The Hittites Part 6

Jovanoff's death, and in spite of all enquiries no trace of it can be discovered. It may be recovered hereafter in the bazaars of Constantinople or in some private house at St. Petersburg; at present there is no clue whatever to its actual possessor.

The reading of the cuneiform legend offers but little difficulty. It gives us the name and t.i.tle of the king whose figure is engraved within it--'Tarqu-dimme king of the country of Erme.'

The name Tarqu-dimme is evidently the same as that of the Cilician prince Tarkondemos or Tarkon-dimotos, who lived in the time of our Lord.

The name is also met with in other parts of Asia Minor under the forms of Tarkondas and Tarkondimatos; and we may consider it to be of a distinctively Hitt.i.te type. Where the district was over which Tarqu-dimme ruled we can only guess. It may have been the range of mountains called Arima by the cla.s.sical writers, which lay close under the Hitt.i.te monuments of the Bulgar Dagh. In this case Tarkondemos would have been a Cilician king.

The twice-repeated Hitt.i.te version of the cuneiform legend has been the subject of much discussion. The arrangement of the characters, due more to the necessity of filling up the vacant s.p.a.ce on the boss than to the requirements of their natural order, allowed more than one interpretation of them. But there were two facts which furnished the key to their true reading. On the one hand, the inscription is divided into two halves by two characters whose form and position in other Hitt.i.te texts show them to signify 'king' and 'country'; on the other hand, the first two characters are made, as it were, to issue from the mouth of the king, and thus to express his name. We thus obtain the reading: 'Tarku-dimme king of the country of Er-me,' the syllables _tarku_ and _me_ being denoted by the head of a goat and the numeral 'four,' while the ideographs of 'king' and 'country' are represented by the royal tiara worn by G.o.ds and monarchs in the Hitt.i.te sculptures, and by the picture of a mountainous land. In the ideograph of 'country' Mordtmann had already seen a likeness of the shafts of rock which rise out of the Kappadokian plateau.

The bilingual boss accordingly furnishes us with two important ideographs, and the phonetic values of four other characters. Armed with these, we can attack the other texts, and learn something about them. It becomes clear that the inscriptions from Carchemish now in the British Museum are the monuments of a king whose name ends in -me-Tarku, and who records the names of his father and grandfather. To the grandfather belonged an inscription copied by Mr. Boscawen among the ruins of Carchemish, but unfortunately never brought to England, and probably long since destroyed.

On the lion of Merash, moreover, a king similarly records his name along with those of his two immediate ancestors. The same king's name is found at Hamath as that of the father of the sovereign mentioned in the other inscriptions that come from there, and we may perhaps infer that the monuments of Hamath are the memorials of a Komagenian monarch who carried his victorious arms thus far to the south. The time will doubtless come when we shall be able to read these mysterious characters without difficulty, and we shall then know whether or not our inference is correct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LION OF MERASH.]

Meanwhile we must be content to await the discovery of another bilingual text. The legend on the boss of Tarkondemos is not long enough to carry us far through the mazes of Hitt.i.te decipherment; before much progress can be made it must be supplemented by another inscription of the same kind. But the fact that one bilingual inscription has been found is an earnest that other bilingual inscriptions have existed, and may yet be brought to light. We may live in confident expectation that the mute stones will yet be taught to speak, and that we shall learn how the empire of the Hitt.i.tes was founded and preserved, not from the annals of their enemies, but from their own lips.

It is not probable that the Hitt.i.te system of writing pa.s.sed away without leaving its influence behind it. As the culture and art which the Hitt.i.tes carried to the barbarous nations of Asia Minor became implanted among them and bore abundant fruit, so too we may believe that the knowledge of the Hitt.i.te writing did not perish utterly. There is reason to think that the curious syllabary which continued to be used in Cyprus as late as the age of Alexander the Great was derived from the Hitt.i.te hieroglyphs. It was singularly unfitted to express the sounds of the Greek language, as it was required to do in Cyprus, and it has been shown that it was but a branch of a syllabary once employed throughout a large part of Asia Minor, the very country in which the Hitt.i.tes engraved their own written monuments. It seems likely, therefore, that the Hitt.i.te characters became a syllabary in which each character represented a separate syllable, and survived in this form to a late age.

