THE HITTITES

A Forgotten Empire. Hittite Monuments: Sendjirli. Boghaz Koi. Other recent excavations. Hittite Decipherment: Sayce’s early work. Peiser. Jensen. Conder. Sayce’s later work. Thompson. Delitzsch. Hittite History: First appearance. Hyksos possibly Hittites. The Mitanni. Kingdom of “Hittite City.” Carchemish. Samal and Yadi. Hamath.

1. A Forgotten Empire.—Among the peoples who are said to have been in Palestine in the Patriarchal age are the Hittites (Gen. 23:10; 26:34, etc.). They are mentioned most often in the list of peoples whom the Israelites drove out of the country when they conquered it: “the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite,” and the man is still living who first suspected that anything more than this could be known of them. This man was Prof. Sayce, of Oxford. In the inscriptions of the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties there is frequent mention of a people called Kheta. In the inscriptions of Assyrian kings there is also frequent mention of a people called Kha-at-tu. Slowly, too, during the nineteenth century rock-carvings, often accompanied by inscriptions in a peculiar hieroglyph, were found scattered through northern Syria and Asia Minor. The figures of gods and men on these carvings usually wore caps of a peculiarly pointed type and shoes turned far up at the toe. In 1876 it dawned upon Prof. Sayce that these were all references to the Biblical Hittites. He proceeded to elaborate this view in two articles published in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical ArchÆology, Vols. V and VII.

About the same time the Rev. William Wright independently started the same idea, and gave it expression in his book, The Empire of the Hittites, 1884, 2d ed., 1885. At this period it was impossible to discern more than that there had been a widely scattered Hittite civilization, which might have been an empire.

2. Hittite Monuments.—This civilization, it was seen, had left its monuments at Hamath in Syria, at Carchemish on the Euphrates, at various points in ancient Cappadocia, Lycaonia, and Phrygia, as well as near Smyrna in Asia Minor and on the Lydian mountains to the west of Sardis. In 1891 Prof. W. Max MÜller, of Philadelphia, reached the conclusion from a study of the Egyptian inscriptions that the Hittites had come into Syria from the northwest, and that their main strength was in Asia Minor. Among the letters found at El-Amarna in Egypt in 1887-1888 were some from Dushratta, a king of Mitanni. A study of these made it clear that the Mitanni inhabited the region on both sides of the Euphrates north of Carchemish, and that they were of the same stock as the Hittites. Our sources of information indicate that the territory of the Mitanni lay east of the Euphrates, but scattered monuments of the Hittite type are found on the west of that river.

(1) Sendjirli.—From 1888 to 1891 a German expedition excavated at Sendjirli, near the head-waters of the Kara Su in northern Syria, and brought to light most interesting remains of a civilization that was fundamentally Hittite. Inscriptions found here dated in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser IV and Esarhaddon were in Aramaic. By this time there had been an influx of AramÆans, but the art shows that Hittites held the place at an earlier time, and there is reason to believe that one of the kings mentioned here had, about 850 B. C., joined in a Hittite federation.

(2) Boghaz Koi.—Among the monuments known to Prof. Sayce at the beginning of his brilliant studies of the Hittites, were some from Boghaz Koi, in Asia Minor. Different travelers had noted that here must have been a somewhat extensive city, adorned with several large buildings, all of which were ornamented with carvings of the peculiar Hittite type. In 1906 the late Prof. Winckler, of Berlin, excavating here in connection with the authorities of the Turkish Museum at Constantinople, discovered an archive of clay tablets inscribed in Babylonian characters. A group of similar tablets from Cappadocia had been previously purchased by the British Museum. Winckler’s discovery was important because he found some of the tablets inscribed in Hittite written in cuneiform characters. Of those written in the Babylonian language, one contained a copy of the great treaty between Hattusil, a Hittite king, and Ramses II of Egypt. There were also tablets containing Sumerian and Semitic equivalents of Hittite words. Owing to the long illness of Winckler which followed these discoveries, an illness that terminated in death, the results of this discovery are only now being given to the world.In 1907 Winckler and Puchstein, in conjunction with Makridy Bey of the Turkish Museum, made a thorough examination of the remains of walls and buildings at Boghaz Koi. The results have since been published in a handsome volume entitled Boghaskoi, die Bauwerke, Leipzig, 1912; (see Figs. 23 and 25).

