The Hittites: The story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

The ivory couches of Carchemish, however, were not employed at meals, as they would have been in Assyria or among the Greeks and Romans of a later day. Like the Egyptians, the Hittites sat when eating, and their chairs were provided with backs as well as with curiously-formed footstools. The food was placed on low cross-legged tables, which resembled a camp-stool in shape.

At times, as we may gather from a bas-relief at Merash, they entertained themselves at a banquet with the sounds of music. Several different kinds of musical instruments are represented on the monuments, among which we may recognise a lyre, a trumpet, and a sort of guitar. It is evident that they were fond of music, and had cultivated the art, as befitted a people to whom wealth had given leisure. A curious indication of the same leisured ease is to be found in a sculpture at Eyuk, where an attendant is depicted carrying a monkey on his shoulders. Those only who enjoyed the quiet of a peaceful and wealthy life would have gratified the taste for animals which the monuments reveal, by importing an animal like the monkey from the distant south. The Hittites were doubtless a warlike people when they first swooped down upon the plains of Syria, but they soon began to cultivate the arts of peace and to become one of the great mercantile peoples of the ancient world.

We learn from the Books of Kings that horses and chariots were exported from Egypt for the Hittite princes, the Israelites serving as intermediaries in the trade. But they must also have obtained horses from the north, and perhaps have bred them for themselves. The prophet Ezekiel tells us (xxvii. 14) that 'they of Togarmah traded' in the fairs of Tyre 'with horses and horsemen and mules,' and Togarmah has been identified with the Tul-Garimmi of the Assyrian inscriptions, which was situated in Komagênê. In the wars between Egypt and Kadesh a portion of the Hittite army fought in chariots, each drawn by two horses, and holding sometimes two, sometimes three men. The chariots were of light make, and rested on two wheels, usually furnished with six spokes.

The army was well-disciplined and well-arranged. Its nucleus was formed of native-born Hittites, who occupied the centre and the posts of danger. Around them were ranged their allies and mercenaries, under the command of special generals. The native infantry and cavalry also obeyed separate captains, but the whole host was led by a single commander-in-chief.

We have yet to be made acquainted with the details of their domestic architecture. The ground-plan of their palaces has been given us at Boghaz Keui and Eyuk, at Carchemish and Sinjirli, and we know that they were built round a central court of quadrangular form. We know too that the entrance to the palace was, like that to an Egyptian temple, flanked by massive blocks of stone on either side, and approached by an avenue of sculptured slabs. We have learned, moreover, that the palace was erected on raised terraces or mounds; but beyond this we know little except that use was made of a pillar without a base, which had been originally derived from Babylonia, the primitive home of columnar architecture.

About the Hittite dress we have fuller information. Apart from the snow-shoes or mocassins which have helped to identify their monumental remains, we have found the Hittites wearing on their heads two kinds of covering, one a close-fitting skull-cap, the other a lofty tiara, generally pointed, but sometimes rounded at the top or ornamented, as at Ibreez, with horn-like ribbons. The pointed tiara was adorned with perpendicular lines of embroidery. At Boghaz Keui the goddesses have what has been termed the mural crown, resembling as it does the fortified wall of a town.

The robes of the women descended to the feet. This was also the case with the long sleeved garment of the priests, but other men wore a tunic which left the knees bare, and was fastened round the waist by a girdle. Over this was thrown a cloak, which in walking left one leg exposed. In the girdle was stuck a short dirk; the other arms carried being a spear and a bow, which was slung behind the back. The double-headed battle-axe was also a distinctively Hittite weapon, and was carried by them to the coast of the Ægean, where in the Greek age it became the symbol of the Karian Zeus, and of the island of Tenedos. All these weapons were of bronze, or perhaps of iron; but there are indications that the Hittite tribes had once contented themselves with tools and weapons of stone. Near the site of Arpad Mr. Boscawen purchased a large and beautiful axe-head of highly polished green-stone, which could, however, never have been intended for actual use. It was, in fact, a sacrificial weapon, surviving in the service of the gods from the days when the working of metal was not yet known. Like other survivals in religious worship, it bore witness to a social condition that had long since passed away. A small axe-head, also of polished green-stone, was obtained by myself from the neighbourhood of Ephesos, and bears a remarkable resemblance in form to the axe-head of Arpad. The importance of this fact becomes manifest when we compare the numerous other weapons or implements of polished stone found in Western Asia Minor, which exhibit quite a different shape. It permits the conclusion that both Arpad and Ephesos were seats of Hittite influence, and that in both the same form of stone implement—a survival from an earlier age of stone—was dedicated to the service of the gods.

The dresses of cloth and linen with which the Hittites clothed themselves were dyed with various colours, and were ornamented with fringes and rich designs. That of the priest at Ibreez is especially worthy of study. Among the patterns with which it is adorned are the same square ornament as is met with on the tomb of the Phrygian king Midas, and the curious symbol usually known as the 'swastika,' which has become so famous since the excavations of General di Cesnola in Cyprus, and of Dr. Schliemann at Troy. The symbol recurs times without number on the pre-historic pottery of Cyprus and the Trojan plain; but no trace of it has ever yet been found in Egypt, in Assyria, or in Babylonia. Alone among the remains of the civilised nations of the ancient East the rock-sculpture of Ibreez displays it on the robe of a Lykaonian priest. Was it an invention of the Hittite people, communicated by them to the rude tribes of Asia Minor, along with the other elements of a cultured life, or was it of barbarous origin, adopted by the Hittites from the earlier population of the West?

Before we can answer this question we must know far more than we do at present about that long-forgotten but wonderful race, whose restoration to history has been one of the most curious discoveries of the present age. When the sites of the old Hittite cities have been thoroughly explored, when the monuments they left behind them have been disinterred, and their inscriptions have been deciphered and read, we shall doubtless learn the answers to this and many other questions that are now pressing for solution. Meanwhile we must be content with what has already been gained. Light has been cast upon a dark page in the history of Western Asia, and therewith upon the sacred record of the Old Testament, and a people has advanced into the forefront of modern knowledge who exercised a deep influence upon the fortunes of Israel, though hitherto they had been to us little more than a name. At the very moment when every word of Scripture is being minutely scrutinised, now by friends, now by foes, we have learnt that the statement once supposed to impugn the authority of the sacred narrative is the best witness to its truth. The friends of Abraham, the allies of David, the mother of Solomon, all belonged to a race which left an indelible mark on the history of the world, though it has been reserved in God's wisdom for our own generation to discover and trace it out.