CHAPTER I. THE HITTITES
When we pass to the north and west from Syria and Mesopotamia, we enter a region by no means so well known as the home of the Semites. The peninsula of Asia Minor is so situated, geographically, that it is the only highway between Asia and Europe, much as Palestine is the highway between Asia and Africa. The peoples which inhabited it were therefore necessarily, in some sense, a buffer between the great nations of the two continents. For the most part, the rôle they played, at any rate in later history, was a comparatively insignificant one. It is becoming more and more evident, however, that there was a time in ancient history,—using the term in the ordinary or relative sense,—when the people who inhabited Asia Minor took a foremost rank among the nations of their time as a warlike and conquering race.
This people is known as the Hittite race: just who they were, or whence they came, we have no present means of ascertaining. They are vaguely referred to in the Bible records as descendants of Heth, son of Canaan, the son of Ham, and they are even mentioned as one of the seven Canaanite tribes, but no one nowadays ascribes great historical importance to these Hebrew records.
It is only recently that the students of ancient history have come to recognise the importance of the tribe bearing the name of Hittite; indeed, in so far as the Bible records throw any light upon them at all, it would now appear that the impression it conveyed was quite a faulty one, for the Hittites were represented as a people over whom the Hebrews were able to gain an advantage with great ease. It now appears that they were in point of fact one of the most powerful and warlike of ancient nations. There is one Bible narrative, familiar to every one, which would lead one to suppose that the Hittites were at times allies or subordinates of the Hebrews. It will be recalled that Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, was the wife of a man designated as Uriah the Hittite, at the time when she was seduced by David, and the further details of this shameful history, in which David shielded himself from the consequences of his misdeed by arranging what was substantially the assassination of Uriah, are only too clearly known to all readers of Biblical history. If, however, this Uriah were really a Hittite, it is quite clear that he must have been a man of some distinction, and in any event it is probable that the presence of a Hittite in the army of David was a quite exceptional circumstance, for at this time the Hittites were still a powerful nation, at least the equals, if not the superiors, of the Hebrews themselves.
The time of the greatest power of the Hittites, however, was some centuries earlier, for it is now known that this people is to be identified with the Kheta of the Egyptians and the Khatti of the Assyrians. It will be recalled that the Egyptians under Tehutimes III waged war against the Kheta, as did Seti in a later succeeding generation. But in particular the Kheta are memorable in Egyptian annals because of the great battle at Kadesh, their city on the Orontes, in which Ramses II so distinguished himself. It was this battle, it will be recalled, which is celebrated in that famous description still extant—a description which represents Ramses as combating single-handed against hosts of the enemy, and himself personally destroying the hundred thousand of his assailants. Making all due allowance for the manifest exaggeration usual in oriental inscriptions, it is conceded that Ramses actually gained the victory on this occasion; but it is also clear from the inscriptions that the people against whom this war was waged was regarded as one of the most powerful, if not the very most important, of contemporary nations.
At a slightly later period, when the new Assyrian empire was waxing strong, the Hittites found an enemy on the other side in Tiglathpileser, who defeated them in a memorable battle, as also a few centuries later did Ashurnazirpal. The latter prince, it would appear, completely subjected them and carried their princes into captivity. Yet they waxed strong again, and took up arms in alliance with Ben-Hadad of Syria against Shalmaneser II in the year 855; and though again defeated, their power was not entirely broken until the year 717 B.C., when Sargon utterly subjected them and deported the inhabitants of their city of Carchemish to a city of Assyria, repeopling it with his own subjects.
All these details of the contests of the Hittites against the Egyptians on the one hand and Assyrians on the other were quite unknown until the records of the monuments of Egypt and Assyria were made accessible through the efforts of recent scholars. But it now appears, judged only by the records of their enemies, that the Hittites were a very powerful and important nation for many centuries, and more recent explorations of Asia Minor have brought to light various monuments, which are believed to be records made by the Hittites themselves. To the delight and mystification of oriental scholars it was found that these monuments contained inscriptions in hieroglyphic characters of a kind quite different from any hitherto known. These inscriptions have been carefully studied, in particular by Professor Sayce who has made himself the greatest authority on the subject. As yet, however, very little progress has been made toward the decipherment of this new form of writing. It would appear, however,—at least, such is the opinion of Professor Sayce and others best competent to judge,—that this Hittite script is quite independent of any other form of writing of which we have any knowledge.
