The land of the Hittites

by John Garstang

Part I.

Fundamental though they are to our inquiry, the isolated monuments which have been reviewed in the preceding chapter illustrate only certain aspects of Hittite art, and disclose only incidentally a few details of features, dress, and armour, with some suggestion of religious observances and customs. Their disposition, it is true, helps us to determine the confines of the land we have set forth to examine; but their provenance tells us little or nothing of where and how the people lived who fashioned them. Nevertheless, just as these were the first materials from which scholars have little by little created a science of Hittite studies, so we may employ them most fittingly as the criteria for our further investigation; that we may examine, with minds prepared, the more coherent evidences of the Hittite civilisation, as disclosed by the ruins of their cities and fortifications, their sanctuaries, and their palaces adorned with mystic sculptures.

Such places are few indeed; but our knowledge of them is chiefly the result of recent scientific expeditions, and is therefore the surer and more precise.[463] The published accounts enable us to select four sites, which happily afford material for a comparative study. Two of these, Eyuk and Boghaz-Keui, are towards the north of Asia Minor,[464] within the wide circuit of the Halys; while the other two are found below the Taurus at Sinjerli and Sakje-Geuzi in the north of Syria.[465] Three of these, moreover, are sites superficially similar, being small walled towns placed on considerable mounds, which contain also the remains of palace buildings decorated with peculiar sculptures. The fourth, which covers the hilltop above the village of Boghaz-Keui, is of vastly greater extent, and includes in its remains many peculiarities not represented by the others. It has with some certainty been identified[466] with the Pteria (or Ptara) across the Halys which, according to Herodotus,[467] fell about 550 B.C. before Crœsus of Lydia, who found it in possession of a ‘Syro-Cappadocian’ population whom he reduced to servitude.[468] It has also for some time been linked with the Hittites in the minds of scholars, both by the nature of the art its ruins illustrate, and by the doubtful hieroglyphic inscription on the rock called Nishan Tash,[469] and more particularly by the clear hieroglyphs associated with the neighbouring sculptures of Iasily Kaya. Recently Dr. Winckler has added to these links two building-stones decorated with sculptures and with hieroglyphs[470] in the familiar Hittite style; and has finally riveted the chain of evidence by the discovery in the ruins of an early palace of numerous inscribed tablets of brick inscribed in cuneiform characters, which prove to be from the archives of Hatti kings, including fragments of diplomatic correspondence with the Pharaohs of Egypt and other Oriental potentates in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B.C. It seems clear, then, that for several centuries at least the ancient city of this place was the centre of Hittite power and civilisation. In an earlier chapter[471] we have shown reason to believe that the decline of this power is traceable to an early movement of a people akin to the Phrygians, in the twelfth century B.C. We do not know as yet to what extent the city suffered at their hands, if at all, or indeed during the later struggles with Assyria. The palace of the fourteenth century B.C., however, would seem to have been in ruins some two or three hundred years later when it was rebuilt.[472] The visible remains of the city, some of which possibly belong to this period of revival, present no evidence of any striking changes in the art they typify, and we may assume that they represent to us the Hittite handiwork, or at least the direct survival of Hittite art, down to the period of Phrygian domination in the eighth century B.C., if not to the final overthrow and depopulation of the city at the hands of Crœsus. These ruins thus claim our first consideration.

Fortunately for the preservation of these remains the village of Boghaz-Keui lies just below the boundaries of the ancient site, and is also a day’s journey from the nearest modern towns of any importance, namely, Yuzghat and Sungurlu. In ancient times, however, the place seems to have been connected by a system of engineered roads with other portions of the country. The royal road which traversed Phrygia,[473] linking, it is supposed, by the Hermus valley with Sardis and the west, held on towards the Halys[474] without other apparent objective than to approach this city. To the south also a similar royal road has been traced for miles,[475] scouring the surface rocks northwards from Injesu (near Cæsarea), leading towards a ford of the Halys near to Bogche. The Persian posts from east to west are credited with having followed this northern route, although the direct road from Carchemish to Ephesus or Smyrna, whether by way of the Cilician Gates or by one of the passes leading down on Cæsarea, did not need to approach, much less to cross, the Halys river at all. It is indeed possible that the earliest continuation of the route passed eastward by the valley of the Tochma Su,[476] while a northern objective may be found in the old-time importance of Sinope as seaport. These considerations however, only increase the importance of Boghaz-Keui as the focus of the system. Nowadays, as we have seen,[477] the main routes run differently, adapting themselves to changed conditions, and the place which was once the apparent centre of all activities in the interior is now without economic interest, a wonderful memorial of the past.

