite
hieroglyphs were the source of the curious syllabary used for several
centuries in the island of Cyprus, and another that the hieroglyphs were
not an invention of the early inhabitants of Hamath, but represented the
system of writing employed by the Hittites. We know from the Egyptian
records that the Hittites could write, and that a class of scribes
existed among them, and, since Hamath lay close to the borders of the
Hittite kingdoms, it seemed reasonable to suppose that the unknown form
of script discovered on its site was Hittite rather than Hamathite. The
conjecture was confirmed almost immediately afterwards by the discovery
of the site of Carchemish, the great Hittite capital, and of
inscriptions there in the same system of writing as that found on the
stones of Hamah.

It was not long, therefore, before the learned world began to recognise
that the newly-discovered script was the peculiar possession of the
Hittite race. Dr. Hayes Ward was one of the first to do so, and the
Trustees of the British Museum determined to institute excavations among
the ruins of Carchemish. Meanwhile notice was drawn to a fact which
showed that the Hittite characters, as we shall now call them, were
employed, not only at Hamath and Carchemish, but in Asia Minor as well.

More than a century ago a German traveller had observed two figures
carved on a wall of rock near Ibreez, or Ivris, in the territory of the
ancient Lykaonia. One of them was a god, who carried in his hand a stalk
of corn and a bunch of grapes, the other was a man, who stood before the
god in an attitude of adoration. Both figures were shod with boots with
upturned ends, and the deity wore a tunic that reached to his knees,
while on his head was a peaked cap ornamented with horn-like ribbons. A
century elapsed before the sculpture was again visited by an European
traveller, and it was again a German who found his way to the spot. On
this occasion a drawing was made of the figures, which was published by
Ritter in his great work on the geography of the world. But the drawing
was poor and imperfect, and the first attempt to do adequate justice to
the original was made by the Rev. E. J. Davis in 1875. He published his
copy, and an account of the monument, in the _Transactions of the
Society of Biblical Archæology_ the following year. He had noticed that
the figures were accompanied by what were known at the time as Hamathite
characters. Three lines of these were inserted between the face of the
god and his uplifted left arm, four lines more were engraved behind his
worshipper, while below, on a level with an aqueduct which fed a mill,
were yet other lines of half-obliterated hieroglyphs. It was plain that
in Lykaonia also, where the old language of the country still lingered
in the days of St. Paul, the Hittite system of writing had once been
used.

Another stone inscribed with Hittite characters had come to light at
Aleppo. Like those of Hamath, it was of black basalt, and had been built
into a modern wall. The characters upon it were worn by frequent
attrition, the people of Aleppo believing that whoever rubbed his eyes
upon it would be immediately cured of ophthalmia. More than one copy of
the inscription was taken, but the difficulty of distinguishing the
half-obliterated characters rendered the copies of little service, and a
cast of the stone was about to be made when news arrived that the
fanatics of Aleppo had destroyed it. Rather than allow its virtue to go
out of it--to be stolen, as they fancied, by the Europeans--they
preferred to break it in pieces. It is one of the many monuments that
have perished at the very moment when their importance first became
known.

This, then, was the state of our knowledge in the summer of 1879. We
knew that the Hittites, with whom Hebrews and Egyptians and Assyrians
had once been in contact, possessed a hieroglyphic system of writing,
and that this system of writing was found on monuments in Hamath,
Aleppo, Carchemish, and Lykaonia. We knew, too, that in Lykaonia it
accompanied figures carved out of the rock in a peculiar style of art,
and represented as wearing a peculiar kind of dress.

[Illustration: SLABS WITH HITTITE SCULPTURES.
(_Photographed in situ at Keller, near Aintab._)]

Suddenly the truth flashed upon me. This peculiar style of art, this
peculiar kind of dress, was the same as that which distinguished the
sculptures of Karabel, of Ghiaur-kalessi, and of Kappadokia. In all
alike we had the same characteristic features, the same head-dresses and
shoes, the same tunics, the same clumsy massiveness of design and
characteristic attitude. The figures carved upon the rocks of Karabel
and Kappadokia must be memorials of Hittite art. The clue to their
origin and history was at last discovered; the birthplace of the strange
art which had produced them was made manifest. A little further research
made the fact doubly sure. The photographs Professor Perrot had taken of
the monuments of Boghaz Keui in Kappadokia included one of an
inscription in ten or eleven lines. The characters of this inscription
were worn and almost illegible, but not only were they in relief, like
the characters of all other Hittite inscriptions known at the time,
among them two or three hieroglyphs stood out clearly, which were
identical with those on the stones of Hamath and Carchemish. All that
was needed to complete the verification of my discovery was to visit the
Pass of Karabel, and see whether the hieroglyphs Texier and others had
found there likewise belonged to the Hittite script.

More than three hours did I spend in the niche wherein the figure is
carved which Herodotos believed was a likeness of the Egyptian
Sesostris. It was necessary to take 'squeezes' as well as copies, if I
would recover the characters of the inscription and ascertain their
exact forms. My joy was great at finding that they were Hittite, and
that the conclusion I had arrived at in my study at home was confirmed
by the monument itself. The Sesostris of Herodotos turned out to be, not
the great Pharaoh who contended with the Hittites of Kadesh, but a
symbol of the far-reaching power and influence of his mighty opponents.
Hittite art and Hittite writing, if not the Hittite name, were proved to
have been known from the banks of the Euphrates to the shores of the
Ægean Sea.

The stone warrior of Karabel stands in his niche in the cliff at a
considerable height above the path, and the direction in which he is
marching is that which would have led him to Ephesos and the Mæander.
His companion lies below, the block of stone out of which the second
figure has been carved having been apparently shaken by an earthquake
from the rocks above. This second figure is a duplicate of the first.
Both stand in the same position, both are shod with the same snow-shoes,
and both are armed with spear and bow. But the second figure has
suffered much from the ill-usage of man. The upper part has been
purposely chipped away, and it is not many years ago since a Yuruk's
tent was pitched against the block of stone out of which it is carved,
the niche in which the old warrior stands conveniently serving as the
fire-place of the family. No trace of inscription remains, if indeed it
ever existed. At any rate, it could not have run across the breast, as
Herodotos asserts.

[Illustration: THE PSEUDO-SESOSTRIS, CARVED ON THE ROCK IN THE PASS OF
KARABEL.]

The account, indeed, given by Herodotos of these two figures can hardly
have been that of an eye-witness. Instead of being little over three
feet in height, they are more than life-size, and they hold their spears
not in the right but in the left hand. Their accoutrement, moreover, is
as unlike that of an 'Egyptian and Ethiopian' as it well could be, while
the inscription is not traced across the breast, but between the face
and the arm. Nor was the Greek historian correct in saying that the pass
which the two warriors seem to guard leads not only from Ephesos to
Phokæa, but also from Sardes to Smyrna. It is not until the pass is
cleared at its northern end that the road which runs through it--the
_Karabel-déré_, as the Turks now call it--joins the _Belkaive_, or road
from Sardes to Smyrna. It is evident that Herodotos must have received
his account of the figures from another authority, though his
identification of them with the Egyptian Sesostris is his own.

Not far from Karabel another monument of Hittite art has been
discovered. Hard by the town of Magnesia, on the lofty cliffs of
Sipylos, a strange figure has been carved out of the rock. It represents
a woman with long locks of hair streaming down her shoulders, and a
jewel like a lotus-flower upon the head, who sits on a throne in a deep
artificial niche. Lydian historians narrate that it was the image of the
daughter of Assaon, who had sought death by casting herself down from a
precipice; but Greek legend preferred to see in it the figure of
'weeping Niobe' turned to stone. Already Homer told how Niobê, when her
twelve children had been slain by the gods, 'now changed to stone,
broods over the woes the gods had brought, there among the rocks, in
lonely mountains, even in Sipylos, where they say are the couches of the
nymphs who dance on the banks of the Akheloios.' But it was only after
the settlement of the Greeks in Lydia that the old monument on Mount
Sipylos was held to be the image of Niobê. The limestone rock out of
which it was carved dripped with moisture after rain, and as the water
flowed over the face of the figure, disintegrating and disfiguring the
stone as it ran, the pious Greek beheld in it the Niobê of his own
mythology. The figure was originally that of the great goddess of Asia
Minor, known sometimes as Atergatis or Derketo, sometimes as Kybelê,
sometimes by other names. It is difficult for one who has seen the image
of Nofert-ari, the favourite wife of Ramses II., seated in the niche of
rock on the cliffs of Abu-simbel, not to believe that the artist who
carved the image on Mount Sipylos had visited the Nile. At a little
distance both have the same appearance, and a nearer examination shows
that, although the Egyptian work is finer than the Lydian, it resembles
it in a striking manner. We now know, however, that the 'Niobê' of
Sipylos owes its origin to Hittite art. On the wall of rock out of which
the niche is cut wherein the goddess sits Dr. Dennis discovered a
cartouche containing Hittite characters. By tying some ladders together
he and I succeeded in ascending to it, and taking paper impressions of
the hieroglyphs. Among them is a character which has the meaning of
'king'[8].

    [8] A copy of the inscription made from the squeeze is given in
    the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, VII.
    Pt. 3, Pl. v. An eye-copy, made from the ground by Dr. Dennis,
    on the occasion of his discovery of the cartouche, was published
    in the _Proceedings_ of the same Society for January 1881, and
    is necessarily imperfect.

How came these characters and these creations of Hittite art in a region
so remote from that in which the Hittite kingdoms rose and flourished?
How comes it that we find figures of Hittite warriors in the Pass of
Karabel and on the rocks of Ghiaur-kalessi, and the image of a Hittite
goddess on the cliffs of Sipylos? Whose was the hand that engraved the
characters that accompany them,--characters which are the same as those
which meet us on the stones of Hamath and Carchemish? We have now to
learn what answers can be given to these questions.



[Illustration: MONUMENT OF A HITTITE KING FOUND AT CARCHEMISH.]



CHAPTER IV.

THE HITTITE EMPIRE.


We have seen that the Egyptian monuments bear witness to an extension of
Hittite power into the distant regions of Asia Minor. When the kings of
Kadesh contended with the great Pharaoh of the Oppression they were able
to summon to their aid allies from the Troad, as well as from Lydia and
the shores of the Cilician sea. A century later Egypt was again invaded
by a confederacy, consisting partly of the Hittite rulers of Carchemish
and Aleppo, partly of Libyans and Teukrians, and other populations of
Asia Minor. If any trust can be placed in the identifications proposed
by Egyptian scholars for the countries from whence the vassals and
allies of the Hittites came it is clear that memorials of Hittite power
and conquest ought to be found in Asia Minor.

And they were found as soon as it was recognised that the curious
monuments of Asia Minor, of which the warriors of Karabel and the
sculptures of Ibreez are examples, were actually inspired by Hittite
art. As soon as it was known that the art these monuments represented,
and the peculiar form of writing which accompanied them, had their
earliest home in the Syrian cities of the Hittite tribes, a new light
broke over the prehistoric past of Asia Minor. These Hittite monuments
can be traced in two continuous lines from Northern Syria and
Kappadokia to the western extremity of the peninsula. They follow the
two highways which once led out of Asia to Sardes and the shores of the
Ægean. In the south they form as it were a series of stations at Ibreez
and Bulgar Maden in Lykaonia, at Fassiler and Tyriaion between Ikonion
and the Lake of Beyshehr, and finally in the Pass of Karabel. Northwards
the line runs through the Taurus by Merash, and carries us first to the
defile of Ghurun, and then to the great Kappadokian ruins of Boghaz Keui
and Eyuk, from whence we pass by Ghiaur-kalessi and the burial-place of
the old Phrygian kings, until we again reach the Lydian capital and the
Pass of Karabel.

Westward of the Halys and Kappadokia they are marked by certain
peculiarities. They are found either in the vicinity of silver mines,
like those of Lykaonia, or else on the line of the ancient roads, which
finally converged in Lydia. None have been discovered in the central
plateau of Asia Minor, in the mountains of Lykia in the south, or the
wide-reaching coast-lands of the north. They mark the sites of small
colonies, or else the lines of road that connected them. Moreover, with
the exception of the image of the goddess who sits on her throne in
Mount Sipylos, the western monuments represent the figures of warriors
who are in the act of marching forward. This is the case at Karabel; it
is also the case at Ghiaur-kalessi, where the rock on which the two
Hittite warriors are carved lies close below the remains of a
pre-historic fortress.

Such facts admit of only one explanation. The Hittite monuments of
Western Asia Minor must be memorials of military conquest and supremacy.
In the warriors whose figures stood on either side of the Pass of
Karabel, the sculptor must have seen the visible symbols of Hittite
power. They showed that the Hittite had won and kept the pass by force
of arms. They are emblems of conquest, not creations of native art.

But it was inevitable that conquest should bring with it a civilising
influence. The Hittites could not carry with them the art and culture
they had acquired in the East without influencing the barbarous
populations over whom they claimed to rule. The vassal chieftains of
Lydia and the Troad could not lead their forces into Syria, or assist in
the invasion of Egypt, without learning something of that ancient
civilisation with which they had come in contact. The Hittites, in fact,
must be regarded as the first teachers of the rude populations of the
West. They brought to them a culture the first elements of which had
been inspired by Babylonia; they brought also a system of writing out of
which, in all probability, the natives of Asia Minor afterwards
developed a writing of their own.

It is possible, therefore, that some of the Hittite monuments of Asia
Minor are the work, not of the Hittites themselves, but of the native
populations whom they had civilised and instructed. It may be that this
is the case at Ibreez, where the faces of the god and his worshipper
have Jewish features very unlike those found on monuments of purely
Hittite origin. But apart from such instances, where the monument is due
to Hittite influence rather than to Hittite artists, it is certain that
most of the Hittite memorials of Asia Minor are the productions of the
Hittites themselves. This is proved by the hieroglyphs which are
attached to them, as well as by the uniform type of feature and dress
which prevails from Carchemish to the Ægean. It is impossible to explain
such an uniformity, and still more the extraordinary resemblance between
the characters engraved at Karabel, or on Mount Sipylos, and those which
meet us in the inscriptions of Hamath and Carchemish, except on the
supposition that the monuments were executed by men who belonged to the
same race and spoke the same language. Wherever Hittite inscriptions
occur, we find in them the same combinations of hieroglyphs as well as
the use of the same characters to denote grammatical suffixes.