It has long been the opinion of scholars that the art of writing originated quite independently in at least four different centres; namely, China, Central America, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; but the discovery of the Hittite monuments seems to add a fifth form. It would be going much beyond the secure footing of present knowledge to assert positively that these five hieroglyphic scripts were really of absolutely independent origin. What we have already said of the vagueness of our knowledge of the early history of man applies with full force here, but with this qualification, it is held that the Hittite hieroglyphics are a thing utterly apart, and if, perchance, at some very remote period, they had the same point of departure as any of the other scripts, there are no present means of proving the fact. It is believed by Professor Sayce and others that the hieroglyphic syllabary found on the monuments of Cyprus is based on this Hittite system of hieroglyphics, and not upon those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Aside from their mystifying hieroglyphics, the recently discovered monuments of the Hittites have a peculiar interest because of their rude sculptures which, notwithstanding their primitive character as works of art, are quite unique and very individual. The figures of these sculptures are always represented as wearing a peculiar form of shoe with upturned toe; their headdress is also very typical, usually consisting of a high conical cap. These features, along with the other less marked ones, serve to show that the artist had in mind always to represent a characteristic ethnic type.
It is held by scholars that their language was equally characteristic and more sharply differentiated from any known contemporary tongue, and though the point is not yet as fully established as might be wished, it is thought that the evidence in hand justifies the conclusion that the Hittites were not a Semitic race. It has been even suggested that they had Mongoloid affinities. If such was the case, the Hittites were related rather to the people of the north and northeast—to the Scythians, perhaps even to the Chinese—than to their neighbours of the south. But all these questions must await the results of future investigations. For the moment the Hittites are only just beginning to be revealed to us as a great conquering nation of Western Asia, who at one time rivalled the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, but the memory of whose deeds had almost altogether faded from the minds of later generations.[a]
RECENT HITTITE RESEARCH
The results of recent Hittite research have been summarised by Charles W. Super. In essence, he says that during the past two decades no problems of antiquity have received more careful study and thorough investigation than have those connected with the history and civilisation of the people now known as the Hittites; and yet no historical data have been determined with sufficient certainty for a cautious student to draw conclusions even fairly definite. Something like order has been brought out of the pre-existing chaos of that nation’s history, and a few simple facts established; but the results of all this study have been largely conjectural, and the details of the researches, fascinating though they may be to the historian and the antiquarian, have but little interest or value to other students. What is known in a historical sense of this ancient people can be briefly outlined.
We are quite certain that several centuries before our era the Hittites founded a powerful empire in Western Asia, probably with outlying provinces in Africa, and even in Europe as far west as Italy. The greatness of this nation we are able to conjecture from the numerous references made to it in the Bible and Egyptian history, and from the mighty monuments of its power that still exist. The carved figures on these monuments and the representations given by the Egyptians, prove the Hittites to have been of an altogether different physical type from the Semites, and, therefore, of a different race; but their origin has not been clearly determined. The burden of proof appears to favour a Mongol ancestry, and is supported by physical and lingual characteristics common to both races.
Their primitive home is thought to have been in that part of Armenia where the Euphrates, the Halys, and Lycus approach nearest to one another; and it is even asserted that the modern Armenians are descendants of the old Hittites. From this point they began their career of conquests, probably under the leadership of some able and vigorous chief, whose ambition overleaped his native boundaries. One conquest led to another. Their leaders acquired great armies, and subdued many nations, until the Hittites became one of the most powerful peoples of ancient times, and their kings were able successfully to defy even Egypt, at that time the strongest nation on the globe. Then began their decline. They came in conflict with the more progressive Semitic race, and finally were subdued or exterminated by them.
This, in brief, gives the meagre results of modern Hittite research; but the details of the conjecture and theories evolved by the antiquarians concerning this remarkable people would fill many volumes, and be of interest only to historians and antiquarians. A few of the more important facts may be stated however.[ab]
Traces of Hittite influence have been discovered all over Asia Minor, and the oldest inhabitants of the peninsula seem to have been closely allied both by race and language with this non-Semitic people of northern Syria. Rather more than two thousand years before Christ the Hittites were, as the cuneiform inscriptions testify, the northwestern neighbours of the territory of the Euphrates. The great astrological work of the old king Sargon of Agade contains this entry:
“On the 16th (of the month of Abu) there was an eclipse; the king of Agade died; the god Nergal (i.e., war) devoured the land.
“On the 20th (of the month Abu) there was an eclipse; the king of the land of the Khatti made an attack (?) and gained possession of the throne.”
THE HITTITES AND THE EGYPTIANS
We do not again hear of the Hittites until near the close of the seventeenth century before Christ, but then it is from contemporary Egyptian records. Ramses I had made an offensive and defensive treaty with them, which a sense of their power encouraged them to break and thus involve themselves in a war with Seti I, in which the latter was successful.
