AN ANCIENT CAPITAL 



113 



centuries B, C. built their great 

 fortified city on the rocky hill- 

 sides above the mouth of this 

 valley. 



Whether it was Subbi Luliuma 

 or some other musically named 

 gentleman who laid out this city 

 •of many great buildings and 

 strong fortifications, he certainly 

 possessed an appreciation of nat- 

 ural beauty as \ye\\ as statesman- 

 ship, for, as one climbs from 

 point to point — from the palace 

 up to the great citadel ; from 

 one rock, crowned with massive 

 ruins, to another still more 

 stupendous — one hardly knows 

 which to wonder over and ad- 

 mire more, the strength and skill 

 displayed in these three or four 

 thousand year old remains or the glorious 

 views that greet one's eyes at every turn. 



From one corner of the citadel, by the 

 remains of a round tower, you look 

 straight down four or five hundred feet 

 of rock into the gloom of a narrow gorge, 

 at the bottom of which a stream flows 

 <farkly, and you can see little but the rock 

 over which you lean, and the swallows 

 that flash in and out of the gorge, and 

 the eagles that sail to their nests on the 

 opposite crags. On another side of the 

 citadel, at the foot of the precipice, the 

 same stream winds softly through trees 

 and grass and flowers, where willows 

 whiten in the breeze and a mill clacks 

 merrily. Here we saw the rare black 

 stork sail proudly through the valley and 

 heard the rock doves cooing in the caves. 



On the less steep side of the citadel 

 there have been several trenches dug by 

 the excavators. In the earth thrown out 

 of these trenches some peasants have 

 planted their grain, and thus, fertilizing 

 their seed with Hittite remains, they have 

 raised an abundant crop with little labor. 



All over the flat top of this acropolis, 

 as well as everywhere else in the city, 

 one may pick up any quantity of broken 

 pieces of ancient pottery — brown, black, 

 and every shade of red and every degree 

 of fineness. Much of this pottery is 

 painted, most of it with simple decora- 



Phc to by Isabel F. Dodd 

 THE HITTITE DOUBLE-HEADED EAGEE 



tion resembling that on the proto-Corin- 

 thian or geometric vases. Some of it has 

 a beautiful glaze ; some is covered with 

 a white slip and painted in three or four 

 colors, while most of it has simply black 

 or dark red markings on red pottery. 

 These pieces are found in the earth be- 

 low the regular wall of the citadel, as 

 well as above it, thus showing their great 

 age. Here and there are pieces of enor- 

 mous pithoi, evidently used by the Hit- 

 tites for storehouses, as by the Greeks. 



ASSYRIAN CUNEIFORM CLAIMED MORE 

 IMPORTANCE THAN DID LATIN 



A visit to Boghaz Keouy not only 

 makes one feel quite intimate with the 

 Hittites. but also one sees here that they 

 did many of the things that we associate 

 with much later peoples. Did the Turks 

 first use the star and crescent ; or even 

 the Greeks of ancient Byzantium? No, 

 indeed ; here at Boghaz Keouy ( and in 

 the later Hittite city, newly excavated, 

 near Aintab, in South Turkey) the star 

 and crescent may be seen where it was 

 carved in the rocks a thousand years be- 

 fore Byzantium was founded. 



Did the Austrians or Russians, or the 

 old Byzantines, or the German Empire, 

 first use the double-headed eagle? None 

 of them. Everywhere in Hittite sculp- 

 tures we find this symbol. The first peo- 