We may, then, rest satisfied with the conclusion that the existence of a
Hittite empire extending into Asia Minor is certified, not only by the
records of ancient Egypt, but also by Hittite monuments which still
exist. In the days of Ramses II., when the children of Israel were
groaning under the tasks allotted to them, the enemies of their
oppressors were already exercising a power and a domination which
rivalled that of Egypt. The Egyptian monarch soon learned to his cost
that the Hittite prince was as 'great' a king as himself, and could
summon to his aid the inhabitants of the unknown north. Pharaoh's claim
to sovereignty was disputed by adversaries as powerful as the ruler of
Egypt, if indeed not more powerful, and there was always a refuge among
them for those who were oppressed by the Egyptian king.

When, however, we speak of a Hittite empire we must understand clearly
what that means. It was not an empire like that of Rome, where the
subject provinces were consolidated together under a central authority,
obeying the same laws and the same supreme head. It was not an empire
like that of the Persians, or of the Assyrian successors of
Tiglath-pileser III., which represented the organised union of numerous
states and nations under a single ruler. Such a conception of empire was
due to Tiglath-pileser III., and his successor Sargon; it was a new idea
in the world, and had never been realised before. The first Assyrian
empire, like the foreign empire of Egypt, was of an altogether different
character. It depended on the military enterprise and strength of
individual monarchs. As long as the Assyrian or Egyptian king could lead
his armies into distant territories, and compel their inhabitants to pay
him tribute and homage, his empire extended over them. But hardly had he
returned home laden with spoil than we find the subject populations
throwing off their allegiance and asserting their independence, while
the death of the conqueror brought with it almost invariably the general
uprising of the tribes and cities his arms had subdued. Before the days
of Tiglath-pileser, in fact, empire in Western Asia meant the power of a
prince to force a foreign people to submit to his rule. The conquered
provinces had to be subdued again and again; but as long as this could
be done, as long as the native struggles for freedom could be crushed by
a campaign, so long did the empire exist.

It was an empire of this sort that the Hittites established in Asia
Minor. How long it lasted we cannot say. But so long as the distant
races of the West answered the summons to war of the Hittite princes, it
remained a reality. The fact that the tribes of the Troad and Lydia are
found fighting under the command of the Hittite kings of Kadesh, proves
that they acknowledged the supremacy of their Hittite lords, and
followed them to battle like the vassals of some feudal chief. If
Hittite armies had not marched to the shores of the Ægean, and Hittite
princes been able from time to time to exact homage from the nations of
the far west, Egypt would not have had to contend against the
populations of Asia Minor in its wars with the Hittites, and the figures
of Hittite warriors would not have been sculptured on the rocks of
Karabel. There was a time when the Hittite name was feared as far as the
western extremity of Asia Minor, and when Hittite satraps had their seat
in the future capital of Lydia.

Traditions of this period lingered on into classical days. The older
dynasty of Lydian kings traced its descent from Bel and Ninos, the
Babylonian or Assyrian gods, whose names had been carried by the
Hittites into the remote west. The Lydian hero Kayster, who gave his
name to the Kaystrian plain, was fabled to have wandered into Syria, and
there, after wooing Semiramis, to have been the father of Derketo, the
goddess of Carchemish. A Lydian was even said to have drowned Derketo in
the sacred lake of Ashkelon; and Eusebius declares that Sardes, the
Lydian capital, was captured for the first time in B. C. 1078, by a
horde of invaders from the north-western regions of Asia.

But it is in the famous legend of the Amazons that we must look for the
chief evidence preserved to us by classical antiquity of the influence
once exercised by the Hittites in Asia Minor. The Amazons were imagined
to be a nation of female warriors, whose primitive home lay in
Kappadokia, on the banks of the Thermodon, not far from the ruins of
Boghaz Keui. From hence they had issued forth to conquer the people of
Asia Minor and to found an empire which reached to the Ægean Sea. The
building of many of the most famous cities on the Ægean coast was
ascribed to them,--Myrina and Kyme, Smyrna and Ephesos, where the
worship of the great Asiatic goddess was carried on with barbaric
ceremonies into the later age of civilised Greece.

Now these Amazons are nothing more than the priestesses of the Asiatic
goddess, whose cult spread from Carchemish along with the advance of the
Hittite armies. She was served by a multitude of armed priestesses and
eunuch priests; under her name of Ma, for instance, no less than six
thousand of them waited on her at Komana in Kappadokia. Certain cities,
in fact, like Komana and Ephesos, were dedicated to her service, and a
large part of the population accordingly became the armed ministers of
the mighty goddess. Generally these were women, as at Ephesos in early
days, where they obeyed a high-priestess, who called herself 'the
queen-bee.' When Ephesos passed into Greek hands, the goddess worshipped
there was identified with the Greek Artemis, and a high-priest took the
place of the high-priestess. But the priestess of Artemis still
continued to be called 'a bee,' reminding us that Deborah or 'Bee' was
the name of one of the greatest of the prophetesses of ancient Israel;
and the goddess herself continued to be depicted under the same form as
that which had belonged to her in Hittite days. On her head was the
so-called mural crown, the Hittite origin of which has now been placed
beyond doubt by the sculptures of Boghaz Keui, while her chariot was
drawn by lions. It was from the Hittites, too, that Artemis received her
sacred animal, the goat.

The 'spear-armed host' of the Amazons, which came from Kappadokia, which
conquered Asia Minor, and was so closely connected with the worship of
the Ephesian Artemis, can be no other than the priestesses of the
Hittite goddess, who danced in her honour armed with the shield and bow.
In ancient art the Amazons are represented as clad in the Hittite tunic
and brandishing the same double-headed axe that is held in the hands of
some of the Hittite deities on the rocks of Boghaz Keui, while the
'spear' lent to them by the Greek poet brings to our recollection the
spear held by the warriors of Karabel. We cannot explain the myth of the
Amazons except on the supposition that they represented the armed
priestesses of the Hittite goddess, and that a tradition of the Hittite
empire in Asia Minor has entwined itself around the story of their
arrival in the West. The cities they are said to have founded must have
been the seats of Hittite rule.

The Hittites were intruders in Syria as well as in Western Asia Minor.
Everything points to the conclusion that they had descended from the
ranges of the Taurus. Their costume was that of the inhabitants of a
cold and mountainous region, not of the warm valleys of the south. In
place of the trailing robes of the Syrians, the national costume was a
tunic which did not quite reach to the knees. It was only after their
settlement in the Syrian cities that they adopted the dress of the
country; the sculptured rocks of Asia Minor represent them with the same
short tunic as that which distinguished the Dorians of Greece or the
ancient inhabitants of Ararat. But the most characteristic portion of
the Hittite garb were the shoes with upturned ends. Wherever the figure
of a Hittite is portrayed, there we find this peculiar form of boot. It
reappears among the hieroglyphs of the inscriptions, and the Egyptian
artists who adorned the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes have placed it
on the feet of the Hittite defenders of Kadesh. The boot is really a
snow-shoe, admirably adapted for walking over snow, but ill-suited for
the inhabitants of a level or cultivated country. The fact that it was
still used by the Hittites of Kadesh in the warm fertile valley of the
Orontes proves better than any other argument that they must have come
from the snow-clad mountains of the north. It is like the shoe of
similar shape which the Turks have carried with them in their migrations
from the north and introduced amongst the natives of Syria and Egypt. It
indicates with unerring certainty the northern origin of the Turkish
conqueror. He stands in the same relation to the modern population of
Syria that the Hittites stood to the Arameans of Kadesh three thousand
years ago.

Equally significant is the long fingerless glove which is one of the
most frequent of Hittite hieroglyphs. The thumb alone is detached from
the rest of the bag in which the fingers were enclosed. Such a glove is
an eloquent witness to the wintry cold of the regions from which its
wearers came, and a similar glove is still used during the winter months
by the peasants of modern Kappadokia.

We may find another evidence of the northern descent of the Hittite
tribes in the hieroglyph which is used in the sense of 'country.' It
represents two, or sometimes three, pointed mountains, whose forms, as
was remarked some years ago, resemble those of the mountains about
Kaisariyeh, the Kappadokian capital.

If we leave Kadesh and proceed northwards, the local names bear more and
more the peculiar stamp of a Hittite origin. We leave Semitic names
like Kadesh, 'the sanctuary,' behind us, and at length find ourselves
in a district where the geographical names no longer admit of a Semitic
etymology. It is just this district, moreover, in which Hittite
inscriptions first become plentiful. The first met with to the south are
the stones of Hamath and the lost inscription of Aleppo; but from
Carchemish northwards we now know that numbers of them still exist. The
territory covered by them is a square, the base of which is formed by a
line running from Carchemish through Antioch into Lykaonia, while the
remains at Boghaz Keui and Eyuk constitute its northern limit. We must
regard this region as having been the primeval home and starting-point
of the Hittite race. They will have been a population which clustered
round the two flanks of the Taurus range, extending far into Kappadokia
on the north, and towards Armenia on the east.

They preserved their independence on the banks of the Halys in
Kappadokia for nearly two hundred years after the fall of Carchemish. It
was not long before the overthrow of Lydia by Cyrus that Kroesos, the
Lydian king, destroyed the cities of Pteria, where the ruins of Boghaz
Keui and Eyuk now stand, and enslaved their inhabitants, thus avenging
upon them the conquest of his own country by their ancestors so many
centuries before. Herodotos calls them 'Syrians,' a name which is
qualified as 'White Syrians' by the Greek geographer Strabo. It was in
this way that the Greek writer wished to distinguish them from the
dark-coloured Syrians of Aramean or Jewish birth, with whom he was
otherwise acquainted; and it reminds us that, whereas the Egyptian
artists painted the Hittites with yellow skins, they painted the Syrians
with red. It is an interesting fact that the memory of their
relationship to the population on the Syrian side of the Taurus should
have been preserved so long among these Hittites of Kappadokia.

[Illustration: THE DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE OF EYUK.]

Boghaz Keui and Eyuk are situated in the district known as Pteria to the
Greeks. At Eyuk there are remains of a vast palace, which stood on an
artificial platform of earth, like the palaces of Assyria and Babylon.
The walls of the palace, formed of huge blocks of cut stone, can still
be traced in many places. It was approached by an avenue of sculptured
slabs, on which lions were represented, some of them in the act of
devouring a ram. The head and attitude of one that is preserved remind
us of the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes which led to the temple of
Karnak at Thebes. The entrance of the palace was flanked on either side
by two enormous monoliths of granite, on the external faces of which
were carved in relief the images of a sphinx. But though the artist had
clearly gone to Egypt for his model, it is also clear that he had
modified the forms he imitated in accordance with national ideas. The
head-dress, like the feet, of the sphinxes is non-Egyptian, the necklace
passes under the chin instead of falling across the breast, and the
sphinx itself is erect, not recumbent, as in Egypt. On the right hand
the same block of stone which bears the figure of the sphinx bears also,
on the inner side, the figure of a double-headed eagle, with an animal
which Professor Perrot believes to be a hare in either talon, and a man
standing upon its twofold head. The same double-headed eagle, supporting
the figure of a man or a god, is met with at Boghaz Keui, and must be
regarded as one of the peculiarities of Hittite symbolism and art. The
symbol was adopted in later days by the Turkoman princes, who had
perhaps first seen it on the Hittite monuments of Kappodokia; and the
Crusaders brought it to Europe with them in the 14th century. Here it
became the emblem of the German Emperors, who have passed it on to the
modern kingdoms of Russia and Austria. It is not the only heirloom of
Hittite art which has descended to us of to-day.

The lintel of the palace gate at Eyuk was of solid stone, and, if
Professor Perrot is right, the huge stone lintel, adorned with a lion's
head, still lies in fragments on the ground. The entrance was flanked
with walls on which bas-reliefs were carved, as in the palaces which
were built by the kings of Assyria. They formed, in fact, a dado, the
rest of the wall above them being probably of brick covered with stucco
and painted with bright colours. Many of the sculptured blocks still lie
scattered on the ground. Here we have the picture of a priest before an
altar, there of a sacred bull mounted on a pedestal. Hard by is the
likeness of two men, one of whom carries a lyre, the other a goat; while
on another stone a man is represented with little regard to perspective
in the act of climbing a ladder. Another relief introduces to us three
rams and a goat whose horn is grasped by a shepherd; elsewhere again we
see a goddess seated in a chair of peculiar construction, with her feet
upon a stool and objects like flowers in her hand. A similar piece of
sculpture has been found at Merash, on the southern side of the Taurus,
within the limits of the ancient Komagênê, even such details as the form
of the chair and stool being alike in the two cases. The two reliefs
might have been executed by the same hand.

The sphinxes which guarded the entrance of the palace of Eyuk and the
avenue which led up to them bear unmistakable testimony to the influence
of Egyptian art upon its builders. They take us back to a period when
the Hittites of Kappadokia were in contact with the people of the Nile,
and thus confirm the evidence of the Egyptian records. There must have
been a time when the population of distant Kappadokia held intercourse
with that of Egypt, and this time, as we learn from the Egyptian
monuments, was the age of Ramses II. It is perhaps not going too far to
assume that the palace of Eyuk was erected in the 13th century before
our era, and is a relic of the period when the sway of the Hittite
princes of Kadesh or Carchemish extended as far north as the
neighbourhood of the Halys. It is indeed possible that the palace was
originally the summer residence of the kings whose homes were in the
south. The plateau on which Eyuk and Boghaz Keui stand is more than 2000
feet above the level of the sea, and the winters there are intensely
cold. From December onwards the ground is piled high with snow. It is
well known that the descendants of races which have originally come from
a cold climate endure the heats of a southern summer with impatience;
and the same causes which make the English rulers of India to-day retire
during the summer to the mountain heights, may have made the Hittite
lords of Syria build their summer palace in the Kappadokian highlands.

[Illustration: SCULPTURES AT BOGHAZ KEUI.]

The sculptures of Boghaz Keui belong to a somewhat later date than those
of Eyuk. Boghaz Keui is five hours to the south-west of Eyuk, and marks
the site of a once populous town. A stream that runs past it separates
the ruins of the city from a remarkable series of sculptures carved on
the rocks of the mountains which overlooked the city. The city was
surrounded by a massive wall of masonry, and within it were two citadels
solidly built on the summits of two shafts of rock. The wall was
without towers, but at its foot ran a moat cut partly through the rock,
partly through the earth, the earth being coated with a smooth and
slippery covering of masonry. The most important building in the city
was the palace, a plan of which has been made by modern travellers. Like
the palace of Eyuk, it was erected on an artificial mound or terrace of
earth, and its ornamentation seems to have been similar to that of Eyuk.
But little is left of it save the foundations of the walls and the
overturned throne of stone which once stood in the central court
supported on the bodies of two lions. Lions' heads were also carved on
the columns which formed the doorposts of the city-gate.

