“The city Urraḫinaš, their stronghold, situated in the land of Panari, fear dreading[81] the glory of Ašur, my lord, overwhelmed them; to save their lives they carried away their gods (and their goods), they fled to the peaks of the lofty mountains like a bird. I collected my chariots and troops, (and) crossed the Tigris, Ša-di-Tešub, son of Ḫattu-šar, king of Urraḫinaš, not to be captured in his own country, took my feet. The children, offspring of his heart, and his family, I took as hostages. I. sos (60) plates of copper, libation-vases of bronze, offering-dishes of bronze, great ones, with II. sos (120) men, oxen, sheep, tribute and gifts, he brought, (and) I received it. I had mercy on him, spared his life, (and) set the heavy yoke of my dominion over him for ever. I captured the wide land of Kummuḫi to its (whole) extent (and) made it submit to my feet. At that time I offered one bronze offering-dish and one bronze libation-vase of the spoil and gifts of the land of Kummuḫi to Ašur my lord, (and) I. sos of copper plates, with their gods, I presented to Hadad who loveth me.”
In the above extract the names containing that of the god Tešub show clearly that we have here to do with nationalities in the neighbourhood of Mitanni (see p. [277]), and a close relation with the Hittites is suggested by the other name Ḫattu-šar, father of Šadi-Tešub, which is an analogous formation to Ḫattu-šil, the Kheta-sir of Egyptologists, with whom Rameses II. made a treaty (cf. p. [304]). Another reading of Ḫattu-šar is Ḫattuḫi, a name which Prof. [pg 321] Sayce translates, “the Hittite,” in the second series of the Records of the Past, vol. i. p. 97, note 2. In the same passage he analyzes the name of the city Urraḫinaš as being derived from Urra, with the termination ḫi-naš, denoting in Vannite, “the place of the people of.”
Another interesting reference to the Hittites is that of the Assyrian king Aššur-naṣir-âpli, renowned for his cruelty. The king ruling at the time was Sangara, who had as his capital the city of Carchemish. The text reads as follows—
“I drew near to the land of Carchemish. The tribute of Sangara, king of the land of Ḫatte—20 talents of gold, bangles (?) of gold, rings of gold, swords of gold, 100 talents of bronze, 250 talents of iron, dishes of bronze, vases of bronze, libation-vases of bronze, a brazier of bronze, and the numerous vessels of his palace, the weight of which was not taken; couches of oak, chairs of oak, tables of oak and ivory inlaid, 200 slave-girls (or virgins), cotton stuffs, woollen cloth, white and black and white and grey, white marble (?), tusks of elephants, a white chariot, an umbrella of gold filled with overlaying (?), the ornament of his royalty, I received. The chariots, horses, (and) grooms of the city Carchemish, (of the Hittites[82]) I set (aside) for myself.”
The riches and importance of the city of Carchemish are here well indicated, and to all appearance the place maintained its position to the end, long after the power of the Hittites had completely disappeared. Indeed, as will be recognized from the above, Sangara has every appearance of having been a local ruler, implying that the district under Hittite control was already broken up into small states practically independent of each other. Another prince of the Hittites, in the neighbourhood of Diarbekir, from whom this Assyrian [pg 322] king received tribute was “the son of Baḫiani.” Apparently he was called thus on account of his ancestor, Baḫiani, being chief of a tribe, the district over which he ruled bearing, in Aššur-naṣir-âpli's second reference to it, the name of Bît-Baḫiani, “the house of Baḫiani.” The special products of this tract are well indicated by the nature of the gifts sent to the Assyrian king: “chariots, harness, horses, silver, gold, lead, bronze, and vessels of bronze.” That these Hittite districts paid tribute so submissively would seem to indicate that they had no coherence among themselves, and did not feel called upon to aid each other in time of need.
Sargon of Assyria, who claims to have subjugated all the land of the Hittites, speaks, as do other Assyrian kings, of the people of Hamath, and what he did to Ilu-bi'idi or Yau-bi'idi, their king. This, too, was the capital of a Hittite principality, and it is in the modern town of Hamah, in which form the name still survives, that the so-called “Hamah-stones,” now generally regarded as Hittite, were found.
The disappearance of the Hittite confederate states (if such they really were), and the rise in their place from time to time of other powers, caused the Assyrians, who regarded this territory as their own special possession, won by conquest, to apply to the whole district the name of mât Ḫatti, “the land of Heth,” which would seem to have included (probably in its extended sense) Samaria, Sidon, Arvad, Gebal, Ashdod, Beth-Ammon, Moab, Edom, Askelon, and Judah.[83] It thus, to all appearance, took the place of the ancient “land of the Amorites” (not, however, when indicating the points of the compass), and in this the inscriptions of Esarhaddon and Aššur-banî-âpli agree.
What the influence of the Hittites over the nations [pg 323] contemporary with them may have been is difficult to estimate. The Assyrians, to all appearance, borrowed from them a certain style of architecture, used for the entrance-hall of the royal palaces. Their style of art, of which numerous examples are preserved, shows that they had made considerable progress, and that they had individuality as artists. Neither in sculpture nor in engraving of hard stone, however, did they ever attain to the exquisite fineness and finish of the best work of the artists of Babylonia and Assyria. The subjects, too, seem to be usually more grotesque, though this suggestion, which their work gives, may be due merely to our ignorance of their religious beliefs and the legends on which the designs were probably based.
The inscribed vase in the British Museum, and the inscribed figure found by the German explorers at the same place have already been referred to (pp. [317-318]), and it has been suggested as probable that they were sent as presents to one or more of the Babylonian kings, though the possibility that they were part of the spoils of an expedition to that part of the world, or specimens of Hittite art carried off at a later date, when the nations producing them had passed away, are also probable explanations. In any case, they seem to show that there were, at some period or other, political relations between the Hittites and the Babylonians.