Chapter 14

[1]We may assume that they owed the partial success of the raid to their mobility, although on this occasion, their earliest invasion of Babylonian territory, the horse probably played a still more useful part in the retreat; see further, p. 215 f.

[2]Such appears to be the most probable explanation of the duplicate copies of the sale-contract from Tell Ṣifr, in the neighbourhood of Larsa, with their variant dates by formulæ of Rîm-Sin and Samsu-iluna; see above,p. 98.

[3]Cf. "Chronicles concerning early Babylonian Kings," II., p. 18.

[4]Cf. the date-formula for Samsu-iluna's twelfth year, which in its full form commemorated some royal act "after all the lands had revolted." Since the success against Ur and Erech was commemorated in the preceding year, the revolt in question can hardly refer to the troubles with Rîm-Sin and the Elamites, but must be taken as implying that other provinces were now making a bid for independence.

[5]The formula for his fourteenth year commemorates his overthrow of "the usurping king, whom the Akkadians had caused to lead a rebellion."

[6]The latest document from Larsa (Senkera) is dated in his twelfth year; see above,p. 104f.

[7]Such names as Ishkibal, Gulkishar, Peshgal-daramash, A-dara-kalama, Akur-ul-ana and Melam-kurkura are all Sumerian. The last king of the dynasty, Ea-gamil, bears a Semitic name, and Shushshi, the name of Ishkibal's brother, is probably Semitic.

[8]The zebu, orBos indicus,is represented on Sumerian sculpture from Lagash, dating from the middle of the third millenniumb.c.(cf. "Sumer and Akkad, p. 69, Fig. 21); men are represented ploughing with it in a Kassite seal-impression (see above, p. 175Fig. 40); and it formed one of the most valued classes of booty from the Sea-Country at the time of the later Assyrian empire (see Fig. 45).

[9]Cf. Poebel, "Legal and Business Documents," p. 119; and Chiera, "Legal and Administrative Documents," p. 25.

[10]See above, p. 148 f.

[11]Cf. "Chronicles concerning Early Kings," II., p. 21.

[12]One of these statues was set up in E-gishshirgal, a name which corresponds to that of the old Moon-temple at Ur; and on this evidence Poebel has assumed that Abi-eshu' succeeded in getting control of Southern Babylonia (cf. "Legal and Business Documents," p. 120). But a fuller form of the date has since been recovered, showing that this E-gishshirgal, and doubtless the temple of Enlil coupled with it, were in Babylon. It would seem therefore that after Samsu-iluna had lost his hold upon the great centre of the Moon-cult in the south, a local temple for the Moon-god's worship was established at Babylon, under the ancient name, in which the old cult-practices were reproduced as far as possible. Similarly, having lost Nippur, a new shrine to Enlil was built at Babylon, or an old one enlarged and beautified. By such means it was doubtless hoped to secure a continuance of the gods' favour, and an ultimate recovery of their cities; and the continual dedication of royal images, though doubtless a sign of royal deification, must also have been intended to bring the king's claims to the divine notice.

[13]As Ammi-ditana appears to have recovered Nippur for a time towards the end of his reign, and as Ammi-zaduga probably retained it during his earlier years (see below,p. 208f.), Babylon could legitimately claim her former privileges during the period of occupation.

[14]The bronze-casting may well have been learnt from Elam; and we have striking evidence of increased relations with the west in the fact that under Ammi-zaduga a district of Sippar was known as Amurrî, from its Amorite quarter or settlement; cf. Meissner, "Altbabylonisches Privatrecht," p. 41 f., No. 42, and Meyer, "Geschichte," I., ii., p. 467 f.

[15]His other building activities included the founding of a royal suburb at Babylon, named Shag-dugga, on the bank of the Arakhtu Canal, where he built himself a palace; while at Sippar he once more rebuilt the Gagûm, or spacious Cloister attached to the temple of the Sun-god.

