From here the Hittites penetrated into Phrygia and to the coast of the Ægean Sea. On a cliff below the ancient fortress Giaurkalesi in Phrygia (southwest of Ancyra) are the figures of two Hittite warriors wearing a modification of the Egyptian uræus serpent on the front of their caps. The two famous reliefs of Nymphæum on the cliffs of Sipylus which are mentioned in Herodotus and on which remains of Hamathite inscriptions have been preserved, are quite similar. There is also on Sipylus, near Magnesia, a rude rock-sculpture with symbols of the same alphabet, which perhaps represents a goddess, and was looked upon by the Greeks as Niobe.
But the ruins and sculptures found at Euiuk and Boghaz-Keui, east of the Halys, in Cappadocian territory, are the most important and extensive. At the former place are the ruins of a great palace, with an entrance guarded by two sphinxes; on the walls are numerous sculptures of gods and men, lions, bulls, and beings of mixed form, among them a double-headed eagle. At Boghaz-Keui are the ruins of an ancient fortress (the Pteria of Herodotus?), and the walls of a rocky gorge show a long procession, presumably of a religious character. The most important symbols on all these monuments are modifications of the winged sun-disk.
These monuments enable us to perceive clearly the extent of the Hittite conquests. From now on Carchemish, instead of the valley of the Orontes, forms the centre of the Hittite realm, and evidently becomes the residence of the kings. Aside from this, however, only very uncertain reports of these wars have come down to us.
One passage in the Odyssey says that Neoptolemus killed Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, prince of the Κήτειοι, who is later always called prince of Teuthrania; evidently a trace of the name of the Hittites has been preserved here.
Perhaps we may also detect a reminiscence of their campaigns in the Greek legend of the Ethiopian Memnon, son of the dawn, who undertook great campaigns and hastened to the aid of Priam. Herodotus (II, 106) says that the reliefs of Nymphæum, which he claims for Sesostris, were declared by others to be portraits of Memnon. In other respects, however, the dim tradition that the Greeks preserved of these conquests was transferred to the Egyptians (expeditions of Sesostris to Asia Minor and Thrace) and the Assyrians. Moreover, when Lydian tradition connects the royal family of the Heraclidæ with Ninus the son of Belus, the legendary representatives of the Assyrians have perhaps here taken the place of the Hittites, for the Assyrians did not come into direct contact with the Lydians until the seventh century.
A further reminiscence of the wars of the Lydians and the Hittites is perhaps contained in two fragments of the Lydian Xanthus, which refer to the expeditions of the Lydian hero Mopsus (Moxos?) and Askalus, brother of Tantalus, to Syria and especially to Askalon.
The effects of the Syrian conquest upon Asia Minor were permanent in an unusual degree. It has long been recognised that the names of the Lydian kings Sadyattes and Alyattes, and also Myattes, are Semitic forms; now we may perhaps venture the conjecture that the Lydian royal family of the Heraclidæ was of Hittite origin. Furthermore, we can now identify the god Attes (Attys) of Asia Minor directly with the Syrian Ate and ascribe to him a foreign origin. In fact, the religion of Asia Minor shows a very intimate connection with that of the Semites, which, however, could not hitherto be explained with certainty.[d]
Hittite Bas-relief at Ibreez, Lycaonia