Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §2, (3), [p. 70].
The discoveries at Carchemish included Hittite inscriptions, one of which is said to be longer than any Hittite writing yet discovered. A number of stone deities were also found, one of which is a bearded god of the eighth century B. C. seated on a heavy base supported by two lions. Three large gateways were found. On the inside of the court of one of these were dadoes from five to six feet high, “with sculptured slabs of alternating black diorite and white limestone adorned with carved figures of bulls, horses, and chariots.” The acropolis was surmounted by the ruins of a palace of King Sargon of Assyria, who conquered Carchemish, and by the ruins of a Roman palace. An avenue of broad steps, more than a hundred feet long, led up to these.
II
Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §3, to be read after (7) on [p. 74].
(8) Hrozny, a Hungarian scholar, published in the Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, No. 56 (December, 1915), a new study of the problem of Hittite decipherment. Owing to the war the publication has not reached the writer. An excellent résumé of it has, however, been published by Professor J. H. Moulton in the Expository Times, xxviii, 106 ff. (December, 1916).
It appears that in April, 1914, Professor Hrozny and Doctor Figulla went to Constantinople and copied cuneiform inscriptions from Boghaz Koi until the war recalled them. Hrozny’s study is based on this cuneiform material. He reaches the conclusion that Hittite is not only an Indo-European language, but that it also belongs to the western half of the Indo-European family. In other words, he finds it more closely related to Greek, Latin, Keltic, and the Teutonic tongues than to the Slavonic, Lithuanian, Armenian, and Persian languages, or to Sanscrit and its daughters. According to Hrozny, then, the Hittites came from western Europe, or the center from which the western European peoples radiated. He thinks they crossed into Asia by way of the Bosphorus. He supports his contention by some most interesting philological analogies. The Mitanni, on the other hand, belonged, he thinks, to the eastern half of the Indo-European family. They were closely related to the Slavs, Lithuanians, Armenians, Persians, etc. The indications seem to be that they entered Asia by way of the Caucasus. We await further evidence with great interest.
III
Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §9, [p. 102].
Professor George L. Robinson, who was in Jerusalem in the spring of 1914 as Director of the American School, has published in the American Journal of Archæology, Vol. XXI, p. 84 (January-March, 1917), a brief statement of the discoveries on Ophel and at Balata. He mentions the finding on Ophel of a tower with rock-cut foundations, certain cave-tombs with oval roofs, a cistern with Roman baths, an inn, a Greek inscription (which tells of a synagogue), and an underground, rock-cut aqueduct, running parallel to and probably older than that of Hezekiah, which conducts the water of Gihon to the Pool of Siloam.
At Balata the foundations of old Hebrew houses were discovered, together with a portion of the Amorite city-wall, which was thick and oblique. The ruins of a palace were also found and a great triple gateway, the longest yet excavated in Palestine. This gate was on the west of the city. Near the tell an Egyptian sarcophagus was found, which some have thought might be the coffin of Joseph.