[16]Cf. Poebel, "Legal and Business Documents," p. 121, and Schorr, "Urkunden," p. 602.

[17]For references, see Schorr,op. cit.,p. 604.

[18]According to a verbal communication made by Prof. Hilprecht to Dr. Poebel.

[19]Cf. "Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi," III., p. 207 f.; in the same inscription he also lays claim to the rule of Amurru.

[20]It is most improbable that he should be identified with Damiḳ-ilishu, the last king of the earlier Dynasty of Nîsin, who perished one hundred and thirty-seven years before this time. It is true that Nabonidus, to judge from his building-inscriptions, evinces an interest in the past, but in many ways he was a unique monarch and he lived in a later age. These early date-formulæ, on the other hand, always refer to contemporaneous events, not to matters of archæological interest. We know definitely that Iluma-ilum (the first Sea-Country king) was the contemporary of Samsu-iluna and Abi-eshu', and it is not unreasonable to find a reference to Damiḳ-ilishu (the third Sea-Country king) in the last year of Ammi-ditana, Abi-eshu's son. Granting this assumption, there follows the important inference that the exceptionally long period of one hundred and fifteen years, assigned by the Kings' List to the reigns of the first two kings of the Sea-Country, is a little exaggerated. The accuracy of some of the longer figures assigned in the List to kings of this dynasty has long been called in question (cf. "Chronicles," I., pp. 111 ff., and see above, p. 106), and the synchronism justifies this doubt. While the historical character of the Second Dynasty has been amply confirmed, we must not regard the total duration assigned to it in the Kings' List as more than approximately correct. Under these circumstances detailed dates have not been assigned to members of that dynasty in the Dynastic List of Kings; see Appendix II., p. 320.

[21]Success doubtless fluctuated from one side to the other, Ammi-zaduga in one of his later years commemorating that he had brightened his land like the Sun-god, and Samsu-ditana recording that he had restored his dominion with the weapon of Marduk. How far these rather vague claims were justified it is impossible to say. Apart from votive acts, the only definite record of this period is that of Ammi-zaduga's sixteenth year, in which he celebrates the cutting of the Ammi-zaduga-nukhush-nishi Canal.

[22]We may confidently regard the phrase as referring to the Anatolian Hittites, whose capital at Boghaz Keui must have been founded far earlier than the end of the fifteenth century when we know that it bore the name of Khatti. It is true that, after the southern migration of the Hittites in the twelfth century, Northern Syria was known as "the land of Khatti," but, if the invasion of Babylonia in Samsu-ditana's reign had been made by Semitic tribes from Syria, no doubt the chronicler would have employed the correct designation, Amurru, which is used in an earlier section of the text for Sargon's invasion of Syria. In the late omen-literature, too, the use of the early geographical terms is not confused. Both chronicles and omen-texts are transcripts of early written originals, not late compilations based on oral tradition.

[23]The reason for the omission is that the whole of this section of the text had evidently been left out by the scribe in error, and he afterwards only had room to insert the first line; cf. "Chronicles," II., p. 22, n. 1.

[24]This district was in the path of the Hittite raid, and its occupation by a section of the invaders was evidently more permanent than that of Babylon.

[25]Cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," XXI., pl. 12, and King, "Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch.," XXXVII., p. 22 f.

[26]See "Cun. Texts," XXI., pl. 15 ff., and cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 222 f. The purchasing power of one shekel of silver is fixed at threegurof corn, or twelve manehs of wool, or ten manehs of copper, or thirtyḳaof wood. The chief interest of the record is its proof that at this period the values of copper and silver stood in the ratio of 600:1 (cf. Meyer, "Geschichte," I., ii., p. 512).

[27]Cf. "Cun. Texts," XXI., pl. 17.

