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diff --git a/40243-0.txt b/40243-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2898962 --- /dev/null +++ b/40243-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4332 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40243 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 40243-h.htm or 40243-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40243/40243-h/40243-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40243/40243-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). + + Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). + + + + + +[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 + + + * * * * * + + + + +BY-PATHS OF BIBLE KNOWLEDGE, + +PUBLISHED BY + +The Religious Tract Society. + + + "The volumes which the Committee of the Religious Tract Society + is issuing under the above title fully deserve success. Most of + them have been entrusted to scholars who have a special + acquaintance with the subjects about which they severally + treat."--_The Athenæum._ + +=1. CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.= A History of the London Obelisk, with an +Exposition of the Hieroglyphics. By the Rev. J. KING, Lecturer for the +Palestine Exploration Fund. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2_s._ 6_d._ +cloth boards. + + "Mr. King's account of the monument seems fairly full and + satisfactory."--_Saturday Review._ + + "In every way interestingly written."--_Literary Churchman._ + +=2. FRESH LIGHT FROM THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS.= By A. H. SAYCE, LL.D., +Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford, &c. A sketch of the +most striking confirmations of the Bible from recent discoveries in +Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine, and Asia Minor. With Facsimiles +from Photographs. 3_s._ cloth boards. + + "All who wish to understand the Bible, and all who take an + interest in ancient history, ought to procure it."--_Leeds + Mercury._ + +=3. RECENT DISCOVERIES ON THE TEMPLE HILL AT JERUSALEM.= By the Rev. J. +KING, M.A., Authorised Lecturer for the Palestine Exploration Fund. With +Maps, Plans, and Illustrations. 8vo., 2_s._ 6_d._ cloth boards. + + "An interesting little book, well deserving of + perusal."--_Literary Churchman._ + + "An excellent and cheap compendium of information on a subject of + intense and perpetual interest."--_Watchman._ + +=4. BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.= By E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., Camb., +Assistant in the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum. +Illustrated. Crown 8vo., 3_s._ cloth boards. + + "An admirable addition to this excellent series of 'By-Paths of + Bible Knowledge.' Mr. Budge's method is sound, and his book is + worthy of his reputation."--_Saturday Review._ + + "A very readable little book, which tells the general reader all + he need care to know about the life of the old people of + Chaldea."--_Athenæum._ + +=5. GALILEE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST.= By SELAH MERRILL, D.D., author of +"East of the Jordan," &c. With a Map. Crown 8vo., 2_s._ 6_d._ cloth +boards. + + "Will be of great service to all who desire to realise the actual + surroundings amid which our Lord spent His life on earth, and + will be specially useful in correcting some false notions which + have obtained wide currency, _e.g._, the common idea that + Nazareth was a small, obscure, and immoral + place."--_Congregationalist._ + +=6. EGYPT AND SYRIA.= Their Physical Features in Relation to Bible +History. By Sir J. W. DAWSON, F.G.S., F.R.S., President of the British +Association, 1886. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Crown 8vo., +3_s._ cloth boards. + + "This is one of the most interesting of the series to which it + belongs. It is the result of personal observation, and the work + of a practised geological observer.... The questions raised in + this little volume are discussed in the light of the most + advanced knowledge and of large scientific faculty, and at the + same time with great religious reverence."--_British Quarterly + Review._ + +=7. ASSYRIA=: Its Princes, Priests, and People. By A. H. SAYCE, M.A., +LL.D., author of "Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments," "Introduction to +Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther," &c. Illustrated, 3_s._ cloth boards. + + "A little masterpiece, it presents with scientific accuracy, and + yet in a thoroughly popular form, all that is of most essential + significance in the realised information respecting that + old-world history and life."--_Christian Leader._ + +=8. THE DWELLERS BY THE NILE.= Chapters on the Life, Literature, +History, and Customs of Ancient Egypt. By E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., +Assistant in the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum. +Crown 8vo., cloth boards. With many Illustrations. 3_s._ cloth. + + "A little book that contains a vast amount of information + respecting that historic land, Egypt.... The history and + explanation of the hieroglyphics and the discovery of their + interpretation is lucidly and ably told."--_Times._ + +=9. THE DISEASES OF THE BIBLE.= By Sir J. RISDON BENNETT, M.D., F.R.S., +Ex-President of the Royal College of Physicians. 2_s._ 6_d._ cloth. + + "We cannot too thoroughly commend this work, both on account of + the subjects of which it treats, and for its intrinsic literary + worth."--_Provincial Medical Journal._ + +=10. THE PLANTS OF THE BIBLE.= By W. H. GROSER, B.SC. Illustrated. 3_s._ +cloth boards. + + "A useful little volume for Bible teachers and + readers."--_Saturday Review._ + + "Apart from its religious value, this little volume must approve + itself to all lovers of botany."--_Times._ + +=11. ANIMALS OF THE BIBLE.= By H. CHICHESTER HART, B.A., Naturalist to +Sir G. Nares' Arctic Expedition and Professor Hull's Palestine +Expedition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo., 3_s._ cloth. + + "A capital handbook for teachers. The alphabetical arrangement is + convenient, the woodcuts are good, the information is clear, + exact, and drawn from the best authorities, as well as from the + writer's observation as a traveller and student of natural history + in Palestine and Syria. Commendable care is shown in the + elucidation of obscure points and dubious translations. A + classified list of the various animals, fish, birds, and reptiles, + and an index to Scripture references are appended, and will be of + great assistance to readers and teachers."--_Saturday Review._ + + "The most complete, handy, and accurate account of the animals + mentioned in Scripture. The illustrations enhance the value of the + book."--_British Weekly._ + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40243 *** |