70 MAJOR C. R. CONDER, D.C.L., R.E., 
contact with Egypt. Now these three periods are almost historical 
in their character, for, as far as the monuments go, they (both 
Assyrian and Egyptian) tend to show that the influx of the 
Hittite people was not from East to West, but from West to 
East. In the inscriptions of Tigiath-pileser I. you find the Hittites 
mentioned as coming down from the mountains in the neigh- 
bourhood of Marash, and in the inscriptions of Rameses II. we 
find the Hittites in the regions of the Southern Taurus, and in 
the district of the borders of the Gulf of Antioch. There is 
another point I would direct Major Conder’s attention to, because 
I think he would find in it, as I have found, a very valuable 
means of information, viz., the Vannic inscriptions. If he com- 
pares those earlier names on the Vannic inscriptions with those 
in the Hittite lists they will show some very striking resem- 
blances. These are not merely casual, and I cannot agree with 
him that there is any trace whatever in the language of the 
Vannic inscriptions of an Aryan tongue. Wherever the Aryans 
were at that time, they were certainly not in that country, and 
even at a later period, if they were in the country, they were 
certainly not in a position to influence the language of the people in 
the eighth and ninth century B.C., which we find in the inscriptions 
of the earlier Vannic kings. These inscriptions have been read with 
not, perhaps, perfect certainty, by Professor Sayce, but the reading 
gives a fair sequence of sense, which is more than I can say of 
other renderings I have yet seen of Vannic inscriptions. We know 
the period to which these inscriptions belong and the important 
gap in history which they fill up. Now comes a question with 
regard to these Vannic people. We know that the Vannic records 
of that period fill up the period between the fall of the early 
Assyrian empire (the period of weakness after the time of the 
early Assyrian empire) until the reigns of Assur-nazir-pal and Shal- 
manesar III. They belong to the time when Assyria had all her 
work to do to conquer the tribes that spread in the neighbourhood of 
Khabour and the banks of the Euphrates. They fought with the 
Hittites, we know, because the name of the Hittites is found more than 
once in the inscriptions. They conquered the Hittites, but afterwards 
entered into a close alliance with them, and if you examine the few 
remains we have from Van of the rest of the period, there seems to 
be little doubt that we do find a kindred race in these pre-Aryans to 
the tribes in the regions of Marash, and the northern regions of the 
Hittite country. Now, I said just now, that there was more than 