The interest of Boghaz Keui centres in the sculptures which have been
carved with so much care on the rocky walls of the mountains. Here
advantage has been taken of two narrow recesses, the sides and floors of
which have been artificially shaped and levelled. The first and largest
recess may be described as of rectangular shape. Along either side of
it, as along the dado of a room, run two long lines of figures in
relief, which eventually meet at the end opposite the entrance. On the
left-hand side we see a line of men, almost all clad alike in the short
tunic, peaked tiara, and boots with upturned ends that characterise
Hittite art. At times, however, they are interrupted by other figures in
the long Syrian robe, who may perhaps be intended for women. Among them
are two dwarf-like creatures upholding the crescent disk of the moon,
and after a while the procession becomes that of a number of deities,
each with his name written in Hittite hieroglyphs at his side. After
turning the corner of the recess, the procession consists of three
gods, two of whom stand on mountain-peaks, while the foremost (with a
goat beside him) is supported on the heads of two adoring priests.
Facing him is the foremost figure of the other procession, which starts
from the eastern side of the recess, and finally meets the first on its
northern wall. This figure is that of the great Asiatic goddess, who
wears on her head the mural crown and stands upon a panther, while
beside her, as beside the god she is greeting, is the portraiture of a
goat. Behind her a youthful god, with the double-headed battle-axe in
his hand, stands upon a panther, and behind him again are two
priestesses with mural crowns, whose feet rest upon the heads and wings
of a double-headed eagle. This eagle, whose form is but a reproduction
of that sculptured at Eyuk, closes the series of designs represented on
the northern wall. The eastern wall is occupied with a long line, first
of goddesses and then of priestesses. Where the line breaks off at last
we come upon a solitary piece of sculpture. This is the image of an
eunuch-priest, who stands on a mountain and holds in one hand a curved
augural wand, in the other a strange symbol representing a priest with
embroidered robes, who stands upon a shoe with upturned ends, and
supports a winged solar disk, the two extremities of which rest upon
baseless columns.

[Illustration: SCULPTURES AT BOGHAZ KEUI.]

The entrance to the second recess is guarded on either side by two
winged monsters, with human bodies and the heads of dogs. It leads into
an artificially excavated passage of rectangular shape, on the rocky
walls of which detached groups of figures and emblems are engraved. On
the western wall is a row of twelve priests or soldiers, each of whom
bears a scythe upon his shoulder; facing them on the eastern wall are
two reliefs of strange character. One of them depicts the youthful god,
whose name perhaps was Attys, embracing with his left arm the
eunuch-priest, above whose head is engraved the strange symbol that has
been already described. The other represents a god's head crowned with
the peaked tiara, and supported on a double-headed lion, which again
stands on the hinder feet of two other lions, whose heads rest on a
column or stem. All these sculptures were once covered with stucco, and
thus preserved from the action of the weather.

It is evident that in these two mountain recesses we have a sanctuary,
the forms and symbols of whose deities were sculptured on its walls of
living rock. It was a sanctuary too holy to be confined within the walls
of the city, and the supreme deities to whom it was dedicated were a god
and a goddess, served by a multitude of male and female priests. In
fact, as Prof. Perrot remarks, Boghaz Keui must have been a sacred city
like Komana, whose citizens were consecrated to the chief divinities
adored by the Hittites, and were governed by a high-priest. It was as
much a 'Kadesh' or 'Hierapolis,' as much a 'holy city,' as Carchemish
itself.

It is not its sculptures only which prove to us that it was a city of
the Hittites. The figures of the deities have attached to them, as at
Eyuk, the same hieroglyphs as those which meet us in the inscriptions of
Hamath and Aleppo, of Carchemish and Merash, and within its walls,
southward of the ruins of its palace, Prof. Perrot discovered a long
text of nine or ten lines cut out of the rock, and though worn and
disfigured by time and weather, still showing the forms of many Hittite
characters. So far as can be judged from a photograph of it he has
published, the forms are the same as those which are found on the
Hittite monuments of Syria.

Tedious as all these details may seem to be, it has been necessary to
give them, since they tell us what was the appearance and construction
of a Hittite city, a Hittite palace, and the interior of a Hittite
temple. The discoveries recently made in the Hittite districts south of
the Taurus, show us that here too the palaces and temples were like
those of Eyuk and Boghaz Keui. Here too we find the same dados
sculptured with the same figures dressed in the same costume; here too
we meet with the same lions, and the same winged deities standing on the
backs of animals. A photograph of a piece of sculpture on a block of
basalt at Carchemish, taken by Dr. Gwyther, might have been taken at
Boghaz Keui. The art, the forms, and the symbolism are all the same.

The high-road from Boghaz Keui to Merash must have passed through the
defile of Ghurun, where Sir Charles Wilson discovered Hittite
inscriptions carved upon the cliff. But there may have been a second
road which led through Kaisariyeh, the modern capital of Kappadokia,
southward to Bor or Tyana, where Prof. Ramsay found a Hittite text, and
from thence to the silver mines of the Bulgar Dagh. The bas-reliefs of
Ibreez are not far distant from the famous Cilician gates which led the
traveller from the great central plateau of Asia Minor to Tarsus and the
sea.

It would seem that the silver mines of the Bulgar Dagh were first worked
by Hittite miners. Silver had a special attraction for the Hittite race.
The material on which the Hittite version of the treaty between the
Hittite king of Kadesh and the Egyptian Pharaoh was written was a tablet
of that metal. That such tablets were in frequent use, results from the
fact that nearly all the Hittite inscriptions known to us are not
incised, but cut in relief upon the stone. It is therefore obvious that
the Hittites must have first inscribed their hieroglyphs upon metal,
rather than upon wood or stone or clay; it is only in the case of metal
that it is less laborious to hammer or cast in relief than to cut the
metal with a graving tool, and nothing can prove more clearly how long
accustomed the Hittite scribes must have been to doing so, than their
imitation of this work in relief when they came to write upon stone. It
is possible that most of the silver of which they made use came from the
Bulgar Dagh. The Hittite inscription found near the old mines of these
mountains by Mr. Davis, proves that they had once occupied the locality.
It is even possible that their settlement for a time in Lydia was also
connected with their passion for 'the bright metal.' At all events the
Gumush Dagh, or 'Silver Mountains,' lie to the south of the Pass of
Karabel, and traces of old workings can still be detected in them.

However this may be, the Hittite monuments of Asia Minor confirm in a
striking way the evidence of the Egyptian inscriptions. They show us
that the Hittites worked for silver in the mountains which looked down
upon the Cilician plain, from whence the influence of their art and
writing extended into the plain itself. They further show that the
central point of Hittite power was a square on either side of the Taurus
range, which included Carchemish and Komagênê in the south, the
district eastwards of the Halys on the north, and the country of which
Malatiyeh was the capital in the east. The Hittite tribes, in fact, were
mountaineers from the plateau of Kappadokia who had spread themselves
out in all directions. A time came when, under the leadership of
powerful princes, they marched along the two high-roads of Asia Minor
and established their supremacy over the coast-tribes of the far west.
The age to which this military empire belongs is indicated by the
Egyptian character of the so-called image of Niobê on the cliff of
Sipylos, as well as by the sphinxes which guarded the entrance to the
palace of Eyuk. It goes back to the days when the rulers of Kadesh could
summon to their aid the vassal-chieftains of the Ægean coast. The
monuments the Hittites have left behind them in Asia Minor thus bear the
same testimony as the records of Egypt. The people to whom Uriah, and it
may be Bath-sheba, belonged, not only had contended on equal terms with
one of the greatest of Egyptian kings; they had carried their arms
through the whole length of Asia Minor, they had set up satraps in the
cities of Lydia, and had brought the civilisation of the East to the
barbarous tribes of the distant West.



CHAPTER V.

THE HITTITE CITIES AND RACE.


Of the history of the 'White Syrians' or Hittites who lived in the land
of Pteria, near the Halys, we know nothing at present beyond what we can
gather from the ruins of their stronghold at Boghaz Keui and their
palace at Eyuk. The same is the case with the Hittite tribes of
Malatiyeh and Komagênê. When the inscription which adorns the body of a
stone lion found at Merash can be deciphered, it will doubtless cast
light on the early history of the city; at present we do not know even
its ancient name. It is not until we leave the mountainous region
originally occupied by the Hittite race, and descend into the valleys of
Syria, that the annals of their neighbours begin to tell us something
about their fortunes and achievements. The history of their two southern
capitals, Carchemish and Kadesh, broken and imperfect though it may be,
is not an utter blank.

The site of Carchemish had long been looked for in vain. At one time it
was identified with the Kirkesion or Circesium of classical geography,
built at the confluence of the Khabour and the Euphrates. But the
Assyrian name of Kirkesion was Sirki, and its position did not agree
with that assigned to 'Gargamis' or Carchemish in the Assyrian texts.
Professor Maspero subsequently placed the latter at Membij, the ancient
Mabog or Hierapolis, on the strength of the evidence furnished by
classical authors and the Egyptian monuments; but the ruins of Membij
contain nothing earlier than the Greek period, and their position on a
rocky plateau at a distance from the Euphrates, is inconsistent with the
fact known to us from the Assyrian inscriptions, that Carchemish
commanded the fords over the Euphrates.

To Mr. Skene, for many years the English consul at Aleppo, is due the
credit of first discovering the true site of the old Hittite capital. On
the western bank of the Euphrates, midway between Birejik and the mouth
of the Sajur, rises an artificial mound of earth, under which ruins and
sculptured blocks of stone had been found from time to time. It was
known as Jerablûs, or Kalaat Jerablûs, 'the fortress of Jerablûs,'
sometimes wrongly written Jerabîs; and in the name of Jerablûs Mr. Skene
had no difficulty in recognising an Arab corruption of Hierapolis. In
the Roman age the name of Hierapolis or 'Holy City' had been transferred
to its neighbour Membij, which inherited the traditions and religious
fame of the older Carchemish; but when the triumph of Christianity in
Syria brought with it the fall of the great temple of Membij, the name
disappeared from the later city, and was remembered only in connection
with the ruins of the ancient Carchemish.

Two years after Mr. Skene's discovery, Mr. George Smith visited
Carchemish on his last ill-fated journey from which he never returned,
and recognised at once that Mr. Skene's identification was right. The
position of Jerablûs suited the requirements of the Assyrian texts, it
lay on the high-road which formerly led from east to west, and among its
ruins was an inscription in Hittite characters. Not long afterwards
there were brought to the British Museum the bronze bands which once
adorned the gates of an Assyrian temple, and on one of these is a
picture in relief of Carchemish as it looked in the days of Jehu of
Israel. The Euphrates is represented as running past its walls, thus
conclusively showing that Jerablûs, and not Membij, must be the site on
which it stood.

The site was bought by Mr. Henderson, Mr. Skene's successor at Aleppo,
and the money was invested by the former owner in the purchase of a cow.
The mighty were fallen indeed, when the Hittite capital which had
resisted the armies of Egypt and Assyria was judged to be worth no more
than the price of a beast of the field. In 1878 Mr. Henderson was
employed by the Trustees of the British Museum in excavating on the
spot; but no sufficient supervision was exercised over the workmen, and
though a few remains of Hittite sculpture and writing found their way to
London, much was left to be burned into lime by the natives or employed
in the construction of a mill.

The ancient city was defended on two sides by the Euphrates, and was
exposed only on the north and west. Here, however, an artificial canal
had been cut, on either side of which was a fortified wall. The mound
which had first attracted Mr. Skene's attention marks the site of the
royal palace, where the excavators found the remains of a dado like that
of Eyuk, the face of the stones having been sculptured into the likeness
of gods and men. The men were shod with boots with upturned ends, that
unfailing characteristic of Hittite art.

Carchemish enjoyed a long history. When first we hear of it in the
Egyptian records it was already in Hittite hands. Thothmes III. fought
beneath its walls, and his bravest warriors plunged into the Euphrates
in their eagerness to capture the foe. Tiglath-pileser I. had seen its
walls from the opposite shore of the Euphrates, but had not ventured to
approach them. Assur-natsir-pal and his son Shalmaneser had received
tribute from its king, and when it finally surrendered to the armies of
Sargon it was made the seat of an Assyrian satrap. The trade which had
flowed through it continued to pour wealth into the hands of its
merchants, and the 'maneh of Carchemish' remained a standard of value.
When Egypt made her final struggle for supremacy in Asia, it was under
the walls of Carchemish that the decisive struggle was fought. The
battle of Carchemish in B.C. 604 drove Necho out of Syria and Palestine,
and placed the destinies of the chosen people in the hands of the
Babylonian king. It is possible that the ruin of Carchemish dates from
the battle. However that may be, long before the beginning of the
Christian era it had been supplanted by Mabog or Membij, and the great
sanctuary which had made it a 'holy city' was transferred to its rival
and successor.

Like Carchemish, Kadesh on the Orontes, the most southern capital the
Hittites possessed, was also a 'holy city.' Pictures of it have been
preserved on the monuments of Ramses II. We gather from them that it
stood on the shore of the Lake of Horns, still called the 'Lake of
Kadesh,' at the point where the Orontes flowed out of the lake. The
river was conducted round the city in a double channel, across which a
wide bridge was thrown, the space between the two channels being
apparently occupied by a wall.

Kadesh must have been one of the last conquests made by the Hittites in
Syria, and their retention of it was the visible sign of their supremacy
over Western Asia. We do not know when they were forced to yield up its
possession to others. As has been pointed out, the correct reading of 2
Sam. xxiv. 6 informs us that the northern limit of the kingdom of David
was formed by 'the Hittites of Kadesh,' 'the entering in of Hamath,' as
it seems to be called elsewhere. In the age of David, accordingly,
Kadesh must still have been in their hands, but it had already ceased to
be so when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. led his armies to the
west. No allusion to the city and its inhabitants occurs in the Assyrian
inscriptions, and we may conjecture that it had been destroyed by the
Syrians of Damascus. As Membij took the place of Carchemish, so Emesa or
Homs took the place of Kadesh.

We have seen that the Hittites were a northern race. Their primitive
home probably lay on the northern side of the Taurus. What they were
like we can learn both from their own sculptures and from the Egyptian
monuments, which agree most remarkably in the delineation of their
features. The extraordinary resemblance between the Hittite faces drawn
by the Egyptian artists and those depicted by themselves in their
bas-reliefs and their hieroglyphs, is a convincing proof of the
faithfulness of the Egyptian representations, as well as of the identity
of the Hittites of the Egyptian inscriptions with the Hittites of
Carchemish and Kappadokia.

