ON THE EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES. t4 
NOTE. 
Apropos of the announcement that Captain Conder claims to have in a 
measure discovered the key to the Hittite inscriptions, the following remarks 
have recently appeared :— 
“The Hittites of the Bible were one of the most powerful of the tribes who 
inhabited Canaan in patriarchal times ; and it is probable that the Old 
Testament allusions to them refer, for the most purt, to the branch which at 
that period had migrated from Northern Syria and settled near Hebron, in 
Southern Palestine. Abraham purchased his burial-place, the cave of 
Machpelah, ‘in the field of Ephron the Hittite. To this race, too, 
belonged Judith and Bashemath, Esau’s wives. Ahimelech, David’s 
companion, was a Hittite; so too was Uriah ; and there were Hittite 
princesses amongst Solomon’s wives. But of the Hittites of the north, the 
Bible tells us little. There is not much doubt, however, that they were 
identical with the Kheta of the Egyptian monuments and the Khatti of the 
Assyrian tablets, and that their dynasties belonged to prehistoric ages. 
Whether they were Turanians or no, they were certainly at a very early 
epoch a dominant race who ruled the Semitic tribes around them. 
“The Egyptian sculptors represented them with a Tartar type of phy- 
siognomy. They wore pointed boots instead of sandals, and had pigtails. 
In the 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties the great capitals of the Kheta 
were Carchemish on the Euphrates and Kedesh on the Orontes. The 
site of the latter city was identified beyond a doubt by Captain Conder in 
1881. As early as 1600 B.c.,—that is, before the Hebrew conquest of 
Canaan,—the extension of the Kheta southwards was checked by the 
Egyptians at the Battle of Megiddo; while Rameses II., about 1361 B.c., 
besieged and took Kadesh. The sculptures at Abu Simbel represent this 
great battle, and in them the Egyptian sculptors have, as usual, introduced 
an element of caricature. Rameses appears driving the Hittites into the 
river ; and on the opposite bank their half-drowned chief is being held head 
downwards by his followers, who are endeavouring to revive him by this 
primitive and still popular method. The terms of the treaty subsequently 
concluded between Rameses and Kheta Sar were engraved on a silver plate, 
and also inscribed on the outer walls of the temple at Karnak. From the 
Egyptian description of this document we know that, although the Hittite 
names were not Semitic, they worshipped Ashtoreth and Set, the gods of the 
Syrians, Assyrians, and Pheenicians. These seem, moreover, to have been 
the generic names of local deities. Set appears, too, to have been identical 
with the Egyptian deity of that name,—the God of Night, whose emblem 
was an ass with tail raised. The mountains and rivers of Khetaland were 
also invoked as divinities. The tablet further shows how advanced were 
their military tactics ; and among their allies have been recognised the 
Mysians, the Dardanians, the men of Carchemish and Aleppo, the inhabitants 
of Mesopotamia, and of the island of Aradus. It was a confederacy of 
Syria and Chaldea, Phoenicia, and Asia Minor against the Pharaohs. At 
this period, indeed, the Hittites were nearly equal in power to the Egyptians, 
and the treasures which Rameses took at Kadesh prove that they were 
nearly as wealthy a people. Nor do their wealth and power seem to have 
much diminished until they were totally eclipsed by the rising power of 
Babylon. 
“But we have shown that in still earlier times than those of which we have 
any record the Hittites were probably a yet more powerful race. There are 
not wanting grounds to justify the belief that their empire at one time 
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