G8 .ate THE REV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 
curious Hittite characters, which show very clearly that there was a 
direct. roadway from Carchemish to the neighbourhood of Smyrna. Mr. 
Malceod has asked whether there was any connexion between the site of Troy 
and the Hittites. That is a question which it would at present be premature 
definitely to answer ; but I may say that if the scratchings on the whole are 
inscriptions, as there seems to be strong evidence they are, they are written 
in a syllabary or alphabet, four or five characters of which are identical with 
those found on the Hittite monuments. But what more strongly emphasises 
the connexion of these people with Asia Minor is the fact that the legends 
current in Asia Minor, and preserved by the Greek writers, were clearly, in 
the majority of cases, of Babylonian origin. Take the story of the Atys and 
the Corybantes, or of the warlike maidens who accompanied Omphaie 
in her invasion, as recorded in those legends. They were the warlike 
characters who are clearly represented in the sculptures at Eyuk,—bodies 
of armed dancers,—not, as some writers have asserted, soldiers, but un- 
doubtedly armed females, who are probably taking part in that celebrated 
dance which the Corybantes were in the habit of performing. These find 
their counterpart in the warlike maidens who attended the Babylonian 
Istar, “Queen of Battles,” and who fought against Gisdhubar as the Amazons 
did against Heracles. These things also serve to show that the Hittites 
had dwelt over a good part of Asia Minor, and been in contact with Babylon. 
Having studied this subject rather closely of late, I should like to say a word 
or two in reference to the important question, What was the home of these 
people ? I must certainly say that I think we may and do see a ray of light 
in the suggestion of Professor de Lacouperie. We have hitherto been inclined 
to imagine that there was a drifting of the early tribes from east to west. 
This is shown in the case of one people in particular: I refer to the people 
whose annals you find in the Vannic inscriptions. I may say that there is 
a very important fragment which helps to fill up a break in the sequence of 
history, to be found in these Vannic inscriptions. For a time after the fall 
of the Early Assyrian empire, about a thousand years before the Christian 
era, and until the rise of the Second Empire, there is a blank in the history 
of Western Asia. Now, the Vannic inscriptions certainly help to fill up that 
gap. They are written in a language which bears no relationship to the 
modern Armenian, and in them we find the Vannic kings fighting and 
entering into alliances with the kings of the Hittites. We shall find, I 
think, that there was a body of what we may call Kushites, who passed 
northwards up the Euphrates valley, and the vestiges of these people are 
probably to be found in the early tribes inhabiting that district, and in the 
tribes who inhabited the regions round about Marash and Zeytoun, which 
Ido not think are without some indications of the Hittite people. At 
Carchemish I was struck by the resemblance presented by some of the 
muleteers to the figures represented on the sculptures. They had the same 
peculiar shortness of figure, with the same evidence of muscular develop- 
ment ; they wore the petticoat turned up about the knee, and caps exactly 
as we see them represented on the sculptures at Carchemish. I should tell 