It is also possible that the names a.s.signed to the letters even of the Phoenician alphabet were influenced by the hieroglyphs of the Hitt.i.tes.

When the Phoenicians borrowed the letters of the Egyptian alphabet they gave them names beginning in their own language with the sound represented by each letter. _A_ was called _aleph_ because the Phoenician word _aleph_ 'an ox' began with that sound, _k_ was _kaph_ 'the hand' because _kaph_ in Phoenician began with _k_. It was but an early application of the same principle which made our forefathers believe that the child would learn his alphabet more quickly if he was taught that '_A_ was an archer who shot at a frog.'

But the names must have been a.s.signed to the letters not only because they commenced with corresponding sounds, but also because of their fancied resemblance to the objects denoted by the names. Now in some instances the resemblance is by no means clear. The earliest forms of the letters called _kaph_ and _yod_, for example, both of which words signify a 'hand,' have little likeness to the human hand. If we turn to the Hitt.i.te hieroglyphs, however, we find among them two representations of the hand, encased in the long Hitt.i.te glove, which are almost identical with the Phoenician letters in shape. It is difficult, therefore, to resist the conviction that the letters _kaph_ and _yod_ received their names from Syrians who were familiar with the appearance of the Hitt.i.te characters. It is the same in the case of _aleph_. Here too the old Phoenician letter does not in any way resemble an ox, but it bears a very close likeness to the head of a bull, which occupies a prominent place in the Hitt.i.te texts. _Aleph_ became the Greek _alpha_ when the Phoenician alphabet was handed on to the Greeks, and in the word _alphabet_ has become part of our own heritage. Like _yod_, which has pa.s.sed through the Greek _iota_ into the English _jot_, it is thus possible that there are still words in daily use among ourselves which can be traced, if not to the Hitt.i.te language, at all events to the Hitt.i.te script.

What the language of the Hitt.i.tes was we have yet to learn. But the proper names preserved on the Egyptian and a.s.syrian monuments show that it did not belong to the Semitic family of speech, and an a.n.a.lysis of the Hitt.i.te inscriptions further makes it evident that it made large use of suffixes. But we must be on our guard against supposing that the language was uniform throughout the district in which the Hitt.i.te population lived. Different tribes doubtless spoke different dialects, and some of these dialects probably differed widely from each other. But they all belonged to the same general type and cla.s.s of language, and may therefore be collectively spoken of as the Hitt.i.te language, just as the various dialects of England are collectively termed English. Indeed, we find the same type of language extending far eastward of Kappadokia, if we may trust the proper names recorded in the a.s.syrian inscriptions.

Names of a distinctively Hitt.i.te cast are met with as far as the frontiers of the ancient kingdom of Ararat, and it may be that the language of Ararat itself, the so-called Vannic, may belong to the same family of speech. As the cuneiform inscriptions in which this language is embodied have now been deciphered, we shall be able to determine the question as soon as the Hitt.i.te texts also render up their secrets.

In the south of Palestine the Hitt.i.tes must have lost their old language and have adopted that of their Semitic neighbours at an early period. In Northern Syria the change was longer in coming about. The last king of Carchemish bears a non-Semitic name, but a Semitic G.o.d was worshipped at Aleppo, and Kadesh on the Orontes remained a Semitic sanctuary. The Hitt.i.te occupation of Hamath seems to have lasted for a short time only.

Its king, who appears on the a.s.syrian monuments as the contemporary of Ahab, has the Semitic name of Irkhulena, 'the moon-G.o.d belongs to us'; and his successors were equally of Semitic origin. It is more doubtful whether Tou or Toi, whose son came to David with an offer of alliance, bears a name which can be explained from the Semitic lexicon.

