E. North Syria.—Marash; several monuments (stelae, wall-blocks and two lions) with inscriptions, both in relief and incised (part are now at Constantinople, part in Berlin and America); evidently one of the most important of Hittite sites. Karaburshlu, Arbistan, Gerchin, Sinjerli; mounds about the head-waters of the Kara Su. The last-named mound, brought to O. Puchstein’s notice in 1882 by the chance discovery of sculptured wall-dados, now in Constantinople, was the scene of extensive German excavations in 1893-1894, directed by F. v. Luschan and K. Koldewey, and was found to cover a walled town with central fortified palace. Hittite, cuneiform and old Aramaean monuments were found with many small objects, most of which have been taken to Berlin; but no Hittite inscriptions came to light. Sakchegeuzu (Sakchegözu), a site with several mounds between Sinjerli and Aintab; series of reliefs, once wall-dados, now in Berlin and Constantinople. This site is in process of excavation by Professor J. Garstang of the University of Liverpool. A sculptured portico has come to light in the smallest of the five mounds, and much pottery, with incised and painted decoration, has been recovered. Aintab; fragment of relief inscription. Samsat (Samosata); sculptured stela with incised inscription much defaced. Jerablus; see above. Several Hittite objects sent from Birejik and Aintab to Europe probably came from Jerablus, others from Tell Bashar on the Sajur. Kellekli, near Jerablus; two stelae, one with relief inscription. Iskanderun (Alexandretta); source of a long inscription cut on both sides of a spheroidal object of unknown origin. Kirchoglu, a site on the Afrin, whence a fragmentary draped statue with incised inscription was sent to Berlin. Aleppo; inscription in relief (see above). Tell Ahmar (on left bank of Euphrates); large stela with sculpture and long relief inscription, found in 1908 with several sculptured slabs and two gateway lions, inscribed in cuneiform. Two hours south, a lion and a fragment of a relief inscription were found in 1909 by Miss G. L. Bell. Tell Halaf in Mid-Mesopotamia, near Ras el-Ain; sculptures on portico of a temple or palace; cuneiform inscriptions and large mounds, explored in 1902 by Oppenheim. Hamah; five blocks inscribed in relief (see above).
F. Outlying Sites.—Erzerum; source of an incised inscription, perhaps not originally found there. Kedabeg; metal boss or hilt-top with pictographs, found in a tomb and stated by F. Hommel to be Hittite, but doubtful. Toprak Kaleh; bronze fragments with two pictographs; doubtful if Hittite. Nineveh; sealings, see above. Babylon; a bowl and a stela of storm-god, both with incised inscriptions; doubtless spoil of war or tribute brought from Syria. The bowl is inscribed round the outside, the stela on the back.
(For a detailed description of the subjects of the reliefs, &c., with the necessary illustrations, see the works indicated in the bibliography.)
Structures.—The structural remains found as yet on Hittite sites are few, scanty and far between. They consist of: (a) Ground plans of a palatial building and three temples and fortifications with sculptured gate at Boghaz Keui. The palace was built round a central court, flanked by passages and entered by a doorway of three battants hung on two columns. The whole plan bears more than a superficial resemblance to those of Cretan palaces in the later Minoan period. Only the rough core of the walls is standing to a height of about 3 ft. The fortifications of the citadel have an elaborate double gate with flanking towers, (b) Fortifications, palace, &c., at Sinjerli. The gates here are more elaborate than at Boghaz Keui, but planned with the same idea—that of entrapping in an enclosed space, barred by a second door, an enemy who may have forced the first door, while flanking towers would add to his discomfiture. The palace plan is again rectangular, with a central pillared hall, and very similar in plan to that of Boghaz Keui. The massive walls are also of similar construction. Dados of relief-sculpture run round the inner walls; this feature seems to have been common to Hittite buildings of a sumptuous kind, and accounts for most of the sculptured blocks that have been found, e.g. at Jerablus, Sakhchegeuzu, Euyuk, Arslan Tepe, &c. Columns, probably of wood, rested on bases carved as winged lions, (c) Gate with sculptured approach at Euyuk. The ground plan of the gate is practically the same in idea as that at Sinjerli. Structures were found at Jerablus, but never properly uncovered or planned, (d) Sculptured porticoes of temples or palaces uncovered at Sakchegeuzu and Tell Halaf (see above). On other sites, e.g. Arslan Tepe (Ordasu), Arbistan, Marash (above the modern town and near the springs), Beikeui, mounds, doubtless covering structures, may be seen, and sculptured slabs have been recovered. The mounds, probably Hittite, in N. Syria alone are to be counted by hundreds. No tombs certainly Hittite have been found,[4] though it is possible that some of the reliefs (e.g. at Fraktin) are of funerary character.