(3) Other Recent Excavations.—An American expedition consisting of Drs. Olmstead, Charles, and Wrench, of Cornell University, explored in Asia Minor in 1907-1908. The members of this expedition collated all the known monuments of the Hittites, but so far only their collation of the inscriptions has been published.

The Institute of ArchÆology of the University of Liverpool has also sent one or more expeditions to explore the Hittite country. In 1910 they excavated to some extent at Sakje-Geuze, not far from Sendjirli, but their results are not yet published.

Since 1911 the trustees of the British Museum have had an excavation in progress at the site of ancient Carchemish on the Euphrates. Here most important Hittite remains have been discovered, though again the details of the work have not been given to the public. The expedition has also made some minor excavations at several points in the neighborhood, and find that Hittite remains are numerous in that region. In addition to these places, Hittite remains have been observed at Yaila, Marash, Giaour-Kalesi, Karaburna, Kizil Dagh, Fraktin, Ivriz, Kara-Bel, Mount Sypilus, Tashji, Asarjik, Bulghar-Maden, Gurun, and Kara Dagh. One who will look up these places on a map of modern Turkey will see that Hittite monuments are distributed from near the shores of the Ægean Sea to the Euphrates at Carchemish and to Hamath in Syria. (For addition to this section, see Appendix.)

3. Hittite Decipherment.

(1) Sayce’s Early Work.—Prof. Sayce, whose insight first grasped the significance of the Hittite monuments, was also the first to attempt the solution of the riddle which the inscriptions present. In 1880 he thought he had found a key to the writing, such as the Rosetta Stone had been to Egyptian, in the so-called “Boss of Tarkondemos”; (see Fig. 26). This “boss” consisted of a round silver plate, in form like half an orange, which must have covered the knob of a staff or dagger. This had been described by Dr. A. D. Mordtmann, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society in 1872. The original was then in the possession of Alexander Jovanoff, a numismatist of Constantinople, who had obtained it at Smyrna. The “boss” bore in its center a figure of the peculiar Hittite form, flanked on both sides by writing in the Hittite characters, while around the whole was an inscription in the cuneiform writing of Assyria. From this Sayce tentatively determined the values of a number of Hittite signs. The results were, however, attended with considerable uncertainty, since the Assyrian characters were capable of being read in more than one way. Using the key thus obtained, Sayce enlarged his list of supposed sign-values and in 1884 and 1885 published as known the values of thirty-two Hittite signs. In the years that followed Ball and Menant took up the discussion of the Hittite signs, but with no decisive result.

In 1889 Winckler and Abel published in one of the volumes of the Royal Museum at Berlin the first instalment of the text of the El-Amarna letters, in which there were two from Dushratta, King of Mitanni, in the native language of that country, though written in Babylonian characters. In the following year, 1890, Profs. Jensen, BrÜnnow, and Sayce all published in the Zeitschrift fÜr Assyriologie studies of this language, Sayce even venturing a translation of a part of the text. Each of these scholars had worked independently of the others, but none of them seems to have suspected that the language had anything to do with Hittite.

(2) Peiser.—In 1892 Dr. Peiser, then of Breslau University, published his book on the Hittite inscriptions, in which he essayed another method of decipherment. Layard had found four Hittite seals in the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. Peiser inferred that these must be seals of four Hittite kings mentioned in the inscriptions of that time, and proceeded to assign each seal to the name of a known Hittite king, and interpret the signs on the seal by the name of that king as spelled out in the cuneiform characters of the Assyrian inscriptions. Having obtained in this way tentative values for several signs, he proceeded by inference to guess at other signs, and so tentatively read some inscriptions.

(3) Jensen.—Prof. Jensen, of Marburg, wrote in that same year an unfavorable review of Peiser’s work. When reading the proofs of his review he added a postscript to say that he believed he had himself discovered the key to Hittite. Two years later, 1894, he published in the Journal of the German Oriental Society his method of solving the problem. Jensen’s starting-point was gained from inscriptions from Jerabis, the site of ancient Carchemish, Hamath, and other places. He inferred that a certain sign was the determinative for city, and that the names preceding this sign were names of places. Gaining in this way some values for signs, he read the names of some kings. He found that these names had nominatives ending in s and accusative cases ending in m; he accordingly leaped to the conclusion that the Hittite language was a member of the Indo-European group of languages, as this is the only known group of tongues in which this phenomenon occurs. This inference later research has in part confirmed. Jensen, however, went further and endeavored to show that the Hittites were the ancestors of the Armenians of later time. This theory led to the publication in 1898 of his book, Hittiter und Armenier. Of the correctness of this view he has not been able to convince other scholars. By this time Jensen and others had begun to see that the Mitannians and the Hittites were kindred peoples and worshiped the same gods. It is now recognized that Jensen correctly ascertained the value of some signs, though many of his guesses, like those of his predecessors, have proved incorrect.