In the fastnesses of the Taurus, however, the Hitt.i.te dialects were slow in dying. In the days of St. Paul the people of Lystra still spoke 'the speech of Lykaonia,' although the official language of Kappadokia had long since become Aramaic. But the Aramaic was itself supplanted by Greek, and before the downfall of the Roman empire Greek was the common language of all Asia Minor. In its turn Greek has been superseded in these modern times by Turkish.

Languages, however, may change and perish, but the races that have spoken them remain. The characteristics of race, once acquired, are slow to alter. Though the last echoes of Hitt.i.te speech have died away centuries ago, the Hitt.i.te race still inhabits the region from which in ancient days it poured down upon the cities of the south. We may still see in it all the lineaments of the warriors of Karabel or the sculptured princes of Carchemish; even the snow-shoe and fingerless glove are still worn on the cold uplands of Kappadokia.

CHAPTER VIII.

HITt.i.tE TRADE AND INDUSTRY.

The Hitt.i.tes shone as much in the arts of peace as in the arts of war.

The very fact that they invented a system of writing speaks highly for their intellectual capacities. It has been granted to but few among the races of mankind to devise means of communicating their thoughts otherwise than by words; most of the nations of the world have been content to borrow from others not only the written characters they use but even the conception of writing itself.

We know from the ruins of Boghaz Keui and Eyuk that the Hitt.i.tes were no mean architects. They understood thoroughly the art of fortification; the great moat outside the walls of Boghaz Keui, with its sides of slippery stone, is a masterpiece in this respect, like the fortified citadels within the city, to which the besieged could retire when the outer wall was captured. The well-cut blocks and sculptured slabs of which their palaces were built prove how well they knew the art of quarrying and fashioning stone. The mines of the Bulgar Dagh are an equally clear indication of their skill in mining and metallurgic work.

The metallurgic fame of the Khalybes, who bordered on the Hitt.i.te territory, and may have belonged to the same race, was spread through the Greek world. They had the reputation of first discovering how to harden iron into steel. It was from them, at all events, that the Greeks acquired the art.

Silver and copper appear, from the evidence of the Egyptian and a.s.syrian monuments, to have been the metals most in request, though gold and iron also figure among the objects which the Hitt.i.tes offered in tribute. The gold and copper were moulded into cups and images of animals, and the copper was changed into bronze by being mixed with tin. From whence the tin was procured we have yet to learn.

Silver and iron were alike used as a medium of exchange. The a.s.syrian king received from Carchemish 250 talents of iron; and the excavations of Dr. Schliemann among the ruins of Troy have afforded evidence that silver also was employed by the Hitt.i.tes in place of money, and that its use for this purpose was communicated by them to the most distant nations of Western Asia Minor.

In the so-called 'treasure of Priam,' disinterred among the calcined ruins of Hissarlik or Troy, are six blade-like ingots of silver, about seven or eight inches in length and two in breadth. Mr. Barclay Head has pointed out that each of these ingots weighs the third part of a Babylonian maneh or mina, and further that this particular maneh of 8656 grains Troy, was once employed throughout Asia Minor for weighing bullion silver. It differed from the standard of weight and value used in Phoenicia, a.s.syria, and Asia Minor itself in the later Greek age. But it corresponded with 'the maneh of Carchemish' mentioned in the a.s.syrian contract tablets, which continued to hold its own even after the conquest of Carchemish by Sargon. The maneh of Carchemish had, it is true, been originally derived from Babylonia, like most of the elements of Hitt.i.te culture, but it had made itself so thoroughly at home in the Hitt.i.te capital as to be called after its name. Nothing can show more clearly than this the leading position held by the Hitt.i.tes in general, and the city of Carchemish in particular, in regard to commerce and industry.