In the fifth year of the reign of Ramses the Great a great war broke out between the Kheta and the Egyptians, and the king of the enemy, Kheta-sar, assembled his troops and auxiliaries at Kadesh. Various texts, amongst which is the famous heroic poem once credited to a copyist, Pentaur, have commemorated the great battle of Kadesh; in this way we may easily read between the lines that the triumph which Ramses gained there was a Pyrrhic victory.
It was followed by a peace between Ramses and Kheta-sar, a copy of which is still preserved on a stele of a southern wall of the great hypostyle of Karnak. This highly interesting document “compels,” as Ebers says, the greatest “respect for the high state of civilisation in the Asiatic kingdom and the advanced political organisation of the two nations bound by this document.” This treaty, which in Brugsch’s translation fills seven large octavo pages, emanated from the Kheta king who had a draft of it on a silver tablet submitted to Ramses in the twenty-first year of the latter’s reign. In the centre of this tablet was a portrait in relief of the chief god of the Kheta, “Sutekh, king of heaven and earth.” Ramses was glad to be able to end the long war in so honourable a fashion, and most willingly accepted the proposal of the great king of the Kheta, the “powerful.” We even know the nature of the characters which are engraved on that silver tablet, and can obtain, from a crowd of proper names, a clew to the family to which the Hittite language did, or, what is almost as good, to that to which it did not belong. We learn that it cannot in any case have been a Semitic tongue, and finally we are in a position to form a good idea from the representations on the walls of the Egyptian temples, as well as from recently discovered Hittite monuments, of the dress and even the colour of the skin of this ancient civilised nation. But first let us briefly outline the remainder of its history.
THE HITTITE LION, BEARING AN INSCRIPTION
(Now in British Museum)
We now come to the oldest inscription of the Assyrian kings, and there, on the stone-tablet of Adad-nirari I (ca. 1340 B.C.), we find that ruler at war with the people of the Lulumi and Shubari, two tribes in northern Syria. These northern countries are directly connected with the Hittites in the great royal annals of Tiglathpileser I (ca. 1100 B.C.), where Column ii. 89 runs, “The land of the Shubari the refractory, the insubordinate, I subdued; on the land of Alzi and the land of Purukhumi which had refused their tribute, I laid the yoke of my lordship; … four thousand inhabitants of Kashka, of Uruma, people of the land of Khatti, the insubordinate who in the pride of their strength had taken towns of the land of Shubartu which were subject to my lord Asshur; they heard of my march against Shubartu, the splendour of my strength overthrew them; they avoided a battle and embraced my feet.”
Further, in Column v. line 48, etc., “[The territory] of the region of the land of Sukhi to Kargamisch [the spelling here indicates the Bible Carchemish] in the land of the Khatti, I plundered in one day,” and finally by way of recapitulation in Column vi. 39, etc., “From the beginning of my rule to the fifth year of my reign my hand has conquered in the whole forty-two countries and defeated their princes from beyond the Lower Zab as far as to beyond the Euphrates and the land of Khatti and the Upper Sea towards the sunset (i.e., Phœnicia).”
From these inscriptions it seems that the term Shubartu (land of the Shubari) had a general significance, and denoted the whole of the mountainous territory in the north of Mesopotamia proper, that is east of Kummukh and on the hither side of the Euphrates. Thus neither Asshur-uballit nor Adad-nirari I penetrated to the narrower sphere of Hittite rule, and it was only towards the end of the twelfth century B.C. that Tiglathpileser I made war against it directly and with success.
This again confirms the view that the most flourishing period of the powerful kingdom of the Hittites and of its civilisation was in the fourteenth and perhaps also in the thirteenth century before Christ.
THE HITTITES AND THE HEBREWS
The Hebrew literature furnishes us with further information. From this we learn that in the year 1000 B.C. and later (in the time of David and Solomon) the Hittites were Israel’s neighbours on the northern frontier, and that intermarriages even took place between the Hittites and the Israelites. For Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, was an Israelitish woman of good family. So far south then did the power of the Hittites extend in the most ancient period of the Israelite kingdom, though the former had been already much endangered by the invasion of a new people, the Aramæans, who had probably wandered there as nomads from the eastern bank of the Euphrates.