[28]See Hilprecht, "Old Bab. Inscriptions," I., pl. 15, No. 26. A tablet has been recovered dated in the reign of An-am, and another of the same type is dated in the reign of Arad-shasha, whom we may therefore regard as another king of this local dynasty; cf. Scheil, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1905, col. 351, and Thureau-Dangin,op. cit.,p. 238. The style of writing on these tablets is rather later than that of the First Dynasty of Babylon.

[29]For Pukhia, son of Asiru and king of the land of Khurshitu, see "Sum. and Akk.," p. 287. Khurshitu may have been the name of a district on the Ak-su, a tributary of the Adhem, since a brick from his palace is said to have been found at Tuz-khurmati on that stream; cf. Scheil, "Rec. de trav.," XVI., p. 186; XIX., p. 64. The region of King Manabaltel's rule (cf. Pinches, "Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch.," XXI., p. 158) is quite uncertain, but the archaic style of the writing of the tablet, dated in his reign, suggests that he was a contemporary of one of the earlier West-Semitic kings.

[30]See above, p. 105 f.

The Kassite conquest of Babylonia, though it met with immediate success in a great part of the country, was a gradual process in the south, being carried out by independent Kassite chieftains. The Sea-Country kings continued for a time their independent existence; and even after that dynasty was brought to an end, the struggle for the south went on. It was after a further period of conflict that the Kassite domination was completed, and the administration of the whole country centred once more in Babylon. It is fortunate for Babylonia that the new invaders did not appear in such numbers as to over-whelm the existing population. The probability has long been recognized that they were Aryan by race, and we may with some confidence regard them as akin to the later rulers of Mitanni, who imposed themselves upon the earlier non-Iranian population of Subartu, or Northern Mesopotamia. Like the Mitannian kings, the Kassites of Babylonia were a ruling caste or aristocracy, and, though they doubtless brought with them numbers of humbler followers, their domination did not affect the linguistic nor the racial character of the country in any marked degree. In some of its aspects we may compare their rule to that of Turkey in the Tigris and Euphrates valley. They give no evidence of having possessed a high degree of culture, and though they gradually adopted the civilization of Babylon, they tended for long to keep themselves aloof, retaining their native names along with their separate nationality. They were essentially a practical people and produced successful administrators. Thechief gain they brought to Babylon was an improved method of time-reckoning. In place of the unwieldy system of date-formulæ, inherited by the Semites from the Sumerians, under which each year was known by an elaborate title taken from some great event or cult-observance, the Kassites introduced the simpler plan of dating by the years of the king's reign. And we shall see that it was directly owing to the political circumstances of their occupation that the old system of land tenure, already to a great extent undermined by the Western Semites, was still further modified.

But, on the material side, the greatest change they effected in the life of Babylonia was due to their introduction of the horse. There can be little doubt that they were a horse-keeping race,[1]and the success of their invasion may in large part be traced to their greater mobility. Hitherto asses and cattle had been employed for all purposes of draught and carriage, but, with the appearance of the Kassites, the horse suddenly becomes the beast of burden throughout Western Asia. Before their time "the ass of the mountain," as it was designated in Babylonia, was a great rarity, the earliest reference to it occurring in the age of Hammurabi.[2]In that period we have evidence that Kassite tribes were already forming settlements in the western districts of Elam, and when from time to time small parties of them made their way into the Babylonian plain to be employed as harvesters,[3]they doubtless carried theirgoods with them in the usual way. The usefulness of horses imported in this manner would have ensured their ready sale to the Babylonians, who probably retained the services of their owners to tend the strange animals. But the early Kassite immigrants must have been men of a simple and unprogressive type, for in all the contract-literature of the period we find no trace of their acquiring wealth, or engaging in the commercial activities of their adopted country. The only evidence of their employment in other than a menial capacity is supplied by a contract of Ammi-ditana's reign, which records a two-years' lease of an uncultivated field taken by a Kassite for farming.[4]

