HITTITES IN AFRICA. 405 



of the Phoenicians in South-East Africa were confined to trading 

 on the coast. As a matter of fact, I believe that the Phoenicians 

 have been credited with an influence on the spread of civilization 

 and with other achievements which are not their due. In the 

 times between 1200 and 800 B.C., when the ancient peoples of 

 Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean were submerged 

 beneath a tide of barbaric invasion, from both Europe and Asia, 

 the Phoenicians survived, and to them the Greeks attributed many 

 of the achievements of the group of peoples of which they were 

 the sole survivors ; in the same way as they attributed to the 

 Phrygians, who were comparatively recent intruders into Asia 

 Minor in the days of the Greek historians, a great antiquity, and 

 many of the works of the Hittites who preceded them. 



It will be noticed that the argument in favour of a Phoenician 

 and even Sabaean origin is to a great extent based on the tacit 

 assumption that the culture of Syria and the Mediterranean was of 

 Phoenician origin. Recent discoveries, however, make it very 

 doubtful if this was the case. It seems possible that, as is the 

 case with so many old beliefs, we will have to abandon the belief 

 expressed in the saying " ex orient e lux," and have to admit 

 that Western civilization to a great extent grew up in Western 

 lands. 



The parallel of remains of former ages found in Rhodesia, to 

 similar remains found in the countries and islands of the Medi- 

 terranean, does not seem to me to point of necessity to Phoenician 

 influence. I do not think it any more correct, — probably not so 

 correct, — to ascribe the culture of the Mediterranean peoples to 

 the Phoenicians, than it would be to ascribe Phoenician culture to 

 the influence of the peoples of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. 

 " It is now certain that the origin of our alphabet, for instance, 

 is not to be found, as has been supposed, in the Hieratic script of 

 Egypt, but in the Hieroglyphs of Crete; and that the influence of 

 the Phoenicians in its development was less important than has been 

 generally supposed." 



At the present time also, there is little doubt that the main 

 channel through which the civilization of the East reached the 

 West, was the land of the Hittites. 



In the 15th century B.C., as we can see from the Tel-el- 

 Amarna tablets, each of the Phoenician cities had its own prince, 

 and although they were rich in shipping, they had little political 

 power and were tributary to Egypt or to the Hittites, according 

 as the one or other of these powers was dominant in Syria. 



Phoenicia was a small country, but a narrow strip of coastland, 

 and its population must have been comparatively limited, and a 

 large proportion of it engaged in trade and shipping. As they 

 had no control over the inland tribes, it does not seem to me 

 possible that they could have had at their disposal the men or 

 military organization necessary to occupy effectively a country so 

 extensive as that over which mining was carried on in ancient 

 times in South-East Africa. So far also, as we have any real 

 historical knowledge of the Phoenicians, we know that their set- 

 tlements were always confined to the coast, and that they never 

 penetrated far inland into any country. In the days of which we 

 speak, the Phoenicians were traders and seamen, and not miners. 