(4) Conder.—In 1898 Lieut.-Col. C. R. Conder published The Hittites and Their Language, a work in which he presented still another decipherment of the inscriptions. Conder’s decipherment was based on a comparison of the Hittite characters with the Sumerian pictographs on the one hand and the syllabary which was used by Greeks in Cyprus, Caria, and Lydia on the other. He assumed that if a picture had in Sumerian a certain syllabic value, and if the Cypriotic syllabary presented a character somewhat resembling it which had a similar value, the Hittite character which most closely resembled these must have the same value, since the Hittites lived between the two peoples who used the other syllabaries. This system of decipherment has attracted no adherents because it is based on a fallacious inference. It does not follow because a nation lives between two other nations, that its institutions are kindred to those of its neighbors. One could not explain writings of the Indian tribes of Arizona, for example, by comparing them with books printed in English in St. Louis and in Spanish in Los Angeles! In 1899 Messerschmidt, who was collecting in one body all the known Hittite inscriptions for publication, published a study of the language of Mitanni,[18] which advanced our knowledge of the language of the letters of Dushratta. Messerschmidt’s later publication of the Hittite inscriptions[19] made it far easier for scholars to study the subject.

(5) Sayce’s Later Work.—Stimulated by Jensen’s efforts, Prof. Sayce returned to the study of Hittite in 1903, and published in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical ArchÆology of that year (Vol. XXV) a new decipherment. He followed Jensen’s method, accepting a number of Jensen’s readings as proved, and with the originality and daring that characterize so much of his work, launched many new readings. Some of these have commended themselves to his successors.

In 1909 Ferdinand Bork returned to the problem of the language of Mitanni, and published a pretty complete decipherment of the Mitannian tablets in the El-Amarna letters. In 1911 Dr. B. B. Charles, the philologist of the Cornell expedition to Asia Minor, published as Part II of Volume I of Travels and Studies in the Nearer East, which is to embody the results of the Cornell expedition, his collation of the Hittite inscriptions. This publication added some new texts to those previously known. In 1912 Prof. Clay, of Yale, rendered the subject of Hittiteology a distinct service by including in his volume of Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Cassite Period a list of Hittite and Mitannian proper names, and a list of the nominal and verbal elements which enter into the composition of such names.

(6) Thompson.—The latest attempt on a large scale to unravel the mystery of the Hittite inscriptions is that of R. Campbell Thompson, “A New Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs,” published in ArchÆologia, second series, Vol. XIV, Oxford, 1913. Mr. Thompson was a member of the British expedition which excavated Carchemish, and gained the idea which gave him the starting-point for his decipherment from an inscription excavated by that expedition. This inscription contained many proper names, and, after passing it and looking at it every day for a long time, it occurred to Mr. Thompson that a certain elaborate sign which frequently occurred in it might be a part of the name of the Hittite King Sangar, who is frequently mentioned by Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III of Assyria. In seeking proof for this Mr. Thompson was led into a study of the texts which resulted in a new interpretation of the Hittite signs. His work is logical at every point, he makes no inference without first examining all the occurrences in the known texts of the group of signs in question, and he tests his inferences wherever possible by the known results of a study of Mitannian and cuneiform Hittite. It is too soon to pronounce a final verdict, but it looks as though Thompson had materially advanced the decipherment of Hittite.

(7) Delitzsch.—After the death of Prof. Winckler, the cuneiform tablets which he had discovered at Boghaz Koi were turned over to Ernst Weidner for publication. That publication is soon to appear, but Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, under whose general direction Weidner is working, published in May, 1914, a study based on twenty-six fragments of lexicographical texts which are to appear in Weidner’s work. These texts defined Hittite words in Sumerian and in Assyrian. Although the texts are very fragmentary, Prof. Delitzsch has been able to gain in this way a vocabulary of about 165 Hittite words, the meanings of most of which are known, and to ascertain some facts about the grammar of Hittite.

