The archæology of the cuneiform inscriptions

by A. H. Sayce

A certain amount of this Hittite language of Arzawa can be deciphered, thanks to those same determinatives and ideographs which have assisted so materially towards the decipherment of the Vannic texts, and more especially to the recurrence in the two Tel el-Amarna letters of phrases that are common to the whole correspondence. The new tablet, however, is more than usually helpful, since it contains Assyrian words and grammatical forms which in parallel passages of the same text are replaced by native equivalents. In this way a sketch of Arzawan grammar can now be made, as well as a list of Arzawan words. The language which is thus disclosed is of an Asianic type, with features that remind us of Lycian on the one side, and of Mitannian and Vannic on the other. But in what may be termed the fundamentals of grammar it agrees with Mitannian and Vannic.

At the same time, certain of these same fundamentals have a curious but superficial resemblance to what we have hitherto been accustomed to regard as characteristics of Indo-European grammar. The nominative and accusative of the noun, for example, are distinguished by the suffixes -s and -n, the plural nominative and accusative often terminate in -s, and the possessive pronouns of Arzawan are mi-s, “mine”; ti-s, “thine”; and sa(s), “his”; while si is “(to) her.” The third person of the present tense ends in -t; es-tu, is “may it be”; es-mi, “may I be.” Yet with all these remarkable coincidences, I can assure the comparative philologist that Arzawan is certainly not an Indo-European language, and I must leave him to explain them as best he may.

ONE OF THE PROCESSIONS IN THE RAVINE OF BOGHAZ.

(See p. [174].)

We have, however, learnt a good deal more about the Hittite populations of Asia Minor from the Tel el-Amarna tablets than the nature of the language which they spoke. In the closing days of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty we find them on the southern side of the Taurus, sending forth bands of adventurers, who hired their services to the king of Egypt and to the rival governors and princes of Palestine, and from time to time carved out principalities of their own with the sword. We are even able to follow the fortunes of some of the leaders of the condottieri, who had no scruple in transferring their allegiance from one vassal prince to another when tempted by the prospect of better pay, or in murdering their employer when the opportunity arose, and plundering or occupying his city. They had, it is true, a wholesome awe of Egyptian power and of the Egyptian army, and some of the letters they wrote to the Egyptian court are amusing examples of the excuses they offered for their misdeeds. But they never hesitated about seizing the Pharaoh’s property when they thought they could do so with impunity, while they were all the time professing to be his devoted slaves. A considerable number of the vassal princes of Canaan kept these mercenaries in their pay, and in many cases the Egyptian Foreign Office thought it wisest to confirm one of their leaders in the government of a district, however doubtful might have been the means by which it had come into his hands. So long as the tribute was paid, and the imperial authority acknowledged, no further questions were asked. The mercenaries were useful at times to the imperial forces, and the mutual jealousies and quarrels of the local governors were perhaps not altogether displeasing to the home Government.[144]

In this way bands of Hittite mercenaries came to be settled in various parts of Palestine, even in the extreme south. The sons of Arzawaya, “the Arzawan,” established themselves in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, whose king, by the way, seems to bear a Mitannian name. The statement in the Book of Genesis that Heth was the son of Canaan receives a new signification from the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

But Hittite influence in Southern Palestine goes back to an earlier epoch than the age of the tablets. The painted pottery found in the “Amorite” strata of Lachish and Gezer shows remarkable affinities to the pottery discovered by Chantre at Boghaz Keui, and Mr. J. L. Myres has succeeded in tracing it in a fairly continuous line to the region north of the Halys.[145] Here was found the red ochre—or sandarakê, as it was called—which was used in the decoration of the pottery, and after the introduction of two other colours still remained the principal feature in the system of ornamentation. This Hittite or Cappadocian pottery was carried westward along the road which led from Boghaz Keui towards the Troad, and south-eastwards across the Taurus into Syria. It was probably the ultimate origin of the painted Minoan or “Kamâres” pottery of Krete.

The introduction of Hittite pottery into Canaan where it tended to supersede the native ware, was doubtless the result of trade. But in ancient Asia the trader and the soldier were very apt to march side by side. The soldier opened the way for the trader and kept it for him, quite as much as the trader opened it for the soldier. Hence it is not surprising that the Assyrian monuments should furnish incidental evidence of the Hittite occupation of Palestine at an early date. In the inscriptions of Babylonia, as we have seen, Palestine and Syria are “the land of the Amorites”; the name went back to an immemorial antiquity, and indicates that at the time it was first given the Amorites were the ruling population in the West. But in the Assyrian inscriptions the place of the Amorites is taken by the Hittites. For the Assyrians, Syria is “the land of the Hittites,” and in the later historical texts even the Israelites and Philistines are classed as “Hittite.”[146]

Canaan, however, was already well known to the Assyrians in the age of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, when the ambassadors of the Assyrian king carried letters and presents through it to the Pharaoh. It must, therefore, have been at a still earlier period that they first became acquainted with it, and at this period Hittite influence must have been so predominant as to cause them to discard the name of Amorite, consecrated though it was by the long-continued usage of Babylonian literature, and to employ instead of it the name of Hittite.