The position chosen for this city was one of considerable natural strength. Its walls surround the broad top of an outlying hill which is connected with the watershed lying to the south only by the high ground in that direction. On either side it is cut off by the steep valleys of two mountain-streams flowing northward, which meet just below the modern village. These in turn are fed by small tributaries from just behind the hill, which is thus almost enclosed. From the point where these rise the fall is about a thousand feet to the confluence of the main streams two miles away; and though the descent of the latter is necessarily more gradual, they are still very rapid, and in the winter are foaming torrents. That on the eastern side in particular, the Beuyuk Kayanin, has by its force worn down its rocky bed so deeply that where it passes by the eastern knoll of the citadel, called Beuyuk Kaleh, its banks have become precipitous cliffs requiring little or no artificial defence.[478] The Yazîr Daresi, on the western side, flows through more alluvial ground, and has there scooped for itself a gorge, in the steep bank of which the harder rocks are left protruding, thus rendering an assault uninviting on that side also. The engineers who planned the defence utilised the natural advantages of the position, banking up the slopes, and bringing their wall wherever practicable to the edges of the rocks, in which all possible footholds were filled up with masonry.

PLATE LVIII

BOGHAZ-KEUI: SITE OF PTERIA, THE NORTHERN CAPITAL OF THE HITTITES

Beuyuk Kaleh. Sary Kaleh. Yenije Kaleh.

The Maiden’s Rock.

B. Kayanin Daresi. The Lower Palace.

The Acropolis covered the whole hill; the line of ancient ramparts forms the horizon on the right. (See pp. [32], [200].)

On the north side, where the line of defence is less clear, the ground is broken by a third small stream, the Kizlar Kaya Daresi, which rises within the circuit of the wall in the high ground of the acropolis, and now joins the Yazîr in the modern village at its foot. On the level ground, near this junction, there are the traces of an ancient rampart; but the line of natural defence being somewhat higher, it may reasonably be suspected that the enclosure was at some time extended in this direction, possibly in order to include the Lower Palace. However that may be, the really vulnerable point would seem to have been by way of the higher ground to the south, and here the artificial protection was stronger in proportion. The wall seems to have been built on this side upon a rampart revetted with stone, which in its turn followed the line of a natural ridge in the ground, giving an almost impregnable appearance to the enormous mass of the defensive works. So high is this mound that a narrow subterranean way was constructed through it, giving access to the interior.

The ground within, which we call the acropolis, is the flat top of the hill, around which the wall forms approximately three sides of a hexagon (omitting the northern portion which descends, as we have seen, to a lower level). The length of the wall upon the acropolis is about one and a half miles, and the greatest width across from east to west is about three-quarters of a mile. The whole circuit of the defences, including the lower portion, is about three miles and a half; while the greatest length from north to south upon the plan is about one mile and a quarter, of which about half lies on the upper level.

The city wall, though built without mortar, was constructed in such a way that it is still traceable continuously around the acropolis, and is preserved in many places to a height of twelve feet or more. It has an average thickness of about fourteen feet, made up of an inner and outer facing each about four feet thick, padded with a core of stone between. The outer face was especially strong, consisting of large stones sometimes as much as five feet in length (but averaging from two feet six inches at the bottom to one foot towards the top), dressed so as to fit cleanly together, with a preference for an approximately rectangular or five-sided form. The masonry was laid in courses as far as practicable with such material, but was liable to be interrupted by a stone larger than usual, or from other cause. Indeed, in some of the inner walls, where the masonry is less massive though similar in character, large stones have been inserted at intervals as a bond and to give general stability. The contour of the wall was further strengthened by buttresses or extra-mural towers, placed at intervals which varied according to the situation, averaging about a hundred feet apart. These do not seem to have been designed from principles of defence, but solely as architectural supports.[479]

PLATE LIX

BOGHAZ-KEUI: GORGE OF THE BEUYUK KAYANIN DARESI

On the left, Beuyuk Kaleh. (See [p. 200].)