It must be confessed that they were not a handsome people. They were
short and thick of limb, and the front part of their faces was pushed
forward in a curious and somewhat repulsive way. The forehead retreated,
the cheek-bones were high, the nostrils were large, the upper lip
protrusive. They had, in fact, according to the craniologists, the
characteristics of a Mongoloid race. Like the Mongols, moreover, their
skins were yellow and their eyes and hair were black. They arranged the
hair in the form of a 'pig-tail,' which characterises them on their own
and the Egyptian monuments quite as much as their snow-shoes with
upturned toes.

In Syria they doubtless mixed with the Semitic race, and the further
south they advanced the more likely they were to become absorbed into
the native population. The Hittites of Southern Judah have Semitic
names, and probably spoke a Semitic language. Kadesh continued to bear
to the last its Semitic title, and among the Hittite names which occur
further north there are several which display a Semitic stamp. In the
neighbourhood of Carchemish Hittites and Arameans were mingled together,
and Pethor was at once a Hittite and an Aramean town. In short, the
Hittites in Syria were like a conquering race everywhere; they formed
merely the governing and upper class, which became smaller and smaller
the further removed they were from their original seats. Like the
Normans in Sicily or the Etruscans in ancient Italy, they tended
gradually to disappear or else to be absorbed into the subject race. It
was only in their primitive homes that they survived in their original
strength and purity, and though even in Kappadokia they lost their old
languages, adopting in place of them first Aramaic, then Greek, and
lastly Turkish, we may still observe their features and characteristics
in the modern inhabitants of the Taurus range. Even in certain districts
of Kappadokia their descendants may still be met with. 'The type,' says
Sir Charles Wilson, 'which is not a beautiful one, is still found in
some parts of Kappadokia, especially amongst the people living in the
extraordinary subterranean towns which I discovered beneath the great
plain north-west of Nigdeh.' The characteristics of race, when once
acquired, seem almost indelible; and it is possible that, when careful
observations can be made, it will be found that the ancient Hittite race
still survives, not only in Eastern Asia Minor, but even in the southern
regions of Palestine.



CHAPTER VI.

HITTITE RELIGION AND ART.


Lucian, or some other Greek writer who has usurped his name, has left us
a minute account of the great temple of Mabog as it existed in the
second century of the Christian era. Mabog, as we have seen, was the
successor of Carchemish; and there is little reason to doubt that the
pagan temple of Mabog, with all the rites and ceremonies that were
carried on in it, differed but little from the pagan temple of the older
Carchemish.

It stood, we are told, in the very centre of the 'Holy City.' It
consisted of an outer court and an inner sanctuary, which again
contained a Holy of Holies, entered only by the high-priest and those of
his companions who were 'nearest the gods.' The temple was erected on an
artificial mound or platform, more than twelve feet in height, and its
walls and ceiling within were brilliant with gold. Its doors were also
gilded, but the Holy of Holies or innermost shrine was not provided with
doors, being separated from the rest of the building, it would seem,
like the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple, by a curtain or veil. On
either side of the entrance was a cone-like column of great height, a
symbol of the goddess of fertility, and in the outer court a large altar
of brass. To the left of the latter was an image of 'Semiramis,' and not
far off a great 'sea' or 'lake,' containing sacred fish. Oxen, horses,
eagles, bears, and lions were kept in the court, as being sacred to the
deities worshipped within.

On entering the temple the visitor saw on his left the throne of the
Sun-god, but no image, since the Sun and Moon alone of the gods had no
images dedicated to them. Beyond, however, were the statues of various
divinities, among others the wonder-working image of a god who was
believed to deliver oracles and prophecies. At times, it was said, the
image moved of its own accord, and if not lifted up at once by the
priests, began to perspire. When the priests took it in their hands, it
led them from one part of the temple to the other, until the
high-priest, standing before it, asked it questions, which it answered
by driving its bearers forward. The central objects of worship, however,
were the golden images of two deities, whom Lucian identifies with the
Greek Hera and Zeus, another figure standing between them, on the head
of which rested a golden dove. The goddess, who blazed with precious
stones, bore in her hand a sceptre and on her head that turreted or
mural crown which distinguishes the goddesses of Boghaz Keui. Like them,
moreover, she was supported on lions, while her consort was carried by
bulls. In him we may recognise the god who at Boghaz Keui is advancing
to meet the supreme Hittite goddess.

In the Egyptian text of the treaty between Ramses and the king of
Kadesh, the supreme Hittite god is called Sutekh, the goddess being
Antarata, or perhaps Astarata. In later days, however, the goddess of
Carchemish was known as Athar-'Ati, which the Greeks transformed into
Atargatis and Derketo. Derketo was fabled to be the mother of Semiramis,
in whom Greek legend saw an Assyrian queen; but Semiramis was really
the goddess Istar, called Ashtoreth in Canaan, and Atthar or Athar by
the Arameans, among whom Carchemish was built. Derketo was, therefore,
but another form of Semiramis, or rather but another name under which
the great Asiatic goddess was known. The dove was sacred to her, and
this explains why an image of the dove was placed above the head of the
third image in the divine triad of Mabog.

The temple was served by a multitude of priests. More than 300 took part
in the sacrifices on the day when Lucian saw it. The priests were
dressed in white, and wore the skull-cap which we find depicted on the
Hittite monuments. The high-priest alone carried on his head the lofty
tiara, which the sculptures indicate was a prerogative of gods and
kings. Prominent among the priests were the Galli or eunuchs, who on the
days of festival cut their arms and scourged themselves in honour of
their deities. Such actions remind us of those priests of Baal who 'cut
themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood
gushed out upon them.'

Twice a year a solemn procession took place to a small chasm in the rock
under the temple, where, it was alleged, the waters of the deluge had
been swallowed up, and water from the sea was poured into it. It is to
this pit that Melito, a Christian writer of Syria, alludes when he says
that the goddess Simi, the daughter of the supreme god Hadad, put an end
to the attacks of a demon by filling with sea water the pit in which he
lived. But in Lucian's time the demon was regarded as the deluge, and
the account of the deluge given to the Greek writer agrees so closely
with that which we read in Genesis as to make it clear that it had been
borrowed by the priests of Hierapolis from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is
probable, however, that the tradition itself was of much older standing,
and had originally been imported from Babylonia. At all events the hero
of the deluge was called Sisythes, a modification of the name of the
Chaldæan Noah, while Major Conder found a place in the close
neighbourhood of Kadesh which is known as 'the Ark of the Prophet Noah,'
and close at hand a spring termed the Tannur or 'Oven,' out of which,
according to Mohammedan belief, the waters of the flood gushed forth.

But there were many other festivals at Mabog besides that which
commemorated the subsidence of the deluge. Pilgrims flocked to it from
all parts--Arabia, Palestine, Kappadokia, Babylonia, even India. They
were required to drink water only, and to sleep on the ground. Numerous
and rich were the offerings which they brought to the shrine, and once
arrived there were called upon to offer sacrifices. Goats and sheep were
the most common victims, though oxen were also offered. The only animal
whose flesh was forbidden to be either sacrificed or eaten was the
swine; as among the Jews, it was regarded as unclean. After being
dedicated in the court of the temple the animal was usually led to the
house of the offerer, and there put to death; sometimes, however, it was
killed by being thrown from the entrance to the temple. Even children
were sacrificed by their parents in this way, after first being tied up
in skins and told that they were 'not children but oxen.'

Different stories were current as to the foundation of the temple. There
were some who affirmed that Sisythes had built it after the deluge over
the spot where the waters of the flood had been swallowed up by the
earth. It is possible that this was the legend originally believed in
Mabog before the traditions of Carchemish had been transferred to it. It
seems to be closely connected with the local peculiarities of the site.
The other legends had doubtless had their origin in the older
Hierapolis. According to one of them, the temple had been founded by
Semiramis in honour of her mother Derketo, half woman and half fish, to
whom the fish in the neighbouring lake were sacred. Another account made
Attys its founder, and the goddess to whom it was dedicated the divinity
called Rhea by the Greeks.

Derketo and Rhea, however, are but different names of the same deity,
who was known as Kybelê or Kybêbê in Phrygia, and honoured with the
title of 'the Great Mother.' Her images were covered with breasts, to
symbolise that she was but mother-earth, from whom mankind derived their
means of life. Her attributes were borrowed from those of the Babylonian
Istar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan; even the form assigned to her was that
of the Babylonian Istar, as we learn from a bas-relief discovered at
Carchemish, where she is represented as naked, a lofty tiara alone
excepted, with the hands upon the breasts and a wing rising behind each
shoulder. She was, in fact, a striking illustration of the influence
exerted upon the Hittites, and through them upon the people of Asia
Minor, by Babylonian religion and worship. Even in Lydia a stone has
been found on which her image is carved in a rude style of art, but
similar in form to the representations of her in the bas-relief of
Carchemish and the cylinders of ancient Chaldæa.

This stone, like the seated figure on Mount Sipylos, is a witness that
her cult was carried westward by the Hittite armies. Later tradition
preserved a reminiscence of the fact. The Lydian hero Kayster was said
to have gone to Syria, and there had Derketô for his bride, while on the
other hand it was a Lydian, Mopsos, who was believed to have drowned the
goddess Derketô in the sacred lake of Ashkelon. We have here, it may be,
recollections of the days when Lydian soldiers marched against Egypt
under the leadership of Hittite princes, and learnt to know the name and
the character of Athar-'Ati, the goddess of Carchemish.

The Babylonian Istar was accompanied by her son and bridegroom Tammuz,
the youthful Sun-god, the story of whose untimely death made a deep
impression on the popular mind. Even in Jerusalem Ezekiel saw the women
weeping for the death of Tammuz within the precincts of the temple
itself; and for days together each year in the Phoenician cities the
festival of his death and resurrection were observed with fanatic zeal.
In Syria he was called Hadad, and identified with the god Rimmon, so
that Zechariah (xii. 11) speaks of the mourning for Hadad-Rimmon in the
valley of Megiddo. At Hierapolis and Aleppo also he was known as Hadad
or Dadi, while throughout Asia Minor he was adored under the name of
Attys, 'the shepherd of the bright stars.' The myth which told of his
death underwent a slight change of form among the Hittites, and through
them among the tribes of Asia Minor. He is doubtless the young god who
on the rocks of Boghaz Keui appears behind the mother-goddess, riding
like her on the back of a panther or lion.

The people of Mabog did not forget that their temple was but the
successor of an older one, and that Carchemish had once been the 'Holy
City' of Northern Syria. The legends, therefore, which referred to the
foundation of the sanctuary were said to relate to one which had
formerly existed, but had long since fallen into decay. The origin of
the temple visited by Lucian was ascribed to a certain 'Stratonikê, the
wife of the Assyrian king.' But Stratonikê is merely a Greek
transformation of some Semitic epithet of 'Ashtoreth,' and marks the
time when the Phoenician Ashtoreth took the place of the earlier
Athar-'Ati. A strange legend was told of the youthful Kombabos, who was
sent from Babylon to take part in the building of the shrine. Kombabos
was but Tammuz under another name, just as Stratonikê was Istar, and the
legend is chiefly interesting as testifying to the religious influence
once exercised by the Babylonians upon the Hittite people.

Semiramis may turn out to have been the Hittite name of the goddess
called Athar-'Ati by the Aramean inhabitants of Hierapolis. In this case
the difficulty of accounting for the existence of the two names would
have been solved in the old myths by making her the daughter of Derketo.
But while Derketo was a fish-goddess, Semiramis was associated with the
dove, like the Ashtoreth or Aphroditê who was worshipped in Cyprus. The
symbol of the dove had been carried to the distant West at an early
period. Among the objects found by Dr. Schliemann in the prehistoric
tombs of Mykenæ were figures in gold-leaf, two of which represented a
naked goddess with the hands upon the breasts and doves above her, while
the third has the form of a temple, on the two pinnacles of which are
seated two doves. Considering how intimately the prehistoric art of
Mykenæ seems to have been connected with that of Asia Minor, it is
hardly too much to suppose that the symbol of the dove had made its way
across the Ægean through the help of the Hittites, and that in the
pinnacled temple of Mykenæ, with its two doves, we may see a picture of
a Hittite temple in Lydia or Kappadokia.

The legends reported by Lucian about the foundation of the temple of
Mabog all agreed that it was dedicated to a goddess. The 'Holy City' was
under the protection, not of a male but of a female divinity, which
explains why it was that it was served by eunuch priests. If Attys or
Hadad was worshipped there, it was in right of his mother; the images of
the other gods stood in the temple on sufferance only. The male deity
whom the Greek author identified with Zeus must have been regarded as
admitted by treaty or marriage to share in the honours paid to her. It
must have been the same also at Boghaz Keui. Here, too, the most
prominent figure in the divine procession is that of the Mother-goddess,
who is followed by her son Attys, while the god, whose name may be read
Tar or Tarku, 'the king,' and who is the Zeus of Lucian, advances to
meet her.

In Cilicia and Lydia this latter god seems to have been known as Sandan.
He is called on coins the 'Baal of Tarsos,' and he carries in his hand a
bunch of grapes and a stalk of corn. We may see his figure engraved on
the rock of Ibreez. Here he wears on his head the pointed Hittite cap,
ornamented with horn-like ribbons, besides the short tunic and boots
with upturned ends. On his wrists are bracelets, and earrings hang from
his ears.

Sandan was identified with the Sun, and hence it happened that when a
Semitic language came to prevail in Cilicia he was transformed into a
supreme Baal. The same transformation had taken place centuries before
in the Hittite cities of Syria. Beside the Syrian goddess Kes, who is
represented as standing upon a lion, like the great goddess of
Carchemish, the Egyptian monuments tell us of Sutekh, who stands in the
same relation to his Hittite worshippers as the Semitic Baal stood to
the populations of Canaan. Sutekh was the supreme Hittite god, but at
the same time he was localised in every city or state in which the
Hittites lived. Thus there was a Sutekh of Carchemish and a Sutekh of
Kadesh, just as there was a Baal of Tyre and a Baal of Tarsos. The forms
under which he was worshipped were manifold, but everywhere it was the
same Sutekh, the same national god.

It would seem that the power of Sutekh began to wane after the age of
Ramses, and that the goddess began to usurp the place once held by the
god. It is possible that this was due to Babylonian and Assyrian
influence. At any rate, whereas it is Sutekh who appears at the head of
the Hittite states in the treaty with Ramses, in later days the chief
cult of the 'Holy Cities' was paid to the Mother-goddess. His place was
taken by the goddess at Carchemish as well as at Mabog, at Boghaz Keui
as well as at Komana.