Carchemish was, in fact, the centre of the overland trade in Western Asia. It commanded the high-road which brought the products of Phoenicia and the West to the civilised populations of a.s.syria and Babylon. It was this which made its possession so greatly coveted by the a.s.syrian kings.

Its capture a.s.sured to Sargon the command of the Mediterranean coast, and the transference to a.s.syrian hands of the commerce and wealth which had flowed in to the merchant-princes of the Hitt.i.te city.

The sumptuous furniture in which they indulged is mentioned by a.s.sur-natsir-pal. Like the luxurious monarchs of Israel, they reclined on couches inlaid with ivory, of which it is possible that they were the inventors. At all events, elephants were still hunted by Tiglath-pileser I., in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, as they had been by Thothmes III. four centuries earlier, and elephants' tusks were among the tribute paid by the Hitt.i.tes to the a.s.syrian kings. It may be that the extinction of the elephant in this part of Asia was due to Hitt.i.te huntsmen.

The ivory couches of Carchemish, however, were not employed at meals, as they would have been in a.s.syria or among the Greeks and Romans of a later day. Like the Egyptians, the Hitt.i.tes sat when eating, and their chairs were provided with backs as well as with curiously-formed footstools. The food was placed on low cross-legged tables, which resembled a camp-stool in shape.

At times, as we may gather from a bas-relief at Merash, they entertained themselves at a banquet with the sounds of music. Several different kinds of musical instruments are represented on the monuments, among which we may recognise a lyre, a trumpet, and a sort of guitar. It is evident that they were fond of music, and had cultivated the art, as befitted a people to whom wealth had given leisure. A curious indication of the same leisured ease is to be found in a sculpture at Eyuk, where an attendant is depicted carrying a monkey on his shoulders. Those only who enjoyed the quiet of a peaceful and wealthy life would have gratified the taste for animals which the monuments reveal, by importing an animal like the monkey from the distant south. The Hitt.i.tes were doubtless a warlike people when they first swooped down upon the plains of Syria, but they soon began to cultivate the arts of peace and to become one of the great mercantile peoples of the ancient world.

We learn from the Books of Kings that horses and chariots were exported from Egypt for the Hitt.i.te princes, the Israelites serving as intermediaries in the trade. But they must also have obtained horses from the north, and perhaps have bred them for themselves. The prophet Ezekiel tells us (xxvii. 14) that 'they of Togarmah traded' in the fairs of Tyre 'with horses and hors.e.m.e.n and mules,' and Togarmah has been identified with the Tul-Garimmi of the a.s.syrian inscriptions, which was situated in Komagene. In the wars between Egypt and Kadesh a portion of the Hitt.i.te army fought in chariots, each drawn by two horses, and holding sometimes two, sometimes three men. The chariots were of light make, and rested on two wheels, usually furnished with six spokes.

The army was well-disciplined and well-arranged. Its nucleus was formed of native-born Hitt.i.tes, who occupied the centre and the posts of danger. Around them were ranged their allies and mercenaries, under the command of special generals. The native infantry and cavalry also obeyed separate captains, but the whole host was led by a single commander-in-chief.

We have yet to be made acquainted with the details of their domestic architecture. The ground-plan of their palaces has been given us at Boghaz Keui and Eyuk, at Carchemish and Sinjirli, and we know that they were built round a central court of quadrangular form. We know too that the entrance to the palace was, like that to an Egyptian temple, flanked by ma.s.sive blocks of stone on either side, and approached by an avenue of sculptured slabs. We have learned, moreover, that the palace was erected on raised terraces or mounds; but beyond this we know little except that use was made of a pillar without a base, which had been originally derived from Babylonia, the primitive home of columnar architecture.