Some of the original doorways leading through the wall seem to have been extremely small, not more than three feet in width. The subway under the southern rampart is also very narrow, but this was possibly a later addition. Its exit is a plain doorway, four feet wide, built of three granite blocks arranged as jambs and lintel; inside, the passage has a width of about five feet at the bottom, and is lined with stones in triangular arrangement, with the apex six feet from the floor. It is of interest to compare the principle of vaulting under pressure illustrated by its construction with the system of counterpoise employed in the arches of the larger gateways. These again may have been added since the original inception of the wall. In the vicinity of the Lion-gate, at any rate, the regular courses of the outer masonry give way at the corners, and in their place an arrangement of fitted stones, shaped to receive the corners and eccentricities of their neighbours, recalls the bonding of the palace walls in the lower portion of the interior. This may of course have been a deliberate original variation designed to strengthen the corners where the recess for the gate intervenes; and it is also obvious that some gateway wide enough to admit a cart or chariot must have been necessary at the beginning. Such, however, we are inclined to see in the unsculptured entrance, of similar character but smaller size, called Eshuk Tash, on the south-east of the town. The architectural principle, however, is in each case much the same, and maybe studied in the photograph of the Lion-gate itself.[480] This entrance is set back thirteen feet from the road, with an approach twenty feet across, narrowing to a clear space of thirteen feet between the jambs of the gateway. These main supports are of great size and weight; and while tending towards one another in a gentle curve as they rise, are so shaped and bonded to the wall that they stand in solid equilibrium. The height of these single stones is about twelve feet, and in the other gate mentioned about eleven feet. The latter illustrates more clearly the upper structure, in which the pointed arch was brought to its completion by repetition of the same principle of counterpoise. Each of the upper stones projected towards the other, while overhanging sufficiently in the opposite direction to retain its balance singly. Further details are not preserved, but the faces of these also must have been dressed to the curve of the arch, and if they did not approach one another close enough to touch, then the arch must have been completed by a fifth stone placed over all, as is indeed suggested in the case of the Eshuk Tash. In this way we gain a minimum height for the gateway, without superficial structure, of fifteen or sixteen feet. As the arch was repeated within at a distance of twenty-five feet, it is probable that the two spans supported a chamber or sentry-walk continuous with the parapet. Probably the mass of masonry to left and right indicates a guard-chamber flanking the approach on either side, in the well-known style later adopted by Roman engineers and finally transmitted to mediæval architecture.

We have dealt somewhat lengthily with the elementary details of this stronghold, but none the less deliberately; for the contemplation of this mass of masonry and the details of its execution is rewarded by an insight, which perhaps no other monument discloses, into the solidarity, power, skill and resource of the people whom it has so long survived. The famous Lions which guard this entrance are further witness to the standard of their civilisation, and are among the brightest products of their art. That on the right hand, which is almost perfectly preserved, illustrates a wealth of detail which the somewhat distant photograph does not show. The appropriate boldness and realism of the design, however, are manifest. This fashion of adorning the gateways, particularly with lions, as also at Sinjerli, Marash, and Sakje-Geuzi, is further paralleled by the sphinxes of Eyuk, and to some extent by the monstrous emblems in relief warding off trespassers from the inner gallery at Iasily Kaya.[481] In another gateway of the same character on this acropolis, Professor Winckler’s excavations have disclosed a high relief of a being clad in the Hittite tunic, shoes and hat, supposed at the time to represent a king,[482] but since recognised as a female warrior or Amazon.