The Kassite raid into Babylonian territory in Samsu-iluna's reign[5]may have been followed by others of a like character, but it was only at the time of the later kings of the Sea-Country that the invaders succeeded in effecting a permanent foothold in Northern Babylonia. According to the Kings' List the founder of the Third Dynasty was Gandash, and we have obtained confirmation of the record in a Neo-Babylonian tablet purporting to contain a copy of one of his inscriptions.[6]The Babylonian king, whose text the copy reproduces, there bears the name Gaddash, evidently a contracted form of Gandash as written in the Kings' List; and the record contains an unmistakable reference to the Kassite conquest. From what is left of the inscription it may be inferred that it commemorated the restoration of the temple of Bêl, that is, of Marduk, which seems to have been damaged "in the conquest of Babylon." It is clear, therefore, that Babylon must have offered a strenuous opposition to the invaders, and that the city held out until captured by assault. It would seem, too, that this success was followed up by further conquests of Babylonian territory, for in his text, in addition to styling himself King of Babylon, Gaddash adopts the other time-honoured titles of King of the four quarters (of the world), and King of Sinner and Akkad. We may see evidence in this that the kingdom of the Sea-Countrywas now restricted within its original limits, though some attempts may have been made to stem the tide of invasion. Ea-gamil, at any rate, the last king of the Second Dynasty, was not content to defend his home-territory, for we know that he assumed the offensive and invaded Elam. But he appears to have met with no success, and after his death a Kassite chieftain, Ula-Burariash or Ulam-Buriash, conquered the Sea-Country and established his dominion there.[7]

The late chronicler, who records these events, tells us that Ulam-Buriash was the brother of Kashtiliash, the Kassite, whom we may probably identify with the third ruler of the Kassite Dynasty of Babylon. There Gandash, the founder of the dynasty, had been succeeded by his son Agum, but after the hitter's reign of twenty-two years Kashtiliash, a rival Kassite, had secured the throne.[8]He evidently came of a powerful Kassite tribe, for it was his brother, Ulam-Buriash, who conquered the Country of the Sea. We have recovered a memorial of the latter's reign in a knob or mace-head of diorite. which was found during the excavations at Babylon.[9]On it he terms himself King of the Sea-Country, and we learn from it, too, that he and his brother were the sons of Burna-Burariash, or Burna-Buriash, who may have remained behind as a local Kassite chieftain in Elam, while his sons between them secured the control of Babylonia. After a certain interval the Sea-Country must have revolted from Ulam-Buriash, for its reconquest was undertaken by Agum, a younger son of Kashtiliash, who is recorded to have captured the city of Dûr-Enlil and to have destroyed E-malga-uruna, the local temple of Enlil.[10]The eldest son of Kashtiliash had meanwhile succeeded his father on the throne of Babylon, and, if Agum established his rule in the Sea-Country, we again have the spectacle of two brothers, in the next generation of this Kassite family, dividing the control of Babylonia between them. But as the chronicler does not record that Agum, like his uncle Ulam-Buriash, exercised dominion over the Sea-Country as a whole, he may have secured little more than a local success. The throne of Babylon then passed to the second son of Kashtiliash, Abi-rattash, and it was possibly by him, or by one of his successors, that the whole country was once more united under Babylon's rule.

We know of two more members of the family of Kashtiliash, who carried on his line at Babylon. For Abi-rattash was succeeded by his son and grandson, Tashshi-gurumash and Agum-kakrime, of whom the latter has left us the record already referred to, commemorating his recovery of the statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum from the land of Khanî.[11]And then there occurs a great break in our knowledge of the history of Babylon. For a period extending over some thirteen reigns, from about the middle of the seventeenth to the close of the fifteenth centuryb.c., our native evidence is confined to a couple of brief records, dating from the latter half of the interval, and to one or two historical references in later texts. By their help we have recovered the names of a few of the missing kings, though their relative order, and in one or two cases even their existence, are still matters of controversy. In fact, were we dependent solely upon Babylonian sources, our knowledge of the country's history, even when we can again establish the succession, would have been practically a blank. But, thanks in great part to the commercial relations established with Syria since the age of the West-Semitic kings, the influence of Babylonian culture had travelled far afield. Her method of writing on the convenient and imperishable clay tablet had been adopted by other nations of WesternAsia, and her language had become thelingua francaof the ancient world. After her conquest of Canaan, Egypt had become an Asiatic power, and had adopted the current method of international intercourse for communication with other great states and with her own provinces in Canaan. And thus it has come about that some of our most striking information on the period has come to us, not from Babylon itself, but from Egypt.

