SAKJE-GEUZI: SPHINX-PEDESTAL TO CENTRAL COLUMN OF PORTICO
Before passing from the subject of this portico, we must mention also two broad steps which obviously formed part of the same building. They are decorated chiefly with rosettes, and seem to have given access to an inner chamber, the connection of which with the threshold is not yet clear.
In regard to the art illustrated by these subjects in general they lead us, after careful comparison with other Hittite monuments and with the ‘Aramaic’ monuments of Sinjerli,[699] to the conclusion that they represent an intermediate stage between the one and the other.[700] We cannot, from the internal evidence, decide whether this appearance is due to the influence of Hittite dominion over an Aramæan population, or to the supersession of a Hittite stronghold by Semitic rulers.
The excavations which have been made at Sakje-Geuzi have not as yet been rewarded by any documentary evidence. An effort was made to obtain some material basis for chronology by cutting a section of the mound down to the undisturbed ground upon which it had grown. It was found that the whole mound was artificial, being the accumulated rubbish of continuous or successive settlements. It began in remote antiquity with the middens and other traces of a primitive neolithic population, whose flint and obsidian fragments and black pottery formed a distinct deposit, in which the excavators thought they detected three strata. That age was succeeded by two others, during which the neolithic culture remained predominant. Towards the end of this phase a new style of painted pottery began to make its appearance, and thereafter for two long ages painted motives typify the Ceramic art of the locality. The main wall of the mound was built at the close of the last of these periods, and it seems to have been contemporary with the construction of the palace within. Subsequently painted pottery appears only sporadically, and such fragments as were found are more definitely related to late Ægean art, while the commoner pottery was the hard burnt brick-like ware familiar on Assyrian sites.[701]
There can be no doubt that in this record of two thousand fragments of pottery in their original stratification, there is valuable material for future comparative study. For the present, however, that which prevents the immediate application of this material to the problem of chronology is the remarkable fact that nearly all the early painted fabrics,[702] which constitute by far the larger portion of objects found in the course of this section, seem to be local, or at any rate unlike any others upon record. In the course of future excavations in this and other localities, doubtless relations will be established which will enable archæologists to connect the growth of this site with the established chronology of some civilisation like that of Egypt or Assyria. For the present the only relations suggested, and these are not clearly established, are firstly, in regard to the black pottery, sometimes decorated with a white incised pattern, which resembles in general character that found sparsely in the Troad by Schliemann[703] and by Dr. Arthur Evans in the neolithic and earliest ‘Minoan’ strata of Crete;[704] secondly, a few fragments of a peculiar fabric with black pattern on yellow base, belonging at Sakje-Geuzi to the neolithic epoch, and corresponding closely to some of the age of Naram-Sin, found freely by M. de Morgan in his excavations at Susa;[705] and, thirdly, some general resemblance between individual fragments of the painted fabrics and those found by Dr. Pumpelly in Turkestan,[706] by Professor Petrie in the Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty at Abydos,[707] and more especially by Dr. Evans in the early Minoan strata of Crete.[708] The precise nature of these suggested relations is not yet made clear, but for our purpose it is of interest to realise that it is so remote. So far as its Ceramic art is concerned, the Hittite civilisation for many ages developed independently. Further, it is established that the growth of that civilisation may be traced back in the locality for several thousand years, a fact which these excavations have for the first time demonstrated.
VI
THE STORY OF THE HITTITES
In this concluding chapter we shall endeavour to relate the material evidences of Hittite handiwork to the story of their doings. The monuments have been described, their disposition noted, and in some cases the materials for dating them have been defined; but the outline of Hittite history as sketched in the second chapter remains to be filled in with such details as can be gleaned from the literary sources both old and new. The old sources are well known. They include the letters found at Tell el Amarna,[709] the decorative scenes and inscriptions on the walls of Egyptian temples,[710] and the archives of the Babylonian and Assyrian kings. In our use of these we must rely on the published translations and critical discussions of philologists,[711] which we can do with more reliance in that this branch of investigation is associated with such names as Maspero, Meyer, Müller, Sayce, Winckler, Hommel, Knudtzon, Reinach. The new sources are the archives of the Hatti kings, the first dynasty of the Hittites yet visible to history, discovered recently amid the ruins of their capital at Boghaz-Keui.[712] These documents are at the beginning contemporary with the Tell el Amarna letters, which they supplement and substantiate, and they range in date practically as far as the Egyptian references, by the side of which they provide a series of important synchronisms. These new archives have not yet been published in full, so that we do not reap the advantage of others’ criticisms in this case. But Dr. Winckler has given the world the first fruits of his labours,[713] which embody the materials for many long-lost pages of oriental history. These we have endeavoured to analyse, for they are difficult and obscurely put forward, and we shall express them in what appears to us to be their historical sequence and relationship.
