38 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



East designates the Hittites as the most important branch of the 

 Proto-Armenian race. He thus puts his views: "As Asia Minor 

 " was but a prolongation of Armenia, so too, originally, its popula- 

 tion was the same as that which in pre-historic days inhabited the 

 " Armenian plateau. From thence it spread westward and south- 

 " ward, down the slopes of the mountains, under the various names 

 " of Hittites, Moschi, and Titareni, Komagenians, Kappadokians, 

 " and the like. We may term it Proto-Armenian, and see in the 

 "Georgians its modern representatives, though doubtless the Circas- 

 " sians and other half extinct races, which, before the Russian con- 

 " quest, found a refuge in the fastnesses of the Caucasus, once had 

 " share in populating the neighboring regions." 



Turn now to the evidence of the literary and artistic standing of 

 the Hittites. Their enemies sneer at them as the lovers of books, 

 and one of the towns in Southern Palestine is called Kirjatte-Sepher or 

 book town. Before the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet into 

 Asia Minor a Hittite syllabary was used, the syllabary now termed 

 Asianic. In Cyprus as late as the fourth century B. C. this sylla- 

 bary was used. Through Hittite sources the philosophic ideas of 

 the east poured into the west, and gave a colouring to the early 

 Ionic thinking. The resemblance between the Hittite writings and 

 those of Egypt show close contact and intercommunion. Through 

 this Europe was linked to Egypt ; for the Hittites touched Greece 

 on the west, as we learn from the works of Homer. On the suppo- 

 sition that one of the Hyksos dynasties was Hittite it may be infer- 

 red that the Hittites were not ignorant of astronomy or of mathe- 

 matics. Professor Eisenlohr tells us that the Hyksos princes 

 did study such questions. In art the Hittites made considerable 

 progress. As their literature was founded on, and powerfully 

 moulded by their neighbors, the Egyptians and early Babylonians 

 living before the rise of the Assyrian empire, as in like manner was 

 their art. They seem to have taken the artists of early Babylon as 

 their models, and, having added new ideas from Egypt, introduced 

 the Eastern forms into Asia Minor, and through the gate-way of 

 Asia Minor into Europe. Professor Sayce says of Hittite art, " it 

 "was characterized by roundness and work in relief. The mural 

 " crown was a Hittite invention ; the animal forms, in which Hittite 

 "artists specially excelled, were frequently combined to form compo- 

 " site creatures, among which may be mentioned the double-headed 