PLATE LX

BOGHAZ-KEUI: THE LION GATE

The outer wall was not the only defensive work which the advantages of the site afforded. Across the enclosure are a series of prominent crags overlooking the lower ground to the north, and marking by their alignment the edge of the acropolis which gives access to them.[483] One may be tempted to presuppose, as indeed we have already suggested, that these indicate a line of earlier defences and the natural limits of an earlier city situated entirely upon the hill. They were crowned with rectangular forts, built of square blocks of masonry arranged in courses, and constituted in any case a formidable second line of defence against attack from below. That which is called Yenije Kaleh is illustrated by our photograph:[484] its position is not naturally so strong, however, as that of the middle of the three forts of this series, which presents a precipitous face to the northern side. The largest of these knolls—hence called Beuyuk Kaleh—is to the east, and overlooks the gorge of the river on that side.[485] To the north, however, where the slope descends to the lower part of the enclosure on which lie the famous palace ruins, it is less abrupt, and it has been fronted accordingly with a stout buttressed wall, built of large stones roughly pentagonal or squared, the lowest courses of which are from two to three feet in height.

Hereabouts, in the dip between the two forts last described, is the weathered rock inscription known as Nishan Tash.[486] Descending thence to the lower ground, following the course of the stream which flows through the middle of the enclosure, two further rocks arrest attention by the fact that they have been worked by hand. The first of these is called the Maiden’s Rock, and has given its Turkish name of Kizlar Kaya to the stream which passes just below it. Though of considerable dimensions, this rock, besides being dressed around the sides and worked down squarely in two places in the body, has been cleanly cut across the top with the exception of a small table-like protuberance remaining towards one end. The other, which lies still further down and nearer to the Lower Palace, has been cleft in two, to form as it were a passage through it from side to side. It would be unsafe without evidence to suggest any definite use for these rocks in ancient times, and it is possible that their peculiarities may have resulted only from the quarrying of the stone blocks used for the Lower Palace or other buildings of the site.

PLATE LXI

BOGHAZ-KEUI: THE FORTRESS CALLED YENIJE-KALEH (See [p. 205].)

BOGHAZ-KEUI: REMAINS OF THE LOWER PALACE

We use the term Lower Palace to designate the foundations made famous by the visit of Texier,[487] and the later descriptions of Professor Perrot,[488] in distinction to those more recently discovered by Dr. Winckler on the Upper Acropolis, where the ruins of four such buildings were found, of which three were probably palaces and the fourth a temple.[489] The lower courses of the first-mentioned palace, however, are visible above the ground, so that its plan may be readily traced out; and whether to be identified as palace or as a temple, it presents an interesting study, and a peculiar link between the architecture of the East and West.[490] As may be seen in our photograph,[491] that which remains of it is built in large single blocks of stone about four feet in thickness and averaging twice that measure in length. Its form is rectangular, with a length just over two hundred and ten feet down the main axis, and a width of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. Its chief entrance is in the middle of the southern side, and, passing small guard-rooms on either hand, it leads into a large central court, around which are chambers, a double series at the ends and a single series at the sides. To the north and to the west a passage or corridor intervenes between the court and the rooms: that on the north seems to have been entered by an opening opposite the main entrance, and one chamber (across the passage and to the left) is filled by a large tank or bath of stone. These portions of the building may be judged to have been residential, while the front and east wings were devoted to offices of the palace. There are few further features of the interior obvious to the eye except the size and arrangement of the rooms, on which we do not need to dwell. The central court is paved with rough stones[492] at a depth of three feet below the present surface, a depth which probably accords with the foundations of the walls and with the ancient level.

The sloping ground to the north was prepared for this building by a stone revetment mounting in steps; and special precautions were taken against slipping in the bonding of the masonry on that side. Not only are the stones of the upper courses shaped to fit into one another in a scheme of ‘joggles,’ resembling ‘tongues and grooves,’ to borrow a term better known, but the lower course is provided with a ridge rising along its front edges, which further prevented any general movement of the whole in that direction. As for the upper part of this structure, it is for the excavators to decide whether it was carried up in masonry, of which there remains no visible trace, or whether it was of wood and brick, as in the Hittite palaces across the Taurus. The level nature of the preserved masonry, and certain features pointed out by Perrot,[493] suggest that the latter method was employed here also, as is indeed supported by observations made by Dr. Curtius in one of the upper buildings recently discovered in the acropolis.[494]

To judge by the foundations disclosed at a greater depth by Dr. Winckler’s expedition, the palace which we have just described seems to mark the site of an earlier and somewhat similar building, in the ruins of which were found numerous precious tablets inscribed in the cuneiform script. These are long-lost pages in the history of monarchs, of empires and principalities in Western Asia, and as such their relevance lies with a later chapter of our work. That which is important for the moment is the fundamental date they give, overlapping in part the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties of Egypt, and coming to an end shortly after the reign of Rameses II. in the thirteenth century B.C.