In the Kappadokian Komana the goddess went under the name of Ma. She was
served by 6000 priests and priestesses, the whole city being dedicated
to her service. The place of the king was occupied by the Abakles or
high-priest. We have seen that the sculptures of Boghaz Keui give us
reason to believe that the same was also the case in Pteria; we know
that it was so in other 'Holy Cities' of Asia Minor. At Pessinus in
Phrygia, where lions and panthers stood beside the goddess, the whole
city was given up to her worship, under the command of the chief Gallos
or priest; and on the shores of the Black Sea the Amazonian priestesses
of Kybelê, who danced in armour in her honour, were imagined by the
Greeks to constitute the sole population of an entire country. At
Ephesos, in spite of the Greek colony which had found its way there, the
worship of the Mother-goddess continued to absorb the life of the
inhabitants, so that it still could be described in the time of St. Paul
as a city which was 'a worshipper of the great goddess.' Here, as at
Pessinus, she was worshipped under the form of a meteoric stone 'which
had fallen from heaven.'

We may regard these 'Holy Cities,' placed under the protection of a
goddess and wholly devoted to her worship, as peculiarly characteristic
of the Hittite race. Their two southern capitals, Kadesh and Carchemish,
were cities of this kind, and their stronghold at Boghaz Keui was
presumably also a consecrated place. Their progress through Asia Minor
was characterised by the rise of priestly cities and the growth of a
class of armed priestesses. Komana in Kappadokia, and Ephesos on the
shores of the Ægean, are typical examples of such holy towns. The entire
population ministered to the divinity to whom the city was dedicated,
the sanctuary of the deity stood in its centre, and the chief authority
was wielded by a high-priest. If a king existed by the side of the
priest, he came in course of time to fill a merely subordinate position.

These 'Holy Cities' were also 'Asyla' or Cities of Refuge. The homicide
could escape to them, and be safe from his pursuers. Once within the
precincts of the city and the protection of its deity, he could not be
injured or slain. But it was not only the man who had slain another by
accident who could thus claim an 'asylum' from his enemies. The debtor
and the political refugee were equally safe. Doubtless the right of
asylum was frequently abused, and real criminals took advantage of
regulations which were intended to protect the unfortunate in an age of
lawlessness and revenge. But the institution on the whole worked well,
and, while it strengthened the power of the priesthood, it curbed
injustice and restrained violence.

Now the institution of Cities of Refuge did not exist only in Asia Minor
and in the region occupied by the Hittites. It existed also in
Palestine, and it seems not unlikely that it was adopted by the great
Hebrew lawgiver, acting under divine guidance, from the older population
of the country. The Hebrew cities of refuge were six in number. One of
them was 'Kedesh in Galilee,' whose very name declares it to have been a
'Holy City,' like Kadesh on the Orontes, while another was the ancient
sanctuary of Hebron, once occupied by Hittites and Amorites. Shechem,
the third city of refuge on the western side of the Jordan, had been
taken by Jacob 'out of the hand of the Amorite' (Gen. xlviii. 22); and
the other three cities were all on the eastern side of the Jordan, in
the region so long held by Amorite tribes. We are therefore tempted to
ask whether these cities had not already been 'asyla' or cities of
refuge long before Moses was enjoined by God to make them such for the
Israelitish conquerors of Palestine.

Closely connected with Hittite religion was Hittite art. Religion and
art have been often intertwined together in the history of the world,
and we can often infer the religion of a people from its art, as in the
case of the sculptures of Boghaz Keui. Hittite art was a modification of
that of Babylonia, and bears testimony to the same Babylonian influence
as the worship of the 'Mother-goddess.' The same Chaldæan culture is
presupposed by both.

But while the art of the Hittites was essentially Babylonian in origin,
it was profoundly modified in the hands of the Hittite artists. The
deities, indeed, were made to ride on the backs of animals, as upon
Babylonian cylinders, the walls of the palaces were adorned with long
rows of bas-reliefs, as in Chaldæa and Assyria, and there was the same
tendency to arrange animals face to face in heraldic style; but
nevertheless the workmanship and the details introduced into it were
purely native. Even a symbol like the winged solar disk assumes in
Hittite sculpture a special character which can never be mistaken. The
Hittite artist excelled in the representation of animal forms, but the
lion, which he seems to have never wearied of designing, is treated in a
peculiar way which marks it sharply off from the sculptured lions either
of Babylonia or of any other country. So, too, in the case of the human
figure, though the general conception has been derived from Babylonian
art, the conception is worked out in a new and original manner. Those
who have once seen the sculptured image of a Hittite warrior or a
Hittite god, can never confuse it with the artistic productions of
another race. The figure is clearly drawn from the daily experience of
the sculptor's own life. The dress with its peaked shoes, the thick
rounded form, the strange protrusive profile, were copied from the
costume and appearance of his fellow-countrymen, and the striking
agreement that exists between his representation of them and that which
we find on the Egyptian monuments proves how faithfully he must have
worked. The elements, in short, of Babylonian art are present in the art
of the Hittite, but the treatment and selection are his own.

It is in his selection and combination of these elements that he
exhibits most clearly his originality. Monsters, half human, half
bestial, were known to the Babylonians, but it was left to the Hittite
to invent a double-headed eagle, or to plant a human head on a column of
lions. The so-called rope-pattern occurs once or twice on Babylonian
gems, but it became a distinguishing characteristic of Hittite art, like
the employment of the heads only of animals instead of their entire
forms.

So, again, the heraldic arrangement of animals face to face, or more
rarely back to back, had its first home in Chaldæa, but it was the
Hittites who raised it into a principle of art. We may perhaps trace
their doing so to their love of animal forms.

The influence of Babylonian culture may have made itself first felt in
the age of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, when the cuneiform tablets
of Tel el-Amarna represent the Hittite tribes as descending southward
into the Syrian plains. It may on the other hand go back to a much
earlier epoch. We have no materials at present for deciding the
question. One fact, however, is clear; there was a time when the
Hittites were profoundly affected by Babylonian civilisation, religion
and art. Before this could have been the case they must have been
already settled in Syria.

It is more easy to fix the period when the Hittite sculptor received
that inspiration from Egyptian art which produced the sphinxes of Eyuk
and the seated image on Mount Sipylos. It can only have been the age of
Ramses II., and of the great wars between Egypt and the Hittite princes
in the fourteenth century before our era. The influence of Egypt was but
transitory, but it was to it, in all probability, that the Hittites owed
the idea of hieroglyphic writing.

At a far later date Babylonian influence was superseded by that of
Assyria. The later sculptures of Carchemish betray the existence of
Assyrian rather than of Babylonian models. The winged figure of the
goddess of Carchemish now in the British Museum is Assyrian in style and
character, and it is possible that other draped images of the goddess
may be derived from the same source. In Babylonian art Istar was
represented nude.

However this may be, Professor Perrot has made it clear that the
beginnings of Hittite art must be looked for in Syria, on the southern
slopes of the Taurus, from whence it spread to the tribes of Kappadokia.
It is in Northern Syria that its rudest and most infantile attempts have
been found. The sculptors of Eyuk were already advanced in skill.

To Professor Perrot we also owe the discovery of bronze figures of
Hittite manufacture. The execution of them is at once conventional and
barbarous. Nothing can exceed the rudeness of a figure now in the
Louvre, which represents a god with a pointed tiara, standing on the
back of an animal. Though the face of the god has evidently been
modelled with care, it is impossible to tell to what zoological species
the animal which supports him is intended to belong. Almost equally far
removed from nature is the bronze image of a bull which is also in the
Louvre.

If these bronzes are to be regarded as the highest efforts of Hittite
metallurgic work, it is not to be regretted that they are few in number.
But it is quite different with the engraved gems which we now know to
have been of Hittite workmanship. Many of them are exceedingly fine; a
hæmatite cylinder, for instance, which was discovered at Kappadokia, is
equal to the best products of Babylonian art. The gems and cylinders
were for the most part intended to be used as seals, and some of them
are provided with handles cut out of the stone, the seal itself having
designs on four, and sometimes on five faces. These handles seem to be a
peculiarity of Hittite art, or at least of the art which derived its
inspiration from that of the Hittites. Another peculiarity noticeable in
many of the gems, consists in enclosing the inner field of the engraved
design with one or more concentric circles, each circle containing an
elaborate series of ornaments or figures, or even characters, though the
characters are usually placed in the central field. Thus two gems have
been found at Yuzghât, in Kappadokia, so much alike, that they must have
been the work of the same artist. On the larger an inscription has been
engraved in the centre, round which runs a circle containing a large
number of beautifully-executed figures. The winged solar disk rests upon
the symbol of 'kingship,' on either side of which kneels a figure, half
man and half bull. On the right and left is the figure of a standing
priest, behind whom we see on the left a man adoring what seems to be
the stump of a tree, while on the right are a tree, two arrows and a
quiver, a basket, a stag's head, and a seated deity, above whose hand
is a bird. The two groups are separated by the picture of a boot--the
symbol, it may be, of the earth--which rests, like the winged solar
disk, on the symbol of royalty. The smaller seal has a different
inscription in the centre, encircled by two rings, one containing a row
of ornaments, and the other the same figures as those engraved on the
larger seal, excepting only that the arrangement of the figures has been
changed, and a tree introduced among them. What is curious, however, is
that a gem has been found at Aidin, far away towards the western
extremity of Asia Minor, containing a central inscription almost
identical with that of the smaller Yuzghât seal, though the figures
which surround it are not the same.

These circular seals must be regarded not only as characteristic of
Hittite art, but also as a product of Hittite invention. We meet with
nothing resembling them in Babylonia or Assyria.

The gems can be traced across the Ægean to the shores of Greece. Among
the objects discovered by Dr. Schliemann at Mykenæ were two rings of
gold, on the chatons of which designs are engraved in what we may now
recognise as the Hittite style of art. On one of them are two rows of
animals' heads; on the other an elaborate picture, which reminds us of
the elaborate designs on the gems of Asia Minor. It represents a woman
under a tree, facing two other persons, who wear the upturned boots and
flounced dress that we find in Hittite sculptures, while the background
is filled in with the heads of animals.

These gems are not the only indication the ruins of Mykenæ have afforded
that Hittite influence was spread beyond the coasts of Asia Minor.
Allusion has already been made to the figures of the Hittite goddess and
the doves that rested on the pinnacles of her temple; another figure in
thin gold gives us a likeness of the Hittite goddess seated on the cliff
of Sipylos, as she appeared before rain and tempest had changed her into
'the weeping Niobê.' Perhaps, however, the most striking illustration of
the westward migration of Hittite influence, is to be found in the
famous lions which stand fronting each other, carved on stone, above the
great gate of the ancient Peloponnesian city. The lions of Mykenæ have
long been known as the oldest piece of sculpture in Europe, but the art
which inspired it was of Hittite origin. A similar bas-relief has been
discovered at Kümbet, in Phrygia, in the near vicinity of Hittite
monuments; and we have just seen that the heraldic position in which the
lions are represented was a peculiar feature of Hittite art.

Greek tradition affirmed that the rulers of Mykenæ had come from Lydia,
bringing with them the civilisation and the treasures of Asia Minor. The
tradition has been confirmed by modern research. While certain elements
belonging to the prehistoric culture of Greece, as revealed at Mykenæ
and elsewhere, were derived from Egypt and Phoenicia, there are others
which point to Asia Minor as their source. And the culture of Asia Minor
was Hittite. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, may be right in seeing the
Hittites in the Keteians of Homer--that Homer who told of the legendary
glories of Mykenæ and the Lydian dynasty which held it in possession.
Even the buckle, with the help of which the prehistoric Greek fastened
his cloak, has been shown by a German scholar to imply an arrangement
of the dress such as we see represented on the Hittite monument of
Ibreez.

For us of the modern world, therefore, the resurrection of the Hittite
people from their long sleep of oblivion possesses a double interest.
They appeal to us not alone because of the influence they once exercised
on the fortunes of the Chosen People, not alone because a Hittite was
the wife of David and the ancestress of Christ, but also on account of
the debt which the civilisation of our own Europe owes to them. Our
culture is the inheritance we have received from ancient Greece, and the
first beginnings of Greek culture were derived from the Hittite
conquerors of Asia Minor. The Hittite warriors who still guard the Pass
of Karabel, on the very threshold of Asia, are symbols of the position
occupied by the race in the education of mankind. The Hittites carried
the time-worn civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt to the furthest
boundary of Asia, and there handed them over to the West in the grey
dawn of European history. But they never passed the boundary themselves;
with the conquest of Lydia their mission was accomplished, the work that
had been appointed them was fulfilled.



[Illustration: AN INSCRIPTION FOUND AT CARCHEMISH (_now destroyed_).]



CHAPTER VII.

THE INSCRIPTIONS.


How can the history of a lost people be recovered, it may be asked,
except through the help of the records they have left behind them? How
can we come to know anything about the Hittites until their few and
fragmentary inscriptions are deciphered? The answer to this question
will have been furnished by the preceding pages. Though the Hittite
inscriptions are still undeciphered, though the number of them is still
very small, there are other materials for reconstructing the history of
the race, and these materials have now found their interpreter. The
sculptured monuments the Hittites have left behind them, the seals they
engraved, the cities they inhabited, the memorials of them preserved in
the Old Testament, in the cuneiform tablets of Assyria, and in the
papyri of Egypt, have all served to build up afresh the fabric of a
mighty empire which once exercised so profound an influence on the
destinies of the civilised world.

But the Hittite inscriptions have not been altogether useless. They have
helped to connect together the scattered monuments of Hittite dominion,
and to prove that the peculiar art they display was of Hittite origin.
It was the Hittite hieroglyphs which accompany the figure of the warrior
in the Pass of Karabel, and of the sitting goddess on Mount Sipylos,
that proved these sculptures to be of Hittite origin. It has similarly
been inscriptions containing Hittite characters which have enabled us to
trace the march of the Hittite armies along the high-roads of Asia
Minor, and to feel sure that Hittite princes once reigned in the city of
Hamath.

The Hittite texts are distinguished by two characteristics. With hardly
an exception, the hieroglyphs that compose them are carved in relief
instead of being incised, and the lines read alternately from right to
left and from left to right. The direction in which the characters look
determines the direction in which they should be read. This alternate or
_boustrophedon_ mode of writing also characterises early Greek
inscriptions, and since it was not adopted by either Phoenicians,
Egyptians, or Assyrians, the question arises whether the Greeks did not
learn to write in such a fashion from neighbours who made use of the
Hittite script.

Another characteristic of Hittite writing is the frequent employment of
the heads of animals and men. It is very rarely that the whole body of
an animal is drawn; the head alone was considered sufficient. This
peculiarity would of itself mark off the Hittite hieroglyphs from those
of Egypt.