We are, it would seem, just on the eve of a complete mastery of the secrets of the Hittite inscriptions. The more our knowledge of the Hittites grows, the less simple seems the problem of their racial affinities. Some features of their speech clearly resemble features of the Indo-European family of languages, but other features would seem to denote Tartar affinities. In a number of instances the influence of the Assyrian language can clearly be traced. The same confusion presents itself when we study the pictures of Hittites as they appear in Egyptian reliefs. Two distinct types of face are there portrayed. One type has high cheek bones, oblique eyes, and wears a pigtail, like the peoples of Mongolia and China; the other has a clean-cut head and face which resemble somewhat the early Greeks. These may well have been Aryans. That there was a strain in the Hittite composition that came from Turkestan or that came through that country is also indicated by the fact that the Hittites were the first of the peoples of western Asia to use the horse. Evidence of the use of the horse as a domestic animal by the people of Turkestan at an early date was brought to light by the excavations of Prof. Pumpelly[20] in that land, so that the presence of horses among the Hittites naturally suggests some connection with that region. Among the Hittite allies Semitic Amorites are also pictured. These have receding foreheads and projecting beards.4. Hittite History.

(1) First Appearance.—The earliest reference to the Hittites which we have in any written record occurs in a Babylonian chronicle, which states that “against Shamsu-ditana the men of the country Khattu marched.”[21] Shamsu-ditana was the last king of the first dynasty of Babylon. His reign terminated in 1924 B. C. Khattu land, as will appear further on, was the name later given to the Hittite settlement in Cappadocia. One would naturally suppose that the name would have the same significance here, but of this we cannot be certain. The tablet on which this chronicle was written was inscribed in the Persian or late Babylonian period, but there is evidence that it was copied from an earlier original. If its statement is true, the Hittites had made their appearance in history and were prepared to mingle in that mÊlÉe of the races which occurred when the first dynasty of Babylon was overthrown. Nothing is said in the chronicle as to the location of the land of Khattu, but there can be no doubt that the Hittites approached Babylonia from the northwest. Their seat must have been in the region where we later find the Hittites, or Mitanni. At what period the Hittites came into this region we can only conjecture. The excavations at Sakje-Geuze reveal a civilization there extending back to about 3000 B. C., which resembled that found at Susa in Elam belonging to the same period. This civilization may not have been Hittite in its beginnings. Mr. Woolley, a member of the British expedition which has excavated at Carchemish, in a study of the objects found in tombs at Carchemish and at other places near by, thinks it possible that the coming of the Hittites is marked by a transition period in the art—a period the termination of which he marks by the date of the fall of the first dynasty of Babylon. It may well be that Indo-Europeans followed by Mongols came about 2100 or 2000 into this region, or that the Mongols were there earlier and that the Indo-Europeans then came. In the resultant civilization it would seem, from the information that we have, that there was a mingling of the two races; (see Fig. 24).

(2) Hyksos Possibly Hittites.—Since the Hittites were able to help overthrow the first dynasty of Babylon, some scholars have recognized the possibility that those invaders of Egypt who established the dynasties called Hyksos may have been Hittites, or may have been led by Hittites. There is much evidence that many Semites entered Egypt at that time, but as Syria and Palestine were peopled with Semites earlier than this, such an invasion would naturally have had many Semites among its camp followers, if not in its armies, even if the leaders were Hittites. At present, however, this is but a possibility. Some slight evidence in favor of the possibility may be found in the name of the king of Jerusalem who was a vassal of Amenophis IV, and who wrote the letters from Jerusalem which are in the El-Amarna collection. (See Part II, p. 345, ff.) His name was Abdi-Hepa, and Hepa was a Hittite and Mitannian deity. Abdi-Hepa had grown up a trusted subject of the Egyptians. His ancestors must, therefore, have been in Palestine for some time. A settlement of Hittites there in the Hyksos days would account for this. The twenty-third chapter of Genesis represents the city of Hebron as in the possession of the Hittites when Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah as a place of burial for his dead, and, though many scholars regard Genesis 23, which gives this account, as a late composition, its representation would receive some confirmation from archÆology, if the Hyksos were Hittites.

There is a possibility that the Hittites were in southern Palestine earlier than this. Brugsch[22] thought that he found in an inscription in the Louvre, written by an officer of Amenemhet I, King of Egypt, 2000-1970 B. C., a statement that this officer had destroyed the palaces of the Hittites near the Egyptian frontier of Palestine. This reading is still defended by Prof. Sayce,[23] though other Egyptologists, such as W. Max MÜller[24] and Breasted,[25] claim that the word that was thought to be Hittites is not a proper name, but a common noun meaning nomads. The text of the passage is uncertain, and no important inference can in any case be made from it.