Sculptures and other Objects of Art.—The sculptures hitherto found consist of reliefs on rocks and on stelae, either honorific or funerary; reliefs on blocks forming parts of wall-dados; and a few figures more or less in the round, though most of these (e.g. the sphinxes of Euyuk and the lions of Arslan Tash and Marash) are not completely disengaged from the block. The most considerable sculptured rock-panels are at Boghaz Keui (see Pteria); the others (Ivriz, Fraktin, Karabel, Giaur Kalessi, Doghanlüdere), it should be observed, all lie N. of Taurus—a fact of some bearing on the problem of the origin and local domicile of the art, since rock-reliefs, at any rate, cannot be otherwise than in situ. Sculptured stelae, honorific or funerary, all with pyramidal or slightly rounded upper ends, and showing a single regal or divine figure or two figures, have come to light at Bor, Marash, Sinjerli, Jerablus, Babylon, &c. These, like most of the rock-panels, are all marked as Hittite by accompanying pictographic inscriptions. The wall-blocks are seldom inscribed, the exceptions (e.g. the Arslan Tepe lion-hunt and certain blocks from Marash and Jerablus) being not more certainly wall-dados than stelae. The only fairly complete anthropoid statue known is the much-defaced “Niobe” at Suratlu Tash, engaged in the rock behind. The aniconic lower part of an inscribed statue wholly in the round was found at Palanga, and parts of others at Kirchoglu and Marash. Despite considerable differences in execution and details, all these sculptures show one general type of art, a type which recalls now Babylonian, now Assyrian, now Egyptian, now archaic Ionian, style, but is always individual and easily distinguishable from the actual products of those peoples. The figures, whether of men or beasts, are of a squat, heavy order, with internal features (e.g. bones, muscles, &c.) shown as if external, as in some Mesopotamian sculptures. The human type is always very brachycephalic, with brow receding sharply and long nose making almost one line with the sloping forehead. In the sculptures of the Commagene and the Tyana districts, the nose has a long curving tip, of very Jewish appearance, but not unlike the outline given to Kheta warriors in Egyptian scenes. The lips are full and the chin short and shaven. The whole physiognomy is fleshy and markedly distinct from that of other Syrians. At Boghaz Keui, Euyuk and Jerablus, the facial type is very markedly non-Semitic. But not much stress can be laid on these differences owing to (1) great variety of execution in different sculptures, which argues artists of very unequal capacity; (2) doubt whether individual portraits are intended in some cases and not in others. The hair of males is sometimes, but not always, worn in pigtail. The fashions of head-covering and clothes are very various, but several of them—e.g. the horned cap of the Ivriz god; the conical hat at Boghaz Keui, Fraktin, &c; the “jockey-cap” on the Tarkudimme boss; the broad-bordered over-robe, and the upturned shoes—are not found on other Asiatic monuments, except where Hittites are portrayed. Animals in profile are represented more naturalistically than human beings, e.g. at Yasili Kaya, and especially in some pictographic symbols in relief (e.g. at Hamah). This, however, is a feature common to Mesopotamian and Egyptian, and perhaps to all primitive art.
The subjects depicted are processions of figures, human and divine (Yasili Kaya, Euyuk, Giaur Kalessi); scenes of sacrifice or adoration, or other cult-practice (Yasili Kaya, Euyuk, Fraktin, Ivriz, and perhaps the figures seated beside tables at Marash Sakchegeuzu, Sinjerli, &c.); of the chase (Arslan Tepe, Sakchegeuzu); but not, as known at present, of battle. Both at Euyuk and Yasili Kaya reliefs in one and the same series are widely separated in artistic conception and execution, some showing the utmost naïveté, others expressing both outline and motion with fair success. The fact warns us against drawing hasty inductions as to relative dates from style and execution.
Besides sculptures, well assured, Hittite art-products include a few small objects in metal (e.g. heavy, inscribed gold ring bought by Sir W. M. Ramsay at Konia; base silver seal, supported on three lions’ claws, bought by D. G. Hogarth at Bor; inscribed silver boss of “Tarkudimme,” mentioned above, &c. &c.); many intaglios in various stones (chiefly in steatite), mostly either spheroidal or gable-shaped, but a few scarabaeoid, conical or cylindrical, bearing sometimes pictographic symbols, sometimes divine, human or animal figures. The best collection is at Oxford. The majority are of very rude workmanship, bodies and limbs being represented by mere skeleton lines or unfilled outlines; a few vessels (e.g. inscribed basalt bowl found at Babylon) and fragments of ware painted with dark ornament on light body-clay, or in polychrome on a cream-white slip, or black burnished, found on N. Cappadocian sites, &c. The bronzes hitherto claimed as Hittite have been bought on the Syrian coast or come from not certainly Hittite sites in Cappadocia (see E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadocie). A great many small objects were found in the excavations at Sinjerli, including carved ivories, seals, toilet-instruments, implements, &c., but these have not been published. Nor, except provisionally, has the pottery, found at Sakchegeuzu.
