The Hittites: The story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

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 Phœnician 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 Phœnician 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.