During the period when we obtain glimpses of the history of the Hittites, they were never united in one empire. Different kingdoms flourished here and there, such as that of the Mitanni in Mesopotamia, the Hittites at Boghaz Koi, the kingdoms of Carchemish, of Hamath, and Tyana. These flourished at different times all the way from 1400 to 700 B. C., and there were doubtless other kingdoms also, for the Hittite sculptures near Smyrna and Manissia cannot have been made by any of these, unless possibly the great Hittite kingdom at Boghaz Koi may once have extended its power to the Ægean.

(3) The Mitanni.—The earliest of these kingdoms which we can trace is that of the Mitanni. When Thothmes III of Egypt extended his conquests to the Euphrates in 1468 B. C., he came into contact with the Mitanni. The king of the country is not named, but it was claimed that her chiefs hid themselves in caves.[26] There is some reason for believing that their chief city was at Haran[27] in Mesopotamia, the city where Abraham sojourned for a time (Gen. 11:31; 12:4). If this be true, it gives a new meaning to Ezek. 16:3: “The Amorite was thy father and thy mother was a Hittite.” Thothmes evidently touched the kingdom of Mitanni on its western border. He did not penetrate its heart or overcome its king. Although he took tribute, he does not tell us the name of the king of the Mitanni whose armies he fought.

Half a century later the king of the Mitanni was Artatama I. He was a contemporary of Thothmes IV of Egypt, who ruled 1420-1411 B. C. Perhaps it was their mutual fear of the rising power of the Hittite kingdom at Boghaz Koi that led Artatama and Thothmes IV to form an alliance. At all events, such an alliance was made, and Thothmes married a daughter of Artatama, though Artatama’s grandson says that the Egyptian king sent his request for her hand seven times before Artatama yielded to his solicitations. Artatama I was succeeded by Shutarna I, whose reign overlapped a part of that of Amenophis III of Egypt, 1411-1375 B. C. Among the queens of Amenophis III was a daughter of Shutarna I. Before the reign of Amenophis III had ended Shutarna I had been succeeded by Dushratta, who continued the friendly relations with Egypt. Dushratta’s reign also overlapped in part that of Amenophis IV of Egypt, 1375-1357 B. C., and Dushratta wrote several letters to both of these Egyptian kings. It is from these letters that we gain most of our information about Mitanni.

Meanwhile the great kingdom of the Hittites at Boghaz Koi had entered upon its era of expansion under Subbiluliuma, who pushed his conquests first eastward and then southward. Dushratta feared to meet the Hittite in battle and retired to the eastward, allowing much of his country to be overrun. This land Subbiluliuma gave to one of his allies, and Dushratta was murdered soon afterward by his son, Sutatarra, who usurped the crown. Soon after this the Assyrians invaded the lands of the Mitanni from the east, and the land, already distracted by its internal divisions, was thrown into a worse confusion. At this juncture Subbiluliuma crossed the Euphrates again and entered Mitannian territory. He was accompanied by settlers who brought cattle, sheep, and horses to remain in the country. Advised by an oracle, he deposed Sutatarra and placed upon the throne Mattiuaza, a son of Dushratta, who had been heir-apparent and who had fled when his father was murdered. To Mattiuaza Subbiluliuma gave his daughter in marriage, and Mitanni became a vassal state of the Hittite realm. After this our sources tell us no more of its history.

Near the Mitanni were the Harri, who were probably of the same race, for in the time of Subbiluliuma they were ruled first by Artatama II, a brother of Dushratta, and then by Sutarna II. This state also became a part of Subbiluliuma’s kingdom.

(4) Kingdom of “Hittite City.”—The wave of migration from the northeast which brought the Mitanni into upper Mesopotamia had swept on westward into Cappadocia, where the greatest Hittite state afterward developed. The monuments erected by the Hittites were nearly all of a religious character. In the earlier time they wrote few historical inscriptions. Such inscriptions as we have in Hittite hieroglyphs seem to come from the later periods and to record alliances. It is probable that in the development of the Hittite state in Cappadocia first one city and then another had the upper hand. The Hittite monuments at Eyuk are of a more primitive character than those at Boghaz Koi, and it is natural to suppose that a Hittite state flourished here before the rise of the one at Boghaz Koi. Be that as it may, the most powerful Hittite monarchy of which we know arose at Boghaz Koi, which they called “Hittite City.” This monarchy emerged about 1400 B. C. Its first king was Hattusil I, of whom we know no more than that he was the founder of the great dynasty which ruled from the “Hittite City” for two hundred years.

