The Hittites: The story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

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.

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.