The mounds known as Tell el-Amarna in Upper Egypt mark the site of a city which had a brief but brilliant existence under Amen-hetep IV., or Akhenaten, one of the later kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He was the famous "heretic" king, who attempted to suppress the established religion of Egypt and to substitute for it a pantheistic monotheism associated with the worship of the solar disk. In pursuance of his religious ideas he deserted Thebes, the ancient capital of the country, and built a new capital further to the north, which he called Akhetaten,[12]the modern Tell el-Amarna. Here he transferred the official records of his own government and those of his father, Amenhetep III., including the despatches from Egypt's Asiatic provinces and the diplomatic correspondence with kings of Mesopotamia, Assyria and Babylon. Some twenty-seven years ago a large number of these were discovered in the ruins of the royal palace, and they form one of the most valuable sources of information on the early relations of Egypt and Western Asia.[13]More recently they have been supplemented by a still larger find of similar documents at Boghaz Keui in Cappadocia, a village built beside the site of Khatti, the ancient capital of the Hittite empire. The royal and official archives had been stored for safety on theancient citadel, and the few extracts that have as yet been published, from the many thousands of documents recovered on the site, have furnished further information of the greatest value from the Hittite standpoint.[14]

From these documents we have recovered a very full picture of international politics in Western Asia during two centuries, from the close of the fifteenth to the later years of the thirteenth centuryb.c.We can trace in some measure the dynastic relations established by Egypt with the other great Asiatic states, and the manner in which the balance of power was maintained, largely by diplomatic methods. During the earlier part of this period Egyptian power is dominant in Palestine and Syria, while the kingdom of Mitanni, under its Aryan dynasty, is a check upon Assyrian expansion. But Egypt was losing her hold upon her Asiatic provinces, and the rise of the Hittite empire coincided with her decline in power. Mitanni soon fell before the Hittites, to the material advantage of Assyria, which began to be a menace to her neighbours upon the west and south. After a change of dynasty, Egypt had meanwhile in part recovered her lost territory in Palestine, and once more took her place among the great nations of Western Asia. And it is only with the fall of the Hittite empire that the international situation is completely altered. Throughout Babylon stands, so far as she may, aloof, preoccupied with commerce rather than with conquest;[15]but in the latter half of the period her eyes are always fixed upon her Assyrian frontier.

HEAD OF A COLOSSAL STATUE OF AMEN-HETEP III

From the Tell el-Amarna correspondence we see how the kings of Mitanni, Assyria and Babylon gave their daughters to the Egyptian king in marriage and sought to secure his friendship and alliance. Apparently Egypt considered it beneath her dignity to bestow her princesses in return, for in one of his letters to Amen-hetep III. Kadashman-Enlil remonstrates with the King of Egypt for refusing him one of his daughters and threatens to withhold his own daughter in retaliation.[16]Another of the letters illustrates in a still more striking manner the intimate international intercourse of the period. At the height of its power the kingdom of Mitanni appears to have annexed the southern districts of Assyria, and for a time to have exercised control over Nineveh, as Hammurabi of Babylon had done in an earlier age. It was in his character of suzerain that Dushratta sent the holy statue of Ishtar of Nineveh to Egypt, as a mark of his esteem for Amen-hetep III. We have recovered the letter he sent with the goddess, in which he writes concerning her:[17]" Indeed in the time of my father the lady Ishtar went into that land; and, just as she dwelt there formerly and they honoured her, so now may my brother honour her ten times more than before. May my brother honour her and may he allow her to return with joy." We thus gather that this was not the first time Ishtar had visited Egypt, and we may infer from such a custom the belief that a deity, when stopping in a foreign country with his or her own consent, would, if properly treated, confer favour andprosperity upon that land. We shall see later on that Rameses II. sent his own god Khonsu on a similar mission to Khatti, in order to cure the epileptic daughter of the Hittite king, who was believed to be possessed by a devil.[18]We could not have more striking proofs of international intercourse. Not only did the rulers of the great states exchange their daughters but even their gods.