The king who laid the foundations of the greatness of this dynasty was Subbiluliuma, the next king, whose conquests over the Mitanni and Harri we have already traced. He conquered also a number of neighboring states, and compelled them to sign with him treaties of alliance which made them his vassals. Chronicles of these events were discovered by Winckler among the clay tablets found at Boghaz Koi. Subbiluliuma also turned his armies southward and conquered Syria down to the confines of Palestine. These conquests were in progress when some of the El-Amarna letters, written to Amenophis IV of Egypt and translated in Part II, p. 344, ff., were written. Here he pursued the same policy that he had pursued in Mesopotamia, and compelled the conquered countries to enter into treaties with him, which subjugated them to his will. Among the kings so treated was the Amorite King Aziru, who at that time ruled Amorites living in the southern part of the valley between the Lebanon mountain ranges and in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher. They also held some of the southern Phoenician cities. This represents the most southerly extension of Subbiluliuma’s power.

Whether Subbiluliuma also extended his conquests to the west of Asia Minor, we have no means of knowing. Some scholars suppose that he had done so before he began the conquest of Mitanni. Certain it is that Hittite rock sculptures of gigantic size exist in the mountains near Smyrna and Manissia, to the west of Sardis. These sculptures represent the great Hittite goddess. Near Smyrna there are also the remains of great buildings. We know of no Hittite monarch who would be so likely to have carried Hittite power to these parts as Subbiluliuma. If he did so, possibly in later time the Hittites here became independent. At all events, some centuries later they were known to Ionian Greeks in this region, for Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI, line 521, records the tradition that some Hittites were killed with Eurypylos.

When Subbiluliuma died he was succeeded by his son, Arandas, whose occupation of the throne was brief, and who seems to have been without effective power. After a short time he was replaced by his brother, Mursil, who appears to have enjoyed a long reign. Subbiluliuma, called by the Egyptians Seplel, was reigning when Amenophis IV of Egypt came to the throne in 1375 B. C., for he sent an embassy to congratulate him, and Mursil appears to have reigned until after the year 1320 B. C. The two reigns, therefore, covered more than half a century. The first years of Mursil’s reign were apparently passed in peace, but soon after 1320 Shalmeneser I invaded the countries in the eastern part of the Hittite confederacy, conquering all the territory east of the Euphrates, and a considerable territory to the west of that river. Meantime, Mursil had renewed the treaty with the Amorites of Syria, whose king at this time was Abbi-Teshub, or Abi-Adda. Ere long, however, trouble arose for him on his southern border. Seti I of Egypt came to the throne in 1313 B. C., and began a series of vigorous campaigns for the conquest of Palestine. In time he came face to face with the Hittite power in Syria.

At this juncture Mursil died and was succeeded by his son, Mutallu, who soon met Seti I in battle and convinced that monarch that it was unwise to attempt to extend Egypt’s empire in Asia to the Euphrates, as Thothmes III had done. Owing to internal troubles in Assyria the eastern border of the Hittite realm was left undisturbed for a considerable time, during which Mutallu could devote himself to other matters. In 1292 B. C. Ramses II succeeded Seti I as king of Egypt and soon began vigorously to push Egyptian conquests into northern Syria. Mutallu recognized the importance of the struggle and collected a large army from all his allies. These forces were drawn from all parts of Asia Minor; even the countries of the extreme west contributed their quota. Aleppo and states in that region also contributed their share. A great battle was fought at Kadesh on the Orontes in 1287 B. C., in which Mutallu, by surprising his foe, disorganized a part of the Egyptian forces and endangered the life of Ramses himself. By the opportune arrival of reinforcements the Egyptians escaped entire defeat, so that the result was a drawn battle.

The battle had, however, cost the Hittites much. The slaughter of their forces had been enormous. Among the slain were many chieftains, including the king of Aleppo. The Amorites at once threw off their allegiance to the Hittites, and many of the other troops mutinied. Mutallu was assassinated. He was succeeded by Hattusil II, the Khetasar of the Egyptian inscriptions.

