402 HITTITES IN AFRICA. 



almost immediately set aside, for the peoples of Babylonia of 

 those days were not in the habit of making long sea voyages, and 

 were evidently not in direct touch with any considerable source 

 of gold supply. The case of Egypt, however, is more difficult. 

 The Egyptians undoubtedly commanded a considerable and con- 

 stant supply of gold. They were in the habit of sending trading- 

 expeditions to the land of Punt, which was somewhere to the 

 south, and they obtained by means of these expeditions certain 

 products, some of which certainly seem to have come from East 

 Africa. It was suggested by Dr. Carl Peters that the land of 

 Punt was in South-East Africa, but there are seeminp-ly insuper- 

 able difficulties in the way of the adoption of this view, and I 

 understand that Dr. Carl Peters has since abandoned it. As a 

 matter of fact, I believe that the gold supply of Egypt was for the 

 most part obtained from the mines of Nubia, the importance of 

 which to the Egyptians is clearly shown by a study of Egyptian 

 history. The amount of gold at the disposal of the Egyptians 

 seems to have been closely connected with the effectiveness of 

 their hold on Nubia at any particular time. The effective and 

 continuous occupation also, for a long period of time of a country 

 so far removed from Egypt as South-East Africa, seems extremely 

 improbable, from all that we know of Egypt and Egyptian his- 

 tory. 



Behind the history of Egypt and Babylonia, however, and the 

 few fragments of the history of other peoples of these ancient 

 times which have come down to us, recent research has shown us 

 that there lies a vast stretch of history, which only a little time 

 ago was undiscovered, and even now is to a great extent unex- 

 plored. We find that some 4,000 years ago Asia Minor, Syria 

 and the islands and shores of the Mediterranean were inhabited 

 by peoples who were the possessors of civilizations which had 

 much in common. It is outside the scope of this paper to discuss 

 the origin and growth of this civilization, even were I able to do 

 so. In some cases, no doubt, it was spread by the migrations of 

 nations at dates which can be approximately ascertained.* In 

 other cases its origin must be sought in very remote times, and 

 its growth took place to a great extent in the localities in which 

 we find it. On the sites of the cities of the Hittites we find 

 evidence of occupation going back to neolithic times, and indica- 

 tions of the growth of the culture which culminated at the time 

 of the wide extension of the Hittite empire. 



Of all these peoples the Hittites were perhaps the most enter- 

 prising and energetic, and they were in many respects the most 

 important. They were the connecting link between the East and 

 West, and supplied many of the elements of the ancient civiliza- 

 tions of Europe, from which our own is to a great extent derived ; 

 to quote Professor Sayce : — 



" Among the great political forces of the ancient oriental world, 

 we now know that none exercised a more profound influence than 

 the Hittites of Asia Minor. It was they who overthrew the Amorite 



*The Etruscans, for instance, had definite traditions of having come 

 from Asia Minor. 