Inscriptions.—These, now almost sixty in number (excluding seals), are all in a pictographic character which employed symbols somewhat elaborately depicted in relief, but reduced to conventional and “shorthand” representations in the incised texts. So far, the majority of our Hittite inscriptions, like those first found at Hamah, are in relief (cameo); but the incised characters, first observed in the Tyana district, have since been shown, by discoveries at Marash, Babylon, &c., to have had a wider range. It has usually been assumed that the incised inscriptions, being the more conventionalized, are all of later date than those in relief; but comparison of Egyptian inscriptions, wherein both incised and cameo characters coexisted back to very early times, suggests that this assumption is not necessarily correct. The Hittite symbols at present known show about two hundred varieties; but new inscriptions continually add to the list, and great uncertainty remains as to the distinction of many symbols (i.e. whether mere variants or not), and as to many others which are defaced or broken in our texts. The objects represented by these symbols have been certainly identified in only a few instances. A certain number are heads (human and animal) detached from bodies, in a manner not known in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, with which some of the other symbols show obvious analogies. Articles of dress, weapons, tools, &c., also appear. The longer inscriptions are disposed in horizontal zones or panels, divided by lines, and, it seems, they were to be read boustrophedon, not only as regards the lines (which begin right to left) but also the words, which are written in columnar fashion, syllable below syllable, and read downwards and upwards alternately. The direction of reading is towards any faces which may be shown among the pictographs. The words are perhaps distinguished in some texts by punctuation marks.
Long and patient efforts have been made to decipher this script, ever since it was first restored to our knowledge; and among the would-be decipherers honourable mention must be made, for persistence and courage, of Professor A. H. Sayce and of Professor P. Jensen. Other interpretations have been put forward by F. E. Peiser (based on conjectures as to the names on the Nineveh sealings), C. R. Conder (based largely on Cypriote comparisons and phonetic values transferred from these) and C. J. Ball (based on Hittite names recorded on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and applied to word-groups on the Hittite monuments). These, however, as having arbitrary and inadequate foundations, and for other reasons, have not been accepted. F. Hommel, J. Halévy and J. Menant have done useful work in distinguishing word-groups, and have essayed partial interpretations. No other decipherers call for mention. A. H. Sayce and P. Jensen alone have enlisted any large body of adherents; and the former, who has worked upon his system for thirty years and published in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology for 1907 a summary of his method and results, has proceeded on the more scientific plan. His system, however, like all others, is built in the main upon hypotheses incapable at present of quite satisfactory verification, such, for example, as the conjectural reading “Gargamish” for a group of symbols which recurs in inscriptions from Jerablus and elsewhere. In this case, to add to the other obvious elements of uncertainty, it must be borne in mind that the location of Carchemish at Jerablus is not proved, though it is very probable. Other conjectural identifications of groups of symbols with the place-names Hamath, Marash, Tyana are bases of Sayce’s system. Jensen’s system may be said to have been effectually demolished by L. Messerschmidt in his Bemerkungen (1898); but Sayce’s system, which has been approved by Hommel and others, is probably in its main lines correct. Its frequent explanation, however, of incompatible symbols by the doctrines of phonetic variation and interchange, or by alternative values of the same symbol used as ideograph, determinative or phonetic complement, and the occasional use of circular argument in the process of “verification,” do not inspire confidence in other than its broader results. Sayce’s phonetic values and interpretations of determinatives are his best assured achievements. But the words thus arrived at represent a language on which other known tongues throw little or no light, and their meaning is usually to be guessed only. In some significant cases, however, the Boghaz Keui tablets appear to give striking confirmation of Sayce’s conjectures.
Writing in 1903 L. Messerschmidt, editor of the best collection of Hittite texts up to date, made a tabula rasa of all systems of decipherment, asserting that only one sign out of two hundred—the bisected oval, determinative of divinity—had been interpreted with any certainty; and in view of this opinion, coupled with the steady refusal of historians to apply the results of any Hittite decipherment, and the obvious lack of satisfactory verification, without which the piling of hypothesis on hypothesis may only lead further from probability, there is no choice but to suspend judgment for some time longer as to the inscriptions and all deductions drawn from them.