Fig. 148.—De Luynes’ bas-relief (Cabinet des médailles).
CHAPTER VI.
THE HITTITES.[65]
The name of Hittites (Khatti, Kheta) appears simultaneously in the Bible, the hieroglyphic documents, and the cuneiform texts. It is given to populations of different origin who inhabited Syria from the Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, and also Cappadocia and the greater part of Asia Minor from the mountains of Armenia to the banks of the Halys and the Hermus. But the country which was particularly the centre of the Hittite dominions, and in which they established a homogeneous and lasting empire, is Northern Syria, that is to say, the territory which extends from the great bend of the Euphrates to the Orontes, and from the limits of the Aramæan oases of Palmyra and Damascus to the mountains of the Taurus. On the Euphrates they built the fortress of Carchemish (Jerablus), which remained like a threatening challenge in the face of Nineveh until the day when, about the year B.C. 710, the Assyrians gained possession of it; on the Orontes their chief towns were Kadesh and Hamath. It is among the ruins of these cities or in the neighbouring country, including Cilicia, a geographical appendage of Syria, and also among the sparsely scattered ruins of Cappadocia and Asia Minor, that the remains of Hittite civilisation have recently been discovered, and that the works of its peculiar art have been found which we are about to describe in a few words.
§ I. Hittite Monuments in Syria.
Fig. 149.—The lion of Marash (after Wright, pl. 27).
The Hittite art of Syria is derived from Assyrian art; it has nothing original either in the conception of its forms or in its technical execution. To characterise it in one word, we might call it Assyrian art interpreted by barbarians. In all its manifestations it is inferior to its model, like the works of the barbarians who copied Greek and Roman art. In imitation of the Assyrians, the Hittites confined themselves almost exclusively to sculpture in bas-relief. At Marash, on the Pyramus in Cilicia, it is true, a fragmentary torso has been obtained; but this is almost the only example of a Hittite statue in the round that we can cite. This figure, of coarse workmanship, is dressed in a fringed cloak like that which is to be seen everywhere on the walls of Ninevite palaces.[66]