But a very short inspection of the characters is enough to show that the
Hittites could not have borrowed them from the Egyptians. The two forms
of writing are utterly and entirely distinct. Two of the most common
Hittite characters represent the snow-boot and the fingerless glove,
which, as we have seen, indicate the northern ancestry of the Hittite
tribes, while the ideograph which denotes a 'country' is a picture of
the mountain peaks of the Kappadokian plateau. It would therefore seem
that the system of writing was invented in Kappadokia, and not in the
southern regions of Syria or Canaan.

We may gather, however, that the invention took place after the contact
of the Hittites with Egypt, and their consequent acquaintance with the
Egyptian form of script. Similar occurrences have happened in modern
times. A Cheroki Indian in North America, who had seen the books of the
white man, was led thereby to devise an elaborate mode of writing for
his own countrymen, and the curious syllabary invented for the Vei
negroes by one of their tribe originated in the same manner. So, too, we
may imagine that the sight of the hieroglyphs of Egypt, and the
knowledge that thoughts could be conveyed by them, suggested to some
Hittite genius the idea of inventing a similar means of
intercommunication for his own people.

At any rate, it is pretty clear that the Hittite characters are used
like the Egyptian, sometimes as ideographs to express ideas, sometimes
phonetically to represent syllables and sounds, sometimes as
determinatives to denote the class to which the word belongs to which
they are attached. It is probable, moreover, that a word or sound was
often expressed by multiplying the characters which expressed the whole
or part of it, just as was the case in Egyptian writing in the age of
Ramses II. At the same time the number of separate characters used by
the Hittites was far less than that employed by the Egyptian scribes. At
present not 200 are known to exist, though almost every fresh
inscription adds to the list.

The oldest writing material of the Hittites were their plates of metal,
on the surface of which the characters were hammered out from behind.
The Hittite copy of the treaty with Ramses II. was engraved in this
manner on a plate of silver, its centre being occupied with a
representation of the god Sutekh embracing the Hittite king, and a short
line of hieroglyphs running round him. This central ornamentation,
surrounded with a circular band of figures, was in accordance with the
usual style of Hittite art. The Egyptian monuments show us what the
silver plate was like. It was of rectangular shape, with a ring at the
top by which it could be suspended from the wall. If ever the tomb of
Ur-Maa Noferu-Ra, the Hittite wife of Ramses, is discovered, it is
possible that a Hittite copy of the famous treaty may be found among its
contents.

At all events, it is clear that already at this period the Hittites were
a literary people. The Egyptian records make mention of a certain
Khilip-sira, whose name is compounded with that of Khilip or Aleppo, and
describe him as 'a writer of books of the vile Kheta.' Like the Egyptian
Pharaoh, the Hittite monarch was accompanied to battle by his scribes.
If Kirjath-sepher or 'Book-town,' in the neighbourhood of Hebron, was of
Hittite origin, the Hittites would have possessed libraries like the
Assyrians, which may yet be dug up. Kirjath-sepher was also called
Debir, 'the sanctuary,' and we may therefore conclude that the library
was stored in its chief temple, as were the libraries of Babylonia.
There was another Debir or Dapur further north, in the vicinity of
Kadesh on the Orontes, which is mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions;
and since this was in the land of the Amorites, while Kirjath-sepher is
also described as an Amorite town, it is possible that here too the
relics of an ancient library may yet be found. We must not forget that
in the days of Deborah, 'out of Zebulon,' northward of Megiddo, came
'they that handle the pen of the writer' (Judg. v. 14).

The inscriptions recently discovered at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt have
shown that in the century before the Exodus the common medium of
literary intercourse in Western Asia was the language and cuneiform
script of Babylonia. It was subsequently to this that the Hittites
forced their way southward, bringing with them their own peculiar system
of hieroglyphic writing. But the cuneiform characters still continued to
be used in the Hittite region of the world. Cuneiform tablets have been
purchased at Kaisarîyeh which come from some old library of Kappadokia,
the site of which is still unknown, and Dr. Humann has lately discovered
a long cuneiform inscription among the Hittite sculptures of Sinjirli in
the ancient Komagênê. If the Hittite texts are ever deciphered, it will
probably be through the help of the cuneiform script.

A beginning has already been made. Within a month after my Paper had
been read before the Society of Biblical Archæology, which announced the
discovery of a Hittite empire and the connection of the curious art of
Asia Minor with that of Carchemish, I had fallen across a bilingual
inscription in Hittite and cuneiform characters. This was on the silver
boss of King Tarkondêmos, the only key yet found to the interpretation
of the Hittite texts.

[Illustration: THE BILINGUAL BOSS OF TARKONDEMOS.]

The story of the boss is a strange one. It was purchased many years ago
at Smyrna by M. Alexander Jovanoff, a well-known numismatist of
Constantinople, who showed it to the Oriental scholar Dr. A. D.
Mordtmann. Dr. Mordtmann made a copy of it, and found it to be a round
silver plate, probably the head of a dagger or dirk, round the rim of
which ran a cuneiform inscription. Within, occupying the central field,
was the figure of a warrior in a new and unknown style of art. He stood
erect, holding a spear in the right hand, and pressing the left against
his breast. He was clothed in a tunic, over which a fringed cloak was
thrown; a close-fitting cap was on the head, and boots with upturned
ends on the feet, the upper part of the legs being bare, while a dirk
was fastened in the belt. On either side of the figure was a series of
'symbols,' the series on each side being the same, except that on the
right side the upper 'symbols' were smaller, and the lower 'symbols'
larger than the corresponding ones on the left side.

In an article published some years later on the cuneiform inscriptions
of Van, Dr. Mordtmann referred to the boss, and it was his description
of the figure in the centre of it which arrested my attention. I saw at
once that the figure must be in the style of art I had just determined
to be Hittite, and I guessed that the 'symbols' which accompanied it
would turn out to be Hittite hieroglyphs. Dr. Mordtmann stated that he
had given a copy of the boss in 1862 in the 'Numismatic Journal which
appears in Hanover.' After a long and troublesome search I found that
the publication meant by him was not a Journal at all, and had appeared
at Leipzig, not at Hanover, in 1863, not in 1862. The copy of the boss
contained in it showed that I was right in believing Dr. Mordtmann's
'symbols' to be Hittite characters.

It now became necessary to know how far the copy was correct, and to
ascertain whether the original were still in existence. A reply soon
came from the British Museum. The boss had once been offered to the
Museum for sale, but rejected, as nothing like it had ever been seen
before, and it was therefore suspected of being a forgery. Before its
rejection, however, an electrotype had been taken of it, an impression
of which was now sent to me.

Shortly afterwards came another communication from M. François
Lenormant, one of the most learned and brilliant Oriental scholars of
the present century. He had seen the original at Constantinople some
twenty years previously, and had there made a cast of it, which he
forwarded to me. The cast and the electrotype agreed exactly together.

There could accordingly be no doubt that we had before us, if not the
original itself, a perfect facsimile of it. The importance of this fact
soon became manifest, for the original boss disappeared after M.
Jovanoff's death, and in spite of all enquiries no trace of it can be
discovered. It may be recovered hereafter in the bazaars of
Constantinople or in some private house at St. Petersburg; at present
there is no clue whatever to its actual possessor.

The reading of the cuneiform legend offers but little difficulty. It
gives us the name and title of the king whose figure is engraved within
it--'Tarqu-dimme king of the country of Erme.'

The name Tarqu-dimme is evidently the same as that of the Cilician
prince Tarkondêmos or Tarkon-dimotos, who lived in the time of our Lord.
The name is also met with in other parts of Asia Minor under the forms
of Tarkondas and Tarkondimatos; and we may consider it to be of a
distinctively Hittite type. Where the district was over which
Tarqu-dimme ruled we can only guess. It may have been the range of
mountains called Arima by the classical writers, which lay close under
the Hittite monuments of the Bulgar Dagh. In this case Tarkondemos would
have been a Cilician king.

The twice-repeated Hittite version of the cuneiform legend has been the
subject of much discussion. The arrangement of the characters, due more
to the necessity of filling up the vacant space on the boss than to the
requirements of their natural order, allowed more than one
interpretation of them. But there were two facts which furnished the key
to their true reading. On the one hand, the inscription is divided into
two halves by two characters whose form and position in other Hittite
texts show them to signify 'king' and 'country'; on the other hand, the
first two characters are made, as it were, to issue from the mouth of
the king, and thus to express his name. We thus obtain the reading:
'Tarku-dimme king of the country of Er-me,' the syllables _tarku_ and
_me_ being denoted by the head of a goat and the numeral 'four,' while
the ideographs of 'king' and 'country' are represented by the royal
tiara worn by gods and monarchs in the Hittite sculptures, and by the
picture of a mountainous land. In the ideograph of 'country' Mordtmann
had already seen a likeness of the shafts of rock which rise out of the
Kappadokian plateau.

The bilingual boss accordingly furnishes us with two important
ideographs, and the phonetic values of four other characters. Armed with
these, we can attack the other texts, and learn something about them. It
becomes clear that the inscriptions from Carchemish now in the British
Museum are the monuments of a king whose name ends in -me-Tarku, and who
records the names of his father and grandfather. To the grandfather
belonged an inscription copied by Mr. Boscawen among the ruins of
Carchemish, but unfortunately never brought to England, and probably
long since destroyed.

On the lion of Merash, moreover, a king similarly records his name
along with those of his two immediate ancestors. The same king's name is
found at Hamath as that of the father of the sovereign mentioned in the
other inscriptions that come from there, and we may perhaps infer that
the monuments of Hamath are the memorials of a Komagenian monarch who
carried his victorious arms thus far to the south. The time will
doubtless come when we shall be able to read these mysterious characters
without difficulty, and we shall then know whether or not our inference
is correct.

[Illustration: THE LION OF MERASH.]

Meanwhile we must be content to await the discovery of another bilingual
text. The legend on the boss of Tarkondêmos is not long enough to carry
us far through the mazes of Hittite decipherment; before much progress
can be made it must be supplemented by another inscription of the same
kind. But the fact that one bilingual inscription has been found is an
earnest that other bilingual inscriptions have existed, and may yet be
brought to light. We may live in confident expectation that the mute
stones will yet be taught to speak, and that we shall learn how the
empire of the Hittites was founded and preserved, not from the annals of
their enemies, but from their own lips.

It is not probable that the Hittite system of writing passed away
without leaving its influence behind it. As the culture and art which
the Hittites carried to the barbarous nations of Asia Minor became
implanted among them and bore abundant fruit, so too we may believe that
the knowledge of the Hittite writing did not perish utterly. There is
reason to think that the curious syllabary which continued to be used in
Cyprus as late as the age of Alexander the Great was derived from the
Hittite hieroglyphs. It was singularly unfitted to express the sounds of
the Greek language, as it was required to do in Cyprus, and it has been
shown that it was but a branch of a syllabary once employed throughout a
large part of Asia Minor, the very country in which the Hittites
engraved their own written monuments. It seems likely, therefore, that
the Hittite characters became a syllabary in which each character
represented a separate syllable, and survived in this form to a late
age.

It is also possible that the names assigned to the letters even of the
Phoenician alphabet were influenced by the hieroglyphs of the Hittites.
When the Phoenicians borrowed the letters of the Egyptian alphabet they
gave them names beginning in their own language with the sound
represented by each letter. _A_ was called _aleph_ because the
Phoenician word _aleph_ 'an ox' began with that sound, _k_ was _kaph_
'the hand' because _kaph_ in Phoenician began with _k_. It was but an
early application of the same principle which made our forefathers
believe that the child would learn his alphabet more quickly if he was
taught that '_A_ was an archer who shot at a frog.'

But the names must have been assigned to the letters not only because
they commenced with corresponding sounds, but also because of their
fancied resemblance to the objects denoted by the names. Now in some
instances the resemblance is by no means clear. The earliest forms of
the letters called _kaph_ and _yod_, for example, both of which words
signify a 'hand,' have little likeness to the human hand. If we turn to
the Hittite hieroglyphs, however, we find among them two representations
of the hand, encased in the long Hittite glove, which are almost
identical with the Phoenician letters in shape. It is difficult,
therefore, to resist the conviction that the letters _kaph_ and _yod_
received their names from Syrians who were familiar with the appearance
of the Hittite characters. It is the same in the case of _aleph_. Here
too the old Phoenician letter does not in any way resemble an ox, but it
bears a very close likeness to the head of a bull, which occupies a
prominent place in the Hittite texts. _Aleph_ became the Greek _alpha_
when the Phoenician alphabet was handed on to the Greeks, and in the
word _alphabet_ has become part of our own heritage. Like _yod_, which
has passed through the Greek _iota_ into the English _jot_, it is thus
possible that there are still words in daily use among ourselves which
can be traced, if not to the Hittite language, at all events to the
Hittite script.

What the language of the Hittites was we have yet to learn. But the
proper names preserved on the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments show that
it did not belong to the Semitic family of speech, and an analysis of
the Hittite inscriptions further makes it evident that it made large use
of suffixes. But we must be on our guard against supposing that the
language was uniform throughout the district in which the Hittite
population lived. Different tribes doubtless spoke different dialects,
and some of these dialects probably differed widely from each other. But
they all belonged to the same general type and class of language, and
may therefore be collectively spoken of as the Hittite language, just as
the various dialects of England are collectively termed English. Indeed,
we find the same type of language extending far eastward of Kappadokia,
if we may trust the proper names recorded in the Assyrian inscriptions.
Names of a distinctively Hittite cast are met with as far as the
frontiers of the ancient kingdom of Ararat, and it may be that the
language of Ararat itself, the so-called Vannic, may belong to the same
family of speech. As the cuneiform inscriptions in which this language
is embodied have now been deciphered, we shall be able to determine the
question as soon as the Hittite texts also render up their secrets.

In the south of Palestine the Hittites must have lost their old language
and have adopted that of their Semitic neighbours at an early period. In
Northern Syria the change was longer in coming about. The last king of
Carchemish bears a non-Semitic name, but a Semitic god was worshipped at
Aleppo, and Kadesh on the Orontes remained a Semitic sanctuary. The
Hittite occupation of Hamath seems to have lasted for a short time only.
Its king, who appears on the Assyrian monuments as the contemporary of
Ahab, has the Semitic name of Irkhulena, 'the moon-god belongs to us';
and his successors were equally of Semitic origin. It is more doubtful
whether Tou or Toi, whose son came to David with an offer of alliance,
bears a name which can be explained from the Semitic lexicon.