As usual, however, in these investigations, the purely archæological evidences throw light on the settlement of the Hittites long before the earliest literary allusions. The mound of Sakje-Geuzi,[714] at the southern foot of Taurus, illustrates the development of local culture during a continuous occupation of the site throughout a period which is not overestimated as beginning before 3000 B.C. and lasting down to the time of Assyrian domination. We have already seen that the earliest settlers shared some features of their neolithic culture in common with Susa on the one hand and the Troad and even Crete on the other.[715] Was all western Asia and the Ægean infused with a common germ of civilisation in those days, or was this settlement in remote antiquity an incident in a migration from one point to the other? Unfortunately we have no collateral evidence as to the plateau of Asia Minor to help in answering these questions; yet if the Hittite culture had taken root in the north of Syria before the second millennium B.C., it may readily be believed that it had been planted equally long upon the tableland, where in historic times its chief power is found. The high standard of Hittite culture, as revealed by their own archives and monuments at the dawn of their history in the fourteenth century B.C., argues in itself a long period of settlement and development under civilised conditions; while a long contact with the culture of the Euphrates valley is indicated also by the fact that their earliest international correspondence was conducted in the Assyro-Babylonian language, while their scribes had sufficient intimacy with the cuneiform system of writing to be able to apply it to their own language, which was radically different. The great deities of the Hittite pantheon also have their prototypes in Babylonia.
Of what stock, then, were these early settlers, and whence did they come? Did they form part of a great migration from the East, like the Turks in modern history, according to an old school of thought? were they Semitic? or did they pass like the Phrygian conquerors, from Europe into Asia, absorbing and adopting Eastern thought and habits, a veritable mirage orientale? That the Hittites were not autochthonous, if such a term has any meaning, is apparent already, and will become more clear as we proceed, from the complexity of their pantheon and the mingled elements of their peoples. We must from the outset beware also of the pitfall of inconsistent terminology. The name Hittite is commonly employed in three senses which we must distinguish: it may be used in reference to the whole confederacy of peoples as depicted in the Egyptian scenes, or to the smaller and more homogeneous band of Hittite tribes, or to the dominant tribe of Hatti within the Halys, which seems to have given its name in antiquity to the whole. The Egyptian artists indeed recognised the mixed character of the confederates in their day, and noted some of their peculiarities, but did not distinguish between them with sufficient clearness or consistency for our purpose. Two types which we reproduce[716] will serve to illustrate the wide difference of racial character among the Hittite allies obvious to the Egyptians in the time of Rameses the Great. The one is Mongoloid, characterised by a definite pigtail,[717] oblique eyes, high cheek-bones; in short, a recognisable Tartar type. We are inclined to place it in the vicinity of Carchemish, if not beyond the Euphrates, upon the main trade route with the East. The other is a clean-cut proto-Greek type, with a special form of shield, which we are tempted to assign to Lydia or some part of western Asia Minor. The Amorites, an Aramæan (Semitic) people, are also conspicuous among the allies of these times, being distinguished by a projecting beard, receding forehead, and other features.[718] These vast differences among the peoples united under the Hatti leadership in the thirteenth century B.C. are now explained historically, as will become evident later in this chapter. They reveal to us a population of the Hittite lands no less mixed than that of Turkey in Asia to-day. They do not, however, throw any light upon the question of the original race of the Hittite tribes. These are commonly identified with another type with a long head, long nose, and receding forehead, deep-set eyes somewhat obliquely placed, and yellow, wrinkled skin. A sharp, firm line runs down from beside the nostril on either side of the lips.[719] On the walls of the Ramesseum, where it is best seen, this type is associated with Aleppo, and we must recognise in it an element of the Hittite peoples; but on comparing it with the Hittite sculptures of Sinjerli, Boghaz-Keui, and elsewhere, we must regard it as still hypothetical whether even the central Hittite states were strictly homogeneous in race. The Hatti themselves, indeed, we look on as a dominant conquering element, differing again, maybe, considerably from other Hittite peoples[720] in a manner best explained by considering the dominance of the Seljûks or the Osmanlis in later times, or most analogous perhaps to the position of the Phrygian rulers in antiquity amongst other peoples of kindred race who had preceded them.