HITTITES IN AFRICA. 403 



dynasty of Babylon, to which the Amraphel of Genesis belonged, to 

 them was due the fall of the l^gyptian empire in Asia, and it was 

 they who checked for centuries the desolating advance of the 

 Assyrians. in Palestine their influence was supreme, and it is 

 with good reason that m the tenth chapter of Genesis tleth is named 

 second among the sons of Canaan. '1 hey were the founders of the 

 Heraklid dynasty in Lydia, and Babylonian art, as modified in Asia 

 Minor, was carried by them to the Greek seas. Greek religion and 

 mythology owed much to them ; even the Amazons of Greek legend 

 prove to have been the warrior priestesses of the great Hittite god- 

 dess. Above all, it was the Hittites vvho controlled the mines of 

 Asia Minor which supplied the ancient world with silver, copper, 

 lead and perhaps also tin. Before the age of Abraham, traders 

 carried the bronze of Asia Minor to Assyria and Palestine, and thus 

 transformed the whole culture of Western Asia." 



If we compare the ruins of Rhodesia and the objects found 

 there, with the works of the early population of the shores of the 

 Mediterranean and Asia Minor in general, and of the Hittites in 

 particular, we find many striking points of resemblance. In both 

 cases we find the same walls of massive construction built of 

 blocks of stone laid in regular courses without mortar. (The 

 walls of the acropolis of the ancient capital of the Hittites in 

 Cappadocia are 14 feet in thickness.) We find a choice of similar 

 sites for the erection of fortresses, although this is probably of 

 little importance and would naturally arise from considerations 

 of defence ; we find the same narrow entrances (3 feet w:de) pro- 

 tected by buttresses, and we find the same labyrinthine plan of 

 construction. 



In " The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland " Mr. Bent refers to 

 a description in Lucian's " De Syria De^ "of a temple at 

 Hierapolis which has much in common with the temples at 

 Zimbabwe. Now Hierapolis, which was some distance to the 

 north of Carchemish, one of the later capitals of the Hittites, is 

 well within the Hittite country, and the worship of the mother 

 goddess was paramount throughout the Hittite lands from the 

 Euphrates to Ephesus, and from the South of Palestine to the 

 shores of the Black Sea, and the evidences of nature worship 

 found in the ruins of Rhodesia, and claimed as indications of the 

 presence of the Phoenicians are quite as much, perhaps more, 

 characteristic of the Hittites and of the earlier peoples of the 

 Mediterranean, than they are of the Phoenicians or any other 

 Semitic people. 



Among the Rock sculptures of the Hittites at Fraktin (in Asia 

 Minor) we find the representation of an altar on which is perched 

 a bird on a small pedestal, reminding one of the birds on soap- 

 stone pedestals which have been found near one of the altars at 

 Zimbabwe. 



The construction of the elliptical temple at Zimbabwe is 

 paralleled by the temples at Malta, and a similar structure is also 

 found at Gozo, and we have the conical towers built of stone in 

 Sardinia. All these structures in all probability long antedate 

 any settlement by Phoenicians. 



The decorative patterns, etc., which we find on the ruins in 

 Rhodesia, we also find on the Hittite sculptures, and even the 

 small grotesque soapstone figures which have been found ^n 

 Mashonaland, although these may be of modern origin, are simi- 