In the fastnesses of the Taurus, however, the Hittite dialects were slow
in dying. In the days of St. Paul the people of Lystra still spoke 'the
speech of Lykaonia,' although the official language of Kappadokia had
long since become Aramaic. But the Aramaic was itself supplanted by
Greek, and before the downfall of the Roman empire Greek was the common
language of all Asia Minor. In its turn Greek has been superseded in
these modern times by Turkish.

Languages, however, may change and perish, but the races that have
spoken them remain. The characteristics of race, once acquired, are slow
to alter. Though the last echoes of Hittite speech have died away
centuries ago, the Hittite race still inhabits the region from which in
ancient days it poured down upon the cities of the south. We may still
see in it all the lineaments of the warriors of Karabel or the
sculptured princes of Carchemish; even the snow-shoe and fingerless
glove are still worn on the cold uplands of Kappadokia.



CHAPTER VIII.

HITTITE TRADE AND INDUSTRY.


The Hittites shone as much in the arts of peace as in the arts of war.
The very fact that they invented a system of writing speaks highly for
their intellectual capacities. It has been granted to but few among the
races of mankind to devise means of communicating their thoughts
otherwise than by words; most of the nations of the world have been
content to borrow from others not only the written characters they use
but even the conception of writing itself.

We know from the ruins of Boghaz Keui and Eyuk that the Hittites were no
mean architects. They understood thoroughly the art of fortification;
the great moat outside the walls of Boghaz Keui, with its sides of
slippery stone, is a masterpiece in this respect, like the fortified
citadels within the city, to which the besieged could retire when the
outer wall was captured. The well-cut blocks and sculptured slabs of
which their palaces were built prove how well they knew the art of
quarrying and fashioning stone. The mines of the Bulgar Dagh are an
equally clear indication of their skill in mining and metallurgic work.

The metallurgic fame of the Khalybes, who bordered on the Hittite
territory, and may have belonged to the same race, was spread through
the Greek world. They had the reputation of first discovering how to
harden iron into steel. It was from them, at all events, that the Greeks
acquired the art.

Silver and copper appear, from the evidence of the Egyptian and Assyrian
monuments, to have been the metals most in request, though gold and iron
also figure among the objects which the Hittites offered in tribute. The
gold and copper were moulded into cups and images of animals, and the
copper was changed into bronze by being mixed with tin. From whence the
tin was procured we have yet to learn.

Silver and iron were alike used as a medium of exchange. The Assyrian
king received from Carchemish 250 talents of iron; and the excavations
of Dr. Schliemann among the ruins of Troy have afforded evidence that
silver also was employed by the Hittites in place of money, and that its
use for this purpose was communicated by them to the most distant
nations of Western Asia Minor.

In the so-called 'treasure of Priam,' disinterred among the calcined
ruins of Hissarlik or Troy, are six blade-like ingots of silver, about
seven or eight inches in length and two in breadth. Mr. Barclay Head has
pointed out that each of these ingots weighs the third part of a
Babylonian maneh or mina, and further that this particular maneh of 8656
grains Troy, was once employed throughout Asia Minor for weighing
bullion silver. It differed from the standard of weight and value used
in Phoenicia, Assyria, and Asia Minor itself in the later Greek age. But
it corresponded with 'the maneh of Carchemish' mentioned in the Assyrian
contract tablets, which continued to hold its own even after the
conquest of Carchemish by Sargon. The maneh of Carchemish had, it is
true, been originally derived from Babylonia, like most of the elements
of Hittite culture, but it had made itself so thoroughly at home in the
Hittite capital as to be called after its name. Nothing can show more
clearly than this the leading position held by the Hittites in general,
and the city of Carchemish in particular, in regard to commerce and
industry.

Carchemish was, in fact, the centre of the overland trade in Western
Asia. It commanded the high-road which brought the products of Phoenicia
and the West to the civilised populations of Assyria and Babylon. It was
this which made its possession so greatly coveted by the Assyrian kings.
Its capture assured to Sargon the command of the Mediterranean coast,
and the transference to Assyrian hands of the commerce and wealth which
had flowed in to the merchant-princes of the Hittite city.

The sumptuous furniture in which they indulged is mentioned by
Assur-natsir-pal. Like the luxurious monarchs of Israel, they reclined
on couches inlaid with ivory, of which it is possible that they were the
inventors. At all events, elephants were still hunted by Tiglath-pileser
I., in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, as they had been by Thothmes
III. four centuries earlier, and elephants' tusks were among the tribute
paid by the Hittites to the Assyrian kings. It may be that the
extinction of the elephant in this part of Asia was due to Hittite
huntsmen.

The ivory couches of Carchemish, however, were not employed at meals, as
they would have been in Assyria or among the Greeks and Romans of a
later day. Like the Egyptians, the Hittites sat when eating, and their
chairs were provided with backs as well as with curiously-formed
footstools. The food was placed on low cross-legged tables, which
resembled a camp-stool in shape.

At times, as we may gather from a bas-relief at Merash, they entertained
themselves at a banquet with the sounds of music. Several different
kinds of musical instruments are represented on the monuments, among
which we may recognise a lyre, a trumpet, and a sort of guitar. It is
evident that they were fond of music, and had cultivated the art, as
befitted a people to whom wealth had given leisure. A curious indication
of the same leisured ease is to be found in a sculpture at Eyuk, where
an attendant is depicted carrying a monkey on his shoulders. Those only
who enjoyed the quiet of a peaceful and wealthy life would have
gratified the taste for animals which the monuments reveal, by importing
an animal like the monkey from the distant south. The Hittites were
doubtless a warlike people when they first swooped down upon the plains
of Syria, but they soon began to cultivate the arts of peace and to
become one of the great mercantile peoples of the ancient world.

We learn from the Books of Kings that horses and chariots were exported
from Egypt for the Hittite princes, the Israelites serving as
intermediaries in the trade. But they must also have obtained horses
from the north, and perhaps have bred them for themselves. The prophet
Ezekiel tells us (xxvii. 14) that 'they of Togarmah traded' in the fairs
of Tyre 'with horses and horsemen and mules,' and Togarmah has been
identified with the Tul-Garimmi of the Assyrian inscriptions, which was
situated in Komagênê. In the wars between Egypt and Kadesh a portion of
the Hittite army fought in chariots, each drawn by two horses, and
holding sometimes two, sometimes three men. The chariots were of light
make, and rested on two wheels, usually furnished with six spokes.

The army was well-disciplined and well-arranged. Its nucleus was formed
of native-born Hittites, who occupied the centre and the posts of
danger. Around them were ranged their allies and mercenaries, under the
command of special generals. The native infantry and cavalry also obeyed
separate captains, but the whole host was led by a single
commander-in-chief.

We have yet to be made acquainted with the details of their domestic
architecture. The ground-plan of their palaces has been given us at
Boghaz Keui and Eyuk, at Carchemish and Sinjirli, and we know that they
were built round a central court of quadrangular form. We know too that
the entrance to the palace was, like that to an Egyptian temple, flanked
by massive blocks of stone on either side, and approached by an avenue
of sculptured slabs. We have learned, moreover, that the palace was
erected on raised terraces or mounds; but beyond this we know little
except that use was made of a pillar without a base, which had been
originally derived from Babylonia, the primitive home of columnar
architecture.

About the Hittite dress we have fuller information. Apart from the
snow-shoes or mocassins which have helped to identify their monumental
remains, we have found the Hittites wearing on their heads two kinds of
covering, one a close-fitting skull-cap, the other a lofty tiara,
generally pointed, but sometimes rounded at the top or ornamented, as at
Ibreez, with horn-like ribbons. The pointed tiara was adorned with
perpendicular lines of embroidery. At Boghaz Keui the goddesses have
what has been termed the mural crown, resembling as it does the
fortified wall of a town.

The robes of the women descended to the feet. This was also the case
with the long sleeved garment of the priests, but other men wore a tunic
which left the knees bare, and was fastened round the waist by a girdle.
Over this was thrown a cloak, which in walking left one leg exposed. In
the girdle was stuck a short dirk; the other arms carried being a spear
and a bow, which was slung behind the back. The double-headed battle-axe
was also a distinctively Hittite weapon, and was carried by them to the
coast of the Ægean, where in the Greek age it became the symbol of the
Karian Zeus, and of the island of Tenedos. All these weapons were of
bronze, or perhaps of iron; but there are indications that the Hittite
tribes had once contented themselves with tools and weapons of stone.
Near the site of Arpad Mr. Boscawen purchased a large and beautiful
axe-head of highly polished green-stone, which could, however, never
have been intended for actual use. It was, in fact, a sacrificial
weapon, surviving in the service of the gods from the days when the
working of metal was not yet known. Like other survivals in religious
worship, it bore witness to a social condition that had long since
passed away. A small axe-head, also of polished green-stone, was
obtained by myself from the neighbourhood of Ephesos, and bears a
remarkable resemblance in form to the axe-head of Arpad. The importance
of this fact becomes manifest when we compare the numerous other weapons
or implements of polished stone found in Western Asia Minor, which
exhibit quite a different shape. It permits the conclusion that both
Arpad and Ephesos were seats of Hittite influence, and that in both the
same form of stone implement--a survival from an earlier age of
stone--was dedicated to the service of the gods.

The dresses of cloth and linen with which the Hittites clothed
themselves were dyed with various colours, and were ornamented with
fringes and rich designs. That of the priest at Ibreez is especially
worthy of study. Among the patterns with which it is adorned are the
same square ornament as is met with on the tomb of the Phrygian king
Midas, and the curious symbol usually known as the 'swastika,' which has
become so famous since the excavations of General di Cesnola in Cyprus,
and of Dr. Schliemann at Troy. The symbol recurs times without number on
the pre-historic pottery of Cyprus and the Trojan plain; but no trace of
it has ever yet been found in Egypt, in Assyria, or in Babylonia. Alone
among the remains of the civilised nations of the ancient East the
rock-sculpture of Ibreez displays it on the robe of a Lykaonian priest.
Was it an invention of the Hittite people, communicated by them to the
rude tribes of Asia Minor, along with the other elements of a cultured
life, or was it of barbarous origin, adopted by the Hittites from the
earlier population of the West?

Before we can answer this question we must know far more than we do at
present about that long-forgotten but wonderful race, whose restoration
to history has been one of the most curious discoveries of the present
age. When the sites of the old Hittite cities have been thoroughly
explored, when the monuments they left behind them have been
disinterred, and their inscriptions have been deciphered and read, we
shall doubtless learn the answers to this and many other questions that
are now pressing for solution. Meanwhile we must be content with what
has already been gained. Light has been cast upon a dark page in the
history of Western Asia, and therewith upon the sacred record of the
Old Testament, and a people has advanced into the forefront of modern
knowledge who exercised a deep influence upon the fortunes of Israel,
though hitherto they had been to us little more than a name. At the very
moment when every word of Scripture is being minutely scrutinised, now
by friends, now by foes, we have learnt that the statement once supposed
to impugn the authority of the sacred narrative is the best witness to
its truth. The friends of Abraham, the allies of David, the mother of
Solomon, all belonged to a race which left an indelible mark on the
history of the world, though it has been reserved in God's wisdom for
our own generation to discover and trace it out.



INDEX.


  Adah, Esau's Hittite wife, 13.

  Aleppo, Hittite inscription at, 62.

  Amanus, cedar forests of, 47.

  Amazons, the, legend of, 78.

  Amenophis III., wars of, 21;
    marriage of, 21.

  Amenophis IV., a heretic king, founds a new capital, 22;
    discovery of tablets of, 22.

  Amorite captives taken by Shishak, 16.

  Amorites interlocked with Hittites, 14;
    possessions of, 14;
    physical description of, 15;
    descendants of, 16;
    history of, 17.

  Anakim, height of, 16.

  Antarata, the Hittite goddess, 105.

  Ararat, king of, suicide of, 51.

  Architecture, Hittite, 136.

  Argistis I., campaign of, 52.

  Arisu the Phoenician, a usurper, 39.

  Ark of the prophet Noah, the, 107.

  Army, Hittite, 140.

  Arpad, green-stone axe head from, 141.

  Art, Hittite, 114;
    Babylonian influence on, 116;
    Assyrian, 117.

  Artemis, worship of, 79.

  Ashtoreth, myth of, 110.

  Assur-natsir-pal, conquests of, 45;
    exacts tribute from Carchemish, 46;
    attacks Azaz, 47.

  Assyria, testimony of monuments of, to Hittites, 40;
    decay of, 43;
    rise of, 45, 50;
    influence of, on Hittite art, 117.

  Atargatis, the goddess, 105.

  Athar-'Ati, the goddess of Carchemish, 105.

  Attys, the god, 111.

  Axe-heads, green-stone, 141.


  Baal of Tarsos, 111.

  Babylonian influence on Hittite art, 116.

  Bashemath, Esau's Hittite wife, 13.

  Beeri the Hittite, daughter of, 13.

  Biainas or Van, inscriptions in, 51.

  Boghaz Keui, inscription at, 65;
    Hittite remains at, 87;
    position of, 87;
    palace at, 89;
    wall-sculptures at, 89;
    a sanctuary, 93;
    texts at, 93.

  Boots, Hittite, 80, 89.

  Bor, Hittite text at, 94.

  Boscawen, Mr., his purchase of green-stone axe-head, 141.

  Boss of Tarkondemos, 127;
    bilingual inscription on, 129.

  Bronze figures, Hittite, 117.

  Buckle, origin of Greek, 120.

  Bulgar Dagh, silver mines at, 94.

  Burckhardt, his discovery at Hamah, 56.


  Canaan, sons of, 13.

  Carchemish, strength of, 43;
    pays tribute to Assur-natsir-pal, 46;
    maneh of, 46;
    fall of, 50;
    questions as to site of, 97;
    identification of, 98;
    visited by Mr. George Smith, 98;
    the site bought, 99;
    remains of, 99;
    history of, 99;
    battle of, 100;
    a holy city, 100;
    situation of, 100;
    the deities of, 104;
    trade of, 138.

  Cedar, forests of Amanus, 47.

  Chariots, Hittite, 139.

  Cheroki Indian, syllabary of, 124.

  Cities of Refuge, Hittite, 113;
    Hebrew, 114.

  Cloth, Hittite, 142.

  Conder, Major, on the Ark of the prophet Noah, 107.

  Country, Hittite hieroglyph representing, 81.

  Cromlechs of Libyans, 17.

  Cuneiform tablets, from Kaisariyeh, 126.

  Cylinders, Hittite, 118.

  Cyprus, syllabary used in, 132.


  Dados at Eyuk, 86;
    at Boghaz Keui, 89;
    in Taurus, 94.

  Damascus, rise of, 44.

  David, wars of, with Syria, 44.