Assyria had become weak, so that Hattusil was no longer pressed upon his eastern border. After a little he reduced the Amorites once more to submission, and compelled them to take back their king, Put-akhi, whom they had driven out at the time of their rebellion against Mutallu. He gave Put-akhi a Hittite princess for a wife. Later, about 1271 B. C., Hattusil concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Ramses II of Egypt. The treaty which guaranteed this alliance has come down to us, and is the first international treaty the details of which are known to us. (See Chapter I, p. 30.)Hattusil II must have enjoyed a long reign, but we do not know the date of his death. He had two successors, Dudkhalia and Arnuanta, whose reigns are known to us, and who continued the sway of the dynasty down to about 1200 B. C. They were respectively the son and grandson of Hattusil II. An edict of Dudkhalia concerning the vassal states has survived, in which the name of Eni-Teshub, King of Carchemish, appears. Carchemish would seem to have been the chief of the allied states. Of Arnuanta we have no details, though two fragments of royal edicts and a seal of his have come down to us. He was called “the great king, the son of Dudkhalia.” After him our sources fail, and the story ends in darkness. We know, however, that the days of the power of this dynasty were over. Egyptian sources tell us that tribes from western Asia Minor and from beyond the sea swept over Cilicia and northern Syria soon after the year 1200 B. C., and there was then no Hittite power there to restrain them.

(5) Carchemish.—Of the other Hittite kingdoms far less is known. Carchemish, which, as we have just seen, played an important part in the federation of the great Hittite power, continued its existence for several centuries. In the time of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III the kingdom of Carchemish entered into alliance with these kings and preserved its existence by becoming their vassal. Judging from the meager reports hitherto published of the British excavation at Carchemish, this was a flourishing period in the history of the city. A hundred years later, in the reign of Sargon, Pisiris, who was then king of Carchemish, defied the Assyrian, who brought the kingdom to an end in 717 B. C. (Cf. Isa. 10:9.)

(6) Samal and Yadi.—When the AramÆans swept westward about 1300 B. C. they apparently dislodged the Hittites from a number of their sites and occupied their country. Among the places so occupied was the site of Sendjirli mentioned above. All the carvings found among its architectural remains reveal the influence of Hittite art, but the inscriptions found there are in Aramaic. These inscriptions show that there were in that region two petty kingdoms named, respectively, Samal and Yadi. The names of several kings of these monarchies who ruled between 850 and 730 B. C. have been recovered. They are all AramÆan.

(7) Hamath.—Farther to the south, at Hamath on the Orontes, a Hittite kingdom existed in the time of David. Its king was then called Toi or Tou, who made an alliance with David (2 Sam. 8:9, f; 1 Chron. 18:9, f.). This kingdom was probably the outgrowth of the earlier occupation of the Orontes valley, three hundred years before, by the Hittites of the great empire. It continued until the time of Ahab. Its king was then Irhulina, who along with Ahab, Ben-Hadad of Damascus, and several other kings made an alliance to resist the encroachments of Shalmaneser III of Assyria in 854 B. C. (See Part II, p. 360, ff.) Irhulina caused several inscriptions to be made on stone, which survived at Hamath until our time. According to Mr. Thompson’s interpretation of them they are all records of his various alliances. By the next century, however, the AramÆans had captured Hamath, for in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser IV (745-727) and of Sargon (722-705 B. C.) the names of its kings were Semitic. These names were, respectively, Enu-ilu and Yau-bidi, or Ilu-bidi.

We gain glimpses also of a number of other Hittite states. There was, for example, the state of Kummukh, which lay to the west of the Euphrates, and another in western Cilicia, that had its center at Tyana, the modern Bor. These states appear to have reached their zenith after the fall of the great Hittite dynasty which had its capital at Boghaz Koi. Doubtless as time goes on we shall learn of the existence of many other small Hittite kingdoms which flourished at one time or another. At some time, either when the Hyksos were making their way into Egypt or when Subbiluliuma was pushing southward into Syria, the Hittites mentioned in the Old Testament must have made some small settlements in Palestine. Here the Hebrews came into contact with them. They were really an unimportant outlying fringe of the great Hittite people, but they had the good fortune to have their names preserved in the most immortal literature in the world, the Bible, and so their memory was ever kept alive, while that of their more illustrious kinsmen was utterly forgotten. It is only archÆological research that has restored something of the original perspective.