But the letters also exhibit the jealousy which existed between the rival states of Asia. By skilful diplomacy, and, particularly in the reign of Akhenaten, by presents and heavy bribes, the Egyptian king and his advisers succeeded in playing off one power against the other, and in retaining some hold upon their troublesome provinces of Syria and Palestine. In paying liberal bounties and rewards to his own followers and party in Egypt itself, Akhenaten was only carrying out the traditional policy of the Egyptian crown;[19]and he extended the principle still more in his dealings with foreign states. But peculation on the part of the ambassadors was only equalled by the greed of the monarchs to whom they were accredited, and whose appetite for Egyptian gold grew with their consumption of it. Much space in the letters is given up to the constant request for more presents, and to complaints that promised gifts have not arrived. In one letter, for example, Ashur-uballit of Assyria writes to Akhenaten that formerly the king of Khanirabbat had received a present of twenty manehs of gold from Egypt, and he proceeds to demand a like sum.[20]Burna-Buriash of Babylon, his contemporary, writes in the same strain to Egypt,[21]reminding Akhenaten that Amenophis III. had been far more generous to his father. "Since the time my father and thine established friendly relations with one another, they sent rich presents to one another, and they did not refuse to one another any desired object. Now my brother has sent me as a present two manehs of gold. Send now much gold, as much as thy father; and if it is less, send but half that of thy father. Why hast thou sent only two manehs of gold? For the work in the temple is great, and I have undertaken it and am carrying it out with vigour; therefore send much gold. And do thou send for whatsoever thou desirest in my land, that they may take it thee."

FIG. 46.AKHENATEN, WITH HIS QUEEN AND INFANT DAUGHTERS, ON THE BALCONY OF THEIR PALACE.The king and his family are hero represented throwing down collars and ornaments of gold to Aÿ, the Priest of Aten and Master of the Horse, who has called at the palace with his wife, attended by a largo retinue. The Aten, or Solar Disk, the object of the royal worship, is caressing the king with its rays and giving him life.(After N. de G. Davies.)

FIG. 46.

AKHENATEN, WITH HIS QUEEN AND INFANT DAUGHTERS, ON THE BALCONY OF THEIR PALACE.

The king and his family are hero represented throwing down collars and ornaments of gold to Aÿ, the Priest of Aten and Master of the Horse, who has called at the palace with his wife, attended by a largo retinue. The Aten, or Solar Disk, the object of the royal worship, is caressing the king with its rays and giving him life.

(After N. de G. Davies.)