  Davis, Rev. E. J., on Ibreez sculptures, 61.

  Debir or Dapur, an Amorite town, 126.

  Deities, Hittite, 104.

  Deluge, the, fables concerning, 106.

  Derketo, the myth of, 105, 108, 110.

  Dove, the symbol of, 110.

  Dress, Hittite, 140, 142.


  Eagle, double-headed, at Eyuk, 85.

  Egypt, testimony of monuments to Hittites and Amorites, 14;
    annals of, 19;
    wars with Hittites, 23;
    confederacy against, 39;
    civil wars in, 39;
    invasions of, 39.

  Elon the Hittite, daughter of, 13.

  Ephesos, worship of the Mother-goddess at, 113;
    green-stone axe-head from, 141.

  Ephron the Hittite, 13.

  Exodus, the time of, 25, 38.

  Eyuk, Hittite remains at, 85;
    palace, 85;
    avenue of lions, 85;
    sphinx at, 85;
    double-headed eagle at, 85;
    palace gate at, 86;
    dado at, 86;
    sculptures at, 86;
    date of, 87;
    height of plateau, 87;
    climate of, 87.


  Furniture, Hittite, 138.


  Galli or eunuchs at Mabog, 106.

  Gar-emeris, a district, 14.

  Gargamis, _see_  Carchemish.

  Gaza, garrisoned by Egyptians, 38.

  Gems, Hittite, 118.

  Ghiaur-kalessi, sculpture at, 56.

  Ghurun, Hittite inscriptions at, 94.

  Gladstone, Mr., on Keteians of Homer, 120.

  Glove, Hittite, 81.

  Gods, Hittite, 35, 104.

  Great Mother, the, worship of, 108.


  Hadad, worship of, 109.

  Hadad-ezer, his war with David, 44.

  Hamah, discovery of Hittite remains in, 56.

  Hamath, once a Hittite city, 44;
    last ruler of, 45.

  Hamathite inscriptions really Hittite, 60.

  Hebron, inhabitants of, 14;
    a Hebrew city of refuge, 114.

  Henderson, Mr., buys site of Carchemish, 99.

  Herodotos on Karabel sculptures, 54;
    on Syrians, 82.

  Heth, son of Canaan, 13.

  Hittites, false criticisms about, 11;
    Scripture references to, 12;
    Northern, 12;
    Southern, 13;
    testimony of Egyptian monuments, 14;
    interlocked with Amorites, 14;
    physical appearance of, 15;
    descendants of, 15;
    history of, 17;
    of Judæa, 19;
    called Kheta by Egyptians, 19;
    Great and Little, 20;
    pay tribute to Thothmes III., 20;
    worship of solar disk, 21;
    power of, 23;
    treaty with Ramses I., 23;
    war with Seti I., 24;
    with Ramses II., 24;
    at Kadesh, 26;
    make treaty with him, 29;
    catalogue of gods, 35;
    supremacy of, 37;
    peaceful relations with Meneptah, 38;
    invade Egypt, 39;
    their empire broken up, 40;
    decay of, 40;
    Assyrian references to, 40;
    conquered by Tiglath-pileser I., 42;
    pay tribute to Assur-natsir-pal, 46;
    confederacy against Shalmaneser II., 47;
    power of, broken, 48;
    change of meaning of name, 49;
    doom of empire of, 50;
    campaign against Menuas, 51;
    against Argistis I., 52;
    dominions of, 52;
    sculptures of, at Karabel, 54;
    remains of, at Hamah, 56;
    at Ibreez, 61;
    at Aleppo, 62;
    at Sipylos, 69;
    position of monuments of, 73;
    peculiarities of, 74;
    civilising influence of, 75;
    character of empire of, 77;
    dress of, 80;
    boots of, 80;
    gloves of, 81;
    etymology of, 81;
    remains of, at Eyuk, 85;
    at Boghaz Keui, 87;
    text at, 93;
    at Merash, 94;
    silver mines, 95;
    extent of their supremacy, 96;
    ignorance of history of Southern, 97;
    Syrian conquest of, 100;
    appearance of, 101;
    mixture of, with Semites, 102;
    religion of, 104;
    description of a temple of, 104;
    the gods of, 104;
    holy cities of, 113;
    cities of refuge, 113;
    art of, 114;
    sculpture of, 115;
    discovery of bronze figures of, 117;
    gems of, 118;
    extent of influence of, 120;
    reasons for our interest in, 121;
    inscriptions of, 122;
    a literary people, 125;
    libraries of, 126;
    influence of, on Phoenician letters, 132;
    language of, 134;
    architecture of, 136;
    metallurgy of, 136;
    their means of exchange, 137;
    trade of, 138;
    furniture of, 138;
    music of, 139;
    horses and chariots of, 139;
    army of, 140;
    dress of, 140, 142;
    weapons of, 141;
    cloth and linen of, 142;
    their symbol 'swastika,' 142;
    knowledge of, confirms the truth of Scripture, 143.

  Holy cities, Hittite, 113.

  Horses, Hittite, 139.

  Humann, Dr., his discovery of a cuneiform inscription, 126.


  Ibreez, sculptures at, 61.

  Inscriptions, Hittite, purpose of, 123;
    characteristics of, 123;
    originality of, 124;
    use of, 124;
    writing material, 125;
    at Tel el-Amarna, 126;
    cuneiform and hieroglyphic, 126;
    from Kaisariyeh, 126;
    from Sinjirli, 126;
    on boss of Tarkondemos, 127.

  Istar, the goddess, 109.


  Jebusites, origin of, 14.

  Jerablûs, true site of Carchemish, 98.

  Jerusalem, founders of, 14.

  Jessup, Mr., his discovery at Hamah, 57.

  Johnson, Mr., his discovery at Hamah, 57.

  Joshua, his entrance into Palestine, 25.

  Jovanoff, M. Alexander, his purchase of a boss, 127.

  Judith, Esau's Hittite wife, 13.


  Kabyles, descendants of Libyans, 16.

  Kadesh, people of, 14;
    taken by Seti I., 24;
    bravery of Ramses II. before, 25;
    Hittite occupation of, 100.

  Kadesh-barnea, an Amorite town, 14.

  Kaisarîyeh, tablets from, 126.

  Kappadokia, Hittite descendants in, 102.

  Karabel, Pass of, situation of, 54;
    sculptures of, 54;
    description of, 66.

  Karkar, Assyrian victory at, 48.

  Kaskâ, submission of, 42.

  Kayster, fable concerning, 78.

  Kedesh in Galilee, a Hebrew city of refuge, 114.

  Kes, the Syrian goddess, 112.

  Kheta or Hittites, _see_ Hittites.

  Kheta-sira, his treaty with Ramses I., 30.

  Khu-n-Aten, _see_ Amenophis IV.

  Kili-anteru, capture of, 42.

  Kirjath-sepher or Book-town, an Amorite town, 126.

  Kirkesion, site of, 97.

  Komana, the goddess of, 112.

  Kombabos, legend of, 110.

  Kroesos, destroys city of Pteria, 82.

  Kummukh attacked by Tiglath-pileser I., 41.

  Kybelê or Kybêbê, her image and worship, 108;
    Amazonian priestesses of, 113.


  Language, Hittite, 134.

  Latsa, capture of, 12.

  Lenormant, M. F., on boss of Tarkondêmos, 129.

  Libyan confederacy against Egypt, 39.

  Libyans, appearance of, 15;
    descendants of, 16;
    remains of, 17.

  Linen, Hittite, 142.

  Lucian on temple of Mabog, 104.

  Luz, identification of, 12.

  Lydia, overthrow of, by Cyrus, 82.

  Lydian mythology, 109.


  Ma, the goddess, worship of, 112.

  Mabog, _see_ Membij, temple of, 104;
    the holy of holies, 104;
    the gods in, 104;
    the priests of, 106;
    processions at, 106;
    pilgrims at, 107;
    sacrifices at, 107;
    legends concerning, 107.

  Malatiyeh attacked by Tiglath-pileser I., 42.

  Maneh of Carchemish, the, 46, 137.

  Maspero, Prof., on site of Carchemish, 97.

  Melito, on the goddess Simi, 106.

  Membij, supposed site of Carchemish, 97.

  Meneptah, his peaceful relations with Hittites, 38;
    with Phoenicia, 38.

  Menuas, campaigns of, 51;
    makes an inscription at Palu, 52.

  Merash, Hittite inscriptions at, 94.

  Metallurgy, Hittite, 117, 136.

  Monkeys imported by Hittites, 139.

  Mopsos, legend concerning, 109.

  Mordtmann, Dr., on boss of Tarkondemos, 127.

  Music, Hittite, 139.

  Mykenæ, remains found at, 110;
    rings, 119;
    lions at, 120.

  Mythology of the Hittites, 35, 104.


  Naharina, situation of, 20;
    Amenophis III. marries daughter of king of, 21.

  Necho, defeat of, at Carchemish, 100.

  Niobe, the weeping, 69.


  Oven, the, spring, 107.


  Palu, inscription of Menuas at, 52.

  Patinians, submit to Assur-natsir-pal, 47;
    overthrow of, 47;
    insurrection of, 49.

  Pentaur, his epic on Ramses II., 25.

  Perrot, Professor, on Karabel sculptures, 56;
    on inscription at Boghaz Keui, 65;
    his discovery of Hittite bronze figures, 117.

  Pessinus, worship of Ma at, 113.

  Pethor made into an Assyrian colony, 48.

  Petrie, Mr., on appearance of Amorites, 15.

  Phoenician alphabet, Hittite influence on, 132.

  Pisiris, last king of Carchemish, 50.

  Priam, treasure of, 137.

  Priests of Mabog, description of, 106.


  Qalb Luzeh, or Luz, 12.


  Ramses I., his treaty with Hittites, 23.

  Ramses II., his wars with Hittites, 24;
    the Pharaoh of the Exodus, 25;
    epic on his bravery at Kadesh, 25;
    makes a treaty with Hittites, 29;
    marries daughter of Hittite king, 37.

  Ramses III., victories of, 39.

  Religion of the Hittites, 104.

  Renouard, his discovery of Karabel sculpture, 55.

  Rhea, the goddess, 108.

  Rimmon or Tammuz, worship of, 109.

  Rings found at Mykenæ, 119.


  Sadi-anteru, submission of, 42.

  Sandan, the god, 111.

  Sangara, league formed by, 47;
    daughter of, given to Shalmaneser II., 48.

  Saplel, a Hittite king, his treaty with Ramses I., 23.

  Sardes, date of capture of, 78.

  Sargon, wars of, 50.

  Schliemann, Dr., discoveries of, at Mykenæ, 110, 119.

  Sculpture, Hittite, 115.

  Seals, Hittite, 118.

  Semiramis, the goddess, 110.

  Semitic mixture with Hittites, 102.

  Sesostris, memorials of, at Karabel, 54.

  Seti I., wars of, 24.

  Shalmaneser II., warlike policy of, 47;
    sacrifices to Hadad, 48, 50;
    his victory at Karkar, 48;
    appoints a new king of Patinians, 49;
    inscription of, 49.

  Shechem, a Hebrew city of refuge, 114.

  Shishak, Amorite captives of, 16.

  Sidon, son of Canaan, 13.

  Silver, Hittite liking for, 94;
    treaty-tablets, 95.

  Simi, the goddess, fable of, 106.

  Sinjirli, inscription at, 126.

  Sipylos, sculpture at, 69.

  Sisythes, the hero of the deluge, 107.

  Skene, Mr., his discovery of site of Carchemish, 98.

  Smith, Mr. George, his visit to site of Carchemish, 98.

  Solar disk, worship of, 21.

  Sphinx at Eyuk, 85.

  Strabo on White Syrians, 82.

  Stratonikê, myth of, 110.

  Subhi Pasha at Hamah, 58.

  Sun-god, the, 109.

  Sutekh, the supreme Hittite god, 105, 112.

  Swastika, a Hittite symbol, 142.

  Syllabary used in Cyprus, 132.


  Tahtim-hodshi, explanation of, 12.

  Tammuz, worship of, 109;
    myth of death of, 109.

  Tannur, the spring, 107.

  Tar or Tarku, the god, 111.

  Tarkondêmos, silver boss of, 127;
    bilingual inscription on, 129.

  Tarqu-dimme, name of, on silver boss, 129.

  Tel el-Amarna, discovery at, 22;
    inscriptions at, 126.

  Thothmes I., wars of, 20.

  Thothmes III., receives Hittite tribute, 20;
    conquests of, 21.

  Thothmes IV., campaign of, 21.

  Tiglath-pileser I., annals of, 41;
    attacks Kummukh, 42;
    Malatiyeh, 42;
    his hunting feats, 43.

  Tiglath-pileser III., 50.

  Togarmah, identification of, 139.

  Toi, his embassy to David, 44.

  Tomkins, Mr., his identification of Luz, 12;
    on Amorites, 16.

  Treasure of Priam, 137.

  Treaty between Ramses II. and Hittite king, translation of, 29.

  Tyana, Hittite text at, 94.


  Uriah, origin of, 13.

  Ur-maa Noferu-Ra, marriage of, 37.

  Urrakhinas, siege of, 42.

  Uruma, submission of, 42.


  Van, Lake, 51.

  Vei, Negro syllabary of, 124.


  Ward, Dr. Hayes, discovery of, 59.

  Weapons, Hittite, 141.

  Wilson, Sir Charles, discovery of Hittite inscriptions at Merash by, 94;
    on Hittite descendants in Kappadokia, 102.

  Worship of the Hittites, 104.

  Wright, Dr. Wm., his discovery of Hittite remains at Hamah, 57.

  Writing material, Hittite, 125.


  Yahu-bihdi, last ruler of Hamath, 45.



LIST OF SCRIPTURE REFERENCES.


_GENESIS._

  xiv. 7           14, 17
  xiv. 13              14
  xxiii.               13
  xxvi. 34             13
  xxxvi. 2             13
  xlviii. 22      14, 114


_NUMBERS._

  xiii. 29             14
  xiii. 33             16


_DEUTERONOMY._

  i. 19, 20            14


_JOSHUA._

  x. 5                 15
  xi. 22               16


_JUDGES._

  i. 26                12
  iii. 8               20
  v. 14               126


_2 SAMUEL._

  viii. 3, 9, 10       44
  x. 16                44
  xxi. 15-22           16
  xxiv. 6         12, 101


_1 KINGS._

  x. 28, 29            12


_2 KINGS._

  vii. 6               11


_EZEKIEL._

  xvi. 3, 45           13
  xxvii. 14           139


_ZECHARIAH._

  xii. 11             109


       *       *       *       *       *



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