About the Hitt.i.te dress we have fuller information. Apart from the snow-shoes or moca.s.sins which have helped to identify their monumental remains, we have found the Hitt.i.tes wearing on their heads two kinds of covering, one a close-fitting skull-cap, the other a lofty tiara, generally pointed, but sometimes rounded at the top or ornamented, as at Ibreez, with horn-like ribbons. The pointed tiara was adorned with perpendicular lines of embroidery. At Boghaz Keui the G.o.ddesses have what has been termed the mural crown, resembling as it does the fortified wall of a town.

The robes of the women descended to the feet. This was also the case with the long sleeved garment of the priests, but other men wore a tunic which left the knees bare, and was fastened round the waist by a girdle.

Over this was thrown a cloak, which in walking left one leg exposed. In the girdle was stuck a short dirk; the other arms carried being a spear and a bow, which was slung behind the back. The double-headed battle-axe was also a distinctively Hitt.i.te weapon, and was carried by them to the coast of the aegean, where in the Greek age it became the symbol of the Karian Zeus, and of the island of Tenedos. All these weapons were of bronze, or perhaps of iron; but there are indications that the Hitt.i.te tribes had once contented themselves with tools and weapons of stone.

Near the site of Arpad Mr. Boscawen purchased a large and beautiful axe-head of highly polished green-stone, which could, however, never have been intended for actual use. It was, in fact, a sacrificial weapon, surviving in the service of the G.o.ds from the days when the working of metal was not yet known. Like other survivals in religious worship, it bore witness to a social condition that had long since pa.s.sed away. A small axe-head, also of polished green-stone, was obtained by myself from the neighbourhood of Ephesos, and bears a remarkable resemblance in form to the axe-head of Arpad. The importance of this fact becomes manifest when we compare the numerous other weapons or implements of polished stone found in Western Asia Minor, which exhibit quite a different shape. It permits the conclusion that both Arpad and Ephesos were seats of Hitt.i.te influence, and that in both the same form of stone implement--a survival from an earlier age of stone--was dedicated to the service of the G.o.ds.

The dresses of cloth and linen with which the Hitt.i.tes clothed themselves were dyed with various colours, and were ornamented with fringes and rich designs. That of the priest at Ibreez is especially worthy of study. Among the patterns with which it is adorned are the same square ornament as is met with on the tomb of the Phrygian king Midas, and the curious symbol usually known as the 'swastika,' which has become so famous since the excavations of General di Cesnola in Cyprus, and of Dr. Schliemann at Troy. The symbol recurs times without number on the pre-historic pottery of Cyprus and the Trojan plain; but no trace of it has ever yet been found in Egypt, in a.s.syria, or in Babylonia. Alone among the remains of the civilised nations of the ancient East the rock-sculpture of Ibreez displays it on the robe of a Lykaonian priest.

Was it an invention of the Hitt.i.te people, communicated by them to the rude tribes of Asia Minor, along with the other elements of a cultured life, or was it of barbarous origin, adopted by the Hitt.i.tes from the earlier population of the West?

Before we can answer this question we must know far more than we do at present about that long-forgotten but wonderful race, whose restoration to history has been one of the most curious discoveries of the present age. When the sites of the old Hitt.i.te cities have been thoroughly explored, when the monuments they left behind them have been disinterred, and their inscriptions have been deciphered and read, we shall doubtless learn the answers to this and many other questions that are now pressing for solution. Meanwhile we must be content with what has already been gained. Light has been cast upon a dark page in the history of Western Asia, and therewith upon the sacred record of the Old Testament, and a people has advanced into the forefront of modern knowledge who exercised a deep influence upon the fortunes of Israel, though hitherto they had been to us little more than a name. At the very moment when every word of Scripture is being minutely scrutinised, now by friends, now by foes, we have learnt that the statement once supposed to impugn the authority of the sacred narrative is the best witness to its truth. The friends of Abraham, the allies of David, the mother of Solomon, all belonged to a race which left an indelible mark on the history of the world, though it has been reserved in G.o.d's wisdom for our own generation to discover and trace it out.