Though a great part of the royal letters from Tell el-Amarna is taken up with such rather wearisome requests for gold, they also give valuable glimpses into the political movements of the time. We gather, for instance, that Egypt succeeds in preventing Babylon from giving support to the revolts in Canaan, but she does not hesitate to encourage Assyria, which is now beginning to display her power as Babylon's rival. Burna-Buriash makes this clear when he complains that Akhenaten has received an embassy from the Assyrians, whom he boastfully refers to as his subjects; and he contrasts Babylon's own reception of Canaanite proposals of alliance against Egypt in the time of his father Kurigalzu. "In the time of Kurigalzu, my father," he writes, "the Canaanites sent to him with one accord, saying, 'Let us go down against the border of the land and invade it, and let us form an alliance with thee.' But my father replied to them, saying, 'Desist from seeking to form an alliance with me. If ye are hostile to the king of Egypt, my brother, and ally yourselves with one another, shall I not come and plunder you? For with me is he allied.' My father for thy father's sake did not hearken to them."[22]But Burna-Buriash does not trust entirely to the Egyptian's sense of gratitude for Babylon's support in the past. He reinforces his argument by a present of three manehs of lapis-lazuli, five yoke of horses and five wooden chariots. Lapis-lazuli and horses were the two most valuable exports from Babylon during the Kassite period, and they counterbalanced to some extent Egypt's almost inexhaustible supply of Nubian gold.

Babylon at this time had no territorial ambitions outside the limit of her own frontiers. She was never menaced by Mitanni, and it was only after the fall of the latter kingdom that she began to be uneasy at the increase of Assyrian power.[23]Apart from the defence of her frontier, her chief preoccupation was to keep the trade-routes open, especially the Euphrates route toSyria and the north. Thus we find Burna-Buriash remonstrating with Egypt when the caravans of one of his messengers, named Salmu, had been plundered by two Canaanite chiefs, and demanding compensation.[24]On another occasion he writes that Babylonian merchants had been robbed and slain at Khinnatuni in Canaan,[25]and he again holds Akhenaten responsible. "Canaan is thy land," he says, "and its kings are thy servants;" and he demands that the losses should be made good and the murderers slain.[26]But Egypt was at this period so busy with her own affairs that she had not the time, nor even the power, to protect the commercial interests of her neighbours. For in the majority of the Tell el-Amarna letters we see her Asiatic empire falling to pieces.[27]From Northern Syria to Southern Palestine the Egyptian governors and vassal rulers vainly attempt to quell rebellion and to hold back invading tribes.

The source of a good deal of the trouble was the great Hittite power, away to the north in the mountains of Anatolia. The Hittite kings had formed a confederation of their own peoples north of the Taurus, and they were now pressing southwards into Phœnicia and the Lebanon. They coveted the fertile plains of Northern Syria, and Egypt was the power that blocked their path. They were not at first strong enough to challenge Egypt by direct invasion of her provinces, so they confined themselves to stirring up rebellion among the native princes of Canaan. These they encouraged to throw off the Egyptian yoke, and to attack those cities which refused to join them. The loyal chiefs and governorsappealed for help to Egypt, and their letters show that they generally appealed in vain. For Akhenaten was a weak monarch, and was far more interested in his heretic worship of the Solar Disk than in retaining the foreign empire he had inherited. It was in his reign that the Anatolian Hittites began to take an active part in the politics of Western Asia.

FIGS. 47 AND 48.REPRESENTATIONS OF HITTITES IN EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.The two Figures are parts of the same scene from a relief found at Karnak, representing the introduction of Asiatic ambassadors by an Egyptian prince to Rameses II. The bearded Semites are readily to be distinguished from their Hittite colleagues, clean-shaven and with their long plaits of hair, or pig-tails, hanging down the back.(After Meyer.)

FIGS. 47 AND 48.REPRESENTATIONS OF HITTITES IN EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

The two Figures are parts of the same scene from a relief found at Karnak, representing the introduction of Asiatic ambassadors by an Egyptian prince to Rameses II. The bearded Semites are readily to be distinguished from their Hittite colleagues, clean-shaven and with their long plaits of hair, or pig-tails, hanging down the back.

(After Meyer.)

Until the discovery of the documents at Boghaz Keui, it had only been possible to deduce the existence of the Hittites from the mark they had left in the records of Egypt and Assyria; and at that time it was not even certain whether we might regard as their work the hieroglyphic rock-inscriptions, which are scattered over a great part of Asia Minor. But it is now possible to supplement our material from native sources, and to trace the gradual extension of their power by both conquest and diplomacy. