ON THE EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES. 63 
Professor Sayce and Dr. Isaac Taylor came subsequently 
to the conclusion at which I had arrived, but by quite a 
different route. They believed that the Lycian, Carian, and 
Cappadocian alphabets, as well as the Cypriote Syllabics, 
were derived from a common stock, which must have been in 
use before the introduction of the Phcenician or Greek 
alphabets. George Smith declared that ‘ the real connexion 
between the traditions of Babylonia and Palestine would 
never be cleared up until the literature of the Syrian popula- 
tion, which intervened, was cleared up.’ These eminent 
scholars came to attribute the Hamah and kindred inscriptions 
to the Hittites m much the same way as astronomers have 
sometimes been led to the discovery of a new planet, by the 
existence of certain phenomena which could only be accounted 
for by the presence of some commanding influence. ‘I'he 
commanding influence was the Hittite, the central stock of 
which the Cypriote and the mysterious scrips of Asia Minor 
are branches. 
In my article, written at the close of 1872, I ventured to 
predict that the Hamah inscriptions would prove the first 
fruits of a rich harvest to be gleaned by the intelligent and 
industrious antiquary. Few predictions have been so signally 
fulfilled. In the first edition of my book,* published in 1884, 
I was able to give eighteen plates of inscriptions. In the 
second edition the number rose to twenty-seven. ‘The number 
is constantly on the increase, and even since I began to write 
this paper, Professor Enting, of Strasburg, has sent me copies 
of new inscriptions, and Dr. Hayes Ward sends me a copy of 
Scribner’s Magazine, in which he publishes two new inscrip- 
tions. 
Inscriptions of the same character, with variations, are now 
found throughout the length and breadth of Asia Minor, and 
Northern Syria, from’ Hamah on the Orontes to Hyuk by the 
Halys, and from Carchemish on the Euphrates to the Huxine 
and the Aigean. Professor Sayce, Sir Charles Wilson, 
Canon Tristram, Dr. Hayes Ward, and other scholars, have 
testified to the wealth of Hittite sculptures and inscriptions, 
which abound throughout Asia Minor. 
That more inscriptions have not yet been found between 
Kadesh and Carchemish need not surprise any one. The 
country has not been carefully explored. The destroying 
Scythians swept the land of the Hittites. The Seleucidx, with 
their mania for building and re-building, occupied the land. 
The Romans succeeded the Greeks, and they, too, pulled down 
* The Empire of the Hittites. Nisbet & Co. 