In brief, those Hittites whom we had hitherto looked upon as more or less dim figures have suddenly revealed themselves to us in a new character, and it is almost impossible to say in what department of the science of antiquity they will not prove of pre-eminent importance. As regards Semitic antiquity in particular, they possibly possess the same value for a correct estimate of the relics of the civilisation of the northern Canaanites and the western Syrians as the Sumerians and Accadians have in respect to the civilisation of the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians and of the Hebrews. Further inquiry, and certainly rich accessions of material, will clear up many points at which it is at present only permissible to guess; and perhaps the immediate future may bring the most interesting conclusion, especially regarding their linguistic position and also in respect to their religious history.[c]
HITTITE ART
There is no originality in the Hittite art of Syria. It is Assyrian art, interpreted by barbarians and debased in the process. With the exception of one rude torso, found in Cilicia, and the inscribed statue of a lion from Marash, it is all in low relief, according to Assyrian precedent, and the costumes and attitudes of the figures have evidently been copied from the Assyrian, though we remark some difference of detail. For example, the Hittite Astarte, corresponding to the Istar of Babylon and similarly represented, has the special peculiarities of being winged and wearing a conical tiara.
The debasement of the art in Hittite hands is exhibited by a series of bas-reliefs found at Sindjerli, and another in a mound in the same district. The latter of these represents a lion hunt, evidently copied from some Ninevite model, but without any of the vigour which the Assyrians put into their sculptures. The animal appears to be submitting with perfect tranquillity, while he is stabbed to death with javelots.
Farther west, and especially in Cilicia, the sculptures become more original, but also more rude. The special attributes of the Hittites, as shown in these monuments, are the diadem, the women’s tall cap with a long veil, and the pointed shoes. The latter, however, are the ordinary wear of the modern populations of Asia Minor.
One canton of Cappadocia, the Pteria of Herodotus, contains many Hittite ruins. The village of Boghaz-Keui, its ancient capital, possesses bas-reliefs cut in the rock, and the remains of a royal palace having many points in common with those of Assyria. The same is true of the palace of Euiuk; but a sphinx, placed at the door, betrays an Egyptian influence, though details of its sculpture have been borrowed from Assyria.
Both influences are also apparent in the rock sculpture of Boghaz-Keui, called Iasili-Kaïa, “the written stone,” and with these the sculptures of the palace of Euiuk have much in common. But while the Assyrian monuments are in honour of the sovereigns, these of the Hittites all have a religious significance and refer to the worship of the god Men or the goddess Ma or Enio, who corresponds to Anaïtis or Astarte.
The tombs of Gherdek-Kaïasi, not far from Boghaz-Keui and Euiuk, seem also to belong to this Cappadocian civilisation. The façade of the principal vault has a portico with three short columns, somewhat suggestive of the Doric style. These tombs perhaps belong to a period not earlier than 549 B.C., the year when Crœsus ravaged Pteria.
To sum up, we may conclude with M. Perrot that the monuments of Boghaz-Keui and Euiuk, which bear witness to the primitive Cappadocian civilisation, have all, like those of northern Syria, come under the Assyrian influence. The palaces are like “a reduced copy of the great royal edifices of the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.” The winged figures, the monsters with eagles’ or lions’ heads, are Assyrian, as are also the divinities carried on the backs of different quadrupeds, the flowers in the hands of the persons represented, and the winged globe, the image of Asshur.
Certain features of the Cappadocian sculptures appear on as good evidence to be borrowed from Egypt, Persia, and even from the Greeks of Asia Minor; but this is the exception. In any case there is nothing in the Hittite art of Pteria that is original or shows individuality, if we except the two-headed eagle, which is evidently connected with the oldest Asiatic forms of worship and reminds us of the Sirens; and if we also except the long curved lituus, the dress cut in the shape of a chasuble, the pointed tiara, and the peaked shoes: details of costume more interesting from the point of view of fashion than from that of art.
As to the relations between the sculptures of Pteria and those of Hittite Syria they are obvious: we have the same hieroglyphics, the same short tunic, the same long robe, the same foot-gear, the same pointed tiara, and the same round cap. The female dress is almost identical at Marash and Iasili-Kaïa; the divinities have like attributes; the lion and the bull are animals which figure by preference in either place.
We may conclude that the same semi-barbarous nation, lacking the power to free itself, either artistically or politically, from the yoke of Egypt and Assyria, inhabited the two slopes of the Taurus.
HITTITE MONUMENTS IN ASIA MINOR
North of the Taurus and beyond the Halys, the monuments connected with Hittite civilisation are, as in Cappadocia, bas-reliefs carved on the sides of rocks or elsewhere. At Ivris, in Lycaonia, there is an inscription in Hittite hieroglyphics and also two colossal figures with unmistakably Assyrian characteristics, and at Iflatun, also in Lycaonia, the winged globe, the divine symbol both in Egypt and Assyria, can still be discerned on the fragment of a ruined building.