PLATE LXII

BOGHAZ-KEUI: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE LOWER PALACE

With the modern village beyond.

We have no published means of estimating, from this source or otherwise, the history of the development of this ancient capital. But some conjectures, as a working hypothesis, may be made from the probabilities of the case with this date as a basis, awaiting meanwhile further illumination from Dr. Winckler and his colleagues. In the first place, as to the date of the main fortifications, though the period of empire is not often the time of building home defences, yet in this case the deliberate and vast nature of the outer walls conveys no impression of a stricken people hastening to defend themselves, nor even of precipitation. The scheme and details are carried out with dignity, thoroughness, and elaboration. It was the product of a prosperous age, dictated by prudence rather than immediate conscious necessity. Yet the pride of Hittite power soon passed; even while treating on equal terms with the courts of Thebes and Babylon, the shadow of the Assyrian armies already clouded the eastern horizon; and the menace of barbarian northern hordes was probably ever present, particularly as their offensive powers weakened. It may safely be supposed that their city must have been prepared against assault at any rate before the inroads of the Phrygian Muski, in the twelfth century B.C. And secondly, with regard to the palace just considered, built as it is upon the ruins of one which flourished in the time of Rameses the Great, it represents a reconstruction and re-establishment of royal state at some time subsequent. As to the date of this revival there is little evidence. From the plan of the palace it may be conjectured to have preceded any wide spreading of Assyrian influences; and from our own observations it was probably contemporary with a certain class of coloured pottery, which at Sakje-Geuzi[495] was already passing out of vogue at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. Upon this point it is interesting to notice that the difference of axial direction between this and the buried palace, namely, 2½°, would, if astronomically dictated, suggest a difference of date amounting to about two hundred and thirty years,[496] assigning the period of restoration to the eleventh century B.C.

Doubtless some clear evidence will be forthcoming with the progress of excavations; for the present we can only pay due regard to the few items of circumstantial evidence that are available. The absence of visible sculptures on the façade of the building, in contrast with the buildings of Eyuk, Sinjerli, and Sakje-Geuzi, is curiously significant. That phase of motive seems to be reflected rather in the two sculptured stones already mentioned as recently found somewhat further up the slope of Beuyuk Kaleh, at the foot of which the palace stands.[497] Two sculptured lions indeed are found lying in close proximity to the lower palace, those which were supposed by Texier and Perrot[498] to be the arms of a throne, but are now shown[499] to be the end ornaments of a tank, with a similar pair on the opposite side. These correspond both in style and in details of art with the lions guarding the palace entrance at Sakje-Geuzi,[500] which may be dated with some security to the tenth or ninth century B.C. If then the lions of Boghaz-Keui can be shown to have organic relation to the palace in the precincts of which they lie, then a basis for solution to the problem is obtained, and the date depends upon the range of time during which such sculptures were in vogue. But if, on the other hand, this tank was an addition to the palace, and of later date, as its partly exposed situation, above the level of the palace floor, suggests, then the palace is of earlier date, preceding the period when such sculptured lions were in fashion, a conclusion which our other considerations seem to justify. Incidentally we arrive at a possible date for certain sculptures of like kind, as the lion of Eyuk, and possibly the Lion Gateway of the acropolis.

PLATE LXIII

BOGHAZ-KEUI: CAMP AT THE FOOT OF BEUYUK KALEH

BOGHAZ-KEUI: THE SANCTUARY OF IASILY KAYA

View of the sculptures on the left side from within.

In conclusion we tentatively summarise the present possibilities of local development, which any new item of evidence may profoundly modify:

1350-1300 B.C.	Period of the earlier lower palace.
1300-1200 ”	Main fortifications built, temp. Hattusil.
1200-1100 ”	First Phrygian invasions.
1100-1000 ”	Lower palace reconstructed.
1000-850 ”	Period of Lion-sculptures.
850-700 ”	Phrygian domination.
700-600 ”	Cimmerians.
Circa 550 ”	Fall before Crœsus.