They shaved off both moustache and beard, but gave free growth to their hair, which they divided into two or three locks, and allowed to fall upon their backs and breasts. The king’s head-dress, which was distinctive of royalty, was a tall pointed hat, resembling to some extent the white crown of the Pharaohs. The dress of the people, taken all together, was of better and thicker material than that of the Syrians or Egyptians. The mountains and elevated plateaus which they inhabited were subject to extraordinary vicissitudes of heat and cold. If the summer burnt up everything, the winter reigned here with an extreme rigour, and dragged on for months: clothing and footgear had to be seen to, if the snow and the icy winds of December were to be resisted. The character of their towns, and the domestic life of their nobles and the common people, can only be guessed at. Some, at least, of the peasants must have sheltered themselves in villages half underground, similar to those which are still to be found in this region. The town-folk and the nobles had adopted for the most part the Chaldæan or Egyptian manners and customs in use among the Semites of Syria. As to their religion, they reverenced a number of secondary deities who had their abode in the tempest, in the clouds, the sea, the rivers, the springs, the mountains, and the forests. Above this crowd there were several sovereign divinities of the thunder or the air, sun-gods and moon-gods, of which the chief was called Khâti, and was considered to be the father of the nation. They ascribed to all their deities a warlike and savage character. The Egyptians pictured some of them as a kind of Râ,* others as representing Sit, or rather Sûtkhû, that patron of the Hyksôs which was identified by them with Sit: every town had its tutelary heroes, of whom they were accustomed to speak as if of its Sûtkhû—Sûtkhû of Paliqa, Sûtkhû of Khissapa, Sûtkhû of Sarsu, Sûtkhû of Salpina. The goddesses in their eyes also became Astartés, and this one fact suggests that these deities were, like their Phoenician and Canaanite sisters, of a double nature—in one aspect chaste, fierce, and warlike, and in another lascivious and pacific. One god was called Mauru, another Targu, others Qaui and Khepa.**
* The Cilician inscriptions of the Græco-Roman period reveal
the existence in this region of a god, Rho, Rhos. Did this
god exist among the Khâti, and did the similarity of the
pronunciation of it to that of the god Râ suggest to the
Egyptians the existence of a similar god among these people,
or did they simply translate into their language the name of
the Hittite god representing the sun?
** The names Mauru and Qaui are deduced from the forms
Maurusaru and Qauisaru, which were borne by the Khâti: Qaui
was probably the eponymous hero of the Qui people, as Khâti
was of the Khâti. Tarku and Tisubu appear to me to be
contained in the names Targanunasa, Targazatas, and
Tartisubu; Tisubu is probably the Têssupas mentioned in the
letter from Dushratta written in Mitannian, and identical
with the Tushupu of another letter from the same king, and
in a despatch from Tarkondaraush. Targu, Targa, Targanu,
resemble the god Tarkhu, which is known to us from the
proper names of these regions preserved in attributes
covered by each of these divine names, and as to the forms
with which they were invested.
Drawn by Faucher-
Gudin, from a
picture in Lepsius.
Khatusaru, King of
the Khâti,who was
for thirty years
a contemporary
of Ramses II.
Tishubu, the Rammân of the Assyrians, was doubtless lord of the tempest and of the atmosphere; Shausbe answered to Shala and to Ishtar the queen of love;* but we are frequently in ignorance as to the Assyrian and Greek inscriptions. Kheba, Khepa, Khîpa, is said to be a denomination of Rammân; we find it in the names of the princesses Tadu-khîpa, Gilu-khîpa, Puu-khîpa.
The majority of them, both male and female, were of gigantic stature, and were arrayed in the vesture of earthly kings and queens: they brandished their arms, displayed the insignia of their authority, such as a flower or bunch of grapes, and while receiving the offerings of the people were seated on a chair before an altar, or stood each on the animal representing him—such as a lion, a stag, or wild goat. The temples of their towns have disappeared, but they could never have been, it would seem, either-large or magnificent: the favourite places of worship were the tops of mountains, in the vicinity of springs, or the depths of mysterious grottoes, where the deity revealed himself to his priests, and received the faithful at the solemn festivals celebrated several times a year.*
* The association of Tushupu, Tessupas, Tisubu, with Rammânu
is made out from an Assyrian tablet published by Bezold: it
was reserved for Say ce and Jensen to determine the nature
of the god. Shausbe has been identified with Ishtar or Shala
by Jensen.
We know as little about their political organisation as about their religion.* We may believe, however, that it was feudal in character, and that every clan had its hereditary chief and its proper gods: the clans collectively rendered obedience to a common king, whose effective authority depended upon his character and age.**
* The religious cities and the festivals of the Greek epoch
are described by Strabo; these festivals were very ancient,
and their institution, if not the method of celebrating
them, may go back to the time of the Hittite empire.
** The description of the battle of Qodshû in the time of
Ramses II. shows us the King of the Khâti surrounded by his
vassals. The evidence of the existence of a similar feudal
organisation from the time of the XVIIIth dynasty is
furnished by a letter of Dushratta, King of Mitanni, where
he relates to Amenôthes IV. the revolt of his brother
Artassumara, and speaks of the help which one of the
neighbouring chiefs, Pirkhi, and all the Khâti had given to
the rebel.