Farther west the Hittite monuments become more rare. Two bas-reliefs, which Herodotus mentions as having been carved by order of Ramses II, have been discovered in Lydia. They represent a warrior wearing the conical tiara, the short tunic and the peaked shoe. He is armed with a spear and bow. The style is the same as that of the bas-reliefs of Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia, and Syria.
The serpentine moulds which were used for manufacturing metal ornaments or charms are superior in workmanship, though here also the ideas represented are evidently Assyrian. But the best Hittite work was lavished on the glyptic art, as is shown by their seals and cylinders. A cylinder found at Aidin in Lydia even exhibits some originality in its ornamental border, though the scene represented is Assyrian.[e]
The districts of Asia Minor were repeatedly attacked and probably subjugated for considerable periods by the Hittite kings. Everywhere in Asia Minor they left monuments of their campaigns which exactly correspond in style with the monuments of Jerabis, and in part also bear remains of Hamathite inscriptions. Since the discovery of Jerabis there can be no further doubt as to their origin. Among their characteristic peculiarities is the costume, with a high pointed cap and pointed shoes; the figures are usually cut in profile, with widespread legs.
The first of these monuments is an inscribed relief at Ivris on the northern slope of the Taurus, which represents a prince in rich Assyrian costume worshipping a god who is standing and bearing grapes and ears of corn.
Then there are sculptures on the wall of an ancient building at Iflatun on Lake Karaliti in Isauria, and the figure of a warrior in Iconium.
From here the Hittites penetrated into Phrygia and to the coast of the Ægean Sea. On a cliff below the ancient fortress Giaurkalesi in Phrygia (southwest of Ancyra) are the figures of two Hittite warriors wearing a modification of the Egyptian uræus serpent on the front of their caps. The two famous reliefs of Nymphæum on the cliffs of Sipylus which are mentioned in Herodotus and on which remains of Hamathite inscriptions have been preserved, are quite similar. There is also on Sipylus, near Magnesia, a rude rock-sculpture with symbols of the same alphabet, which perhaps represents a goddess, and was looked upon by the Greeks as Niobe.
But the ruins and sculptures found at Euiuk and Boghaz-Keui, east of the Halys, in Cappadocian territory, are the most important and extensive. At the former place are the ruins of a great palace, with an entrance guarded by two sphinxes; on the walls are numerous sculptures of gods and men, lions, bulls, and beings of mixed form, among them a double-headed eagle. At Boghaz-Keui are the ruins of an ancient fortress (the Pteria of Herodotus?), and the walls of a rocky gorge show a long procession, presumably of a religious character. The most important symbols on all these monuments are modifications of the winged sun-disk.
These monuments enable us to perceive clearly the extent of the Hittite conquests. From now on Carchemish, instead of the valley of the Orontes, forms the centre of the Hittite realm, and evidently becomes the residence of the kings. Aside from this, however, only very uncertain reports of these wars have come down to us.
One passage in the Odyssey says that Neoptolemus killed Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, prince of the Κήτειοι, who is later always called prince of Teuthrania; evidently a trace of the name of the Hittites has been preserved here.
Perhaps we may also detect a reminiscence of their campaigns in the Greek legend of the Ethiopian Memnon, son of the dawn, who undertook great campaigns and hastened to the aid of Priam. Herodotus (II, 106) says that the reliefs of Nymphæum, which he claims for Sesostris, were declared by others to be portraits of Memnon. In other respects, however, the dim tradition that the Greeks preserved of these conquests was transferred to the Egyptians (expeditions of Sesostris to Asia Minor and Thrace) and the Assyrians. Moreover, when Lydian tradition connects the royal family of the Heraclidæ with Ninus the son of Belus, the legendary representatives of the Assyrians have perhaps here taken the place of the Hittites, for the Assyrians did not come into direct contact with the Lydians until the seventh century.
A further reminiscence of the wars of the Lydians and the Hittites is perhaps contained in two fragments of the Lydian Xanthus, which refer to the expeditions of the Lydian hero Mopsus (Moxos?) and Askalus, brother of Tantalus, to Syria and especially to Askalon.
The effects of the Syrian conquest upon Asia Minor were permanent in an unusual degree. It has long been recognised that the names of the Lydian kings Sadyattes and Alyattes, and also Myattes, are Semitic forms; now we may perhaps venture the conjecture that the Lydian royal family of the Heraclidæ was of Hittite origin. Furthermore, we can now identify the god Attes (Attys) of Asia Minor directly with the Syrian Ate and ascribe to him a foreign origin. In fact, the religion of Asia Minor shows a very intimate connection with that of the Semites, which, however, could not hitherto be explained with certainty.[d]
Hittite Bas-relief at Ibreez, Lycaonia
