THE ANCIENT HITTITES. 



691 



close attention, have been In vain. The cause of faihire is the meager 

 t)r indefinite information concerning the Hittites on the part of their 

 neighbors or successors, and the puzzling complications of their sys- 

 tem of writing. It is approximately estimated that there are already 

 known more than 200 signs in their system, and this number is increas- 

 ing with each new inscription. As far as can l)c inferred from the 

 inscriptions and from other writing systems of western Asia, some 

 single signs stand for entire words which in reading are either to be 

 pronounced, or are merely explanator}-, to indicate the notional sphere 

 into w^hich a preceding or following written-out word l)elongs;" some 

 denote a s^dlable, others again merely a sound. The mingling of 

 all these signs naturally renders the S3^stem very obscure, since one 

 and the same word can be written in an entirely different manner. In 

 the uniform writing systems of the Egyptians and Bal)vlonians, 

 inscriptions which presented the same content in ditferent parallel 

 scripts and languages, one of which was known or easy to make out, 

 smoothed the difficulty of decipherment. It is true that we have 

 also for the Hittite writing system such an 

 example, which naturally has been much 

 discussed. It is the bilingual inscription of 

 "Tarkudimme'' (fig. 2). But, unfortunately, 

 it is too short and presents in itself too many 

 riddles to be of any use. The object made 

 of silver, in form something like a hollow 

 hemisphere, formed the upper part of a dag- 

 ger handle and was to serve as a seal. The 

 convex surface is engraved with a figure and 

 writing. On the edge runs a cuneiform 

 inscription reading: "Tarkudimme, King of the country of Erme 

 i'i or Me ?)." In the center, to the right and the left of the figure of 

 the King, is a Hittite inscription twice repeated. The distribution of 

 the content of the cuneiform script over these six signs presents so 

 many difticidties that one is compelled to suppose that the Hittite 

 inscription either contains only a portion of it or something entirely 

 dift'erent. 



The Hittite hieroglyphic writing has bin-onie the parent of a series 

 of partly alphal)etical writing systems which in later times meet us on 

 the soil of Asia Minor. To these belongs the script used on the isle 

 of Cyprus, a syllabic writing, where nearly every sign denotes a 

 s3dlable (consonant and vowel). A large number of Greek inscrip- 



f'Such a sign is that for "(lod" — consisting of an oval with a crossbar in it — the 

 only one thus far interpreted with certainty without, liowever, knowing how it is to 

 be pronounced. The first sign in figure 1 — a head with an arm and the hand point- 

 ing to the face — which stands at the cominencemeut of many inscriptions, very 

 l)n)hably means "I am," or (N N . . .) "speaks." Uut here, too, the pronuncia- 

 tion is unknown. 



Fig. 2. — Inscription of the Tarkn- 

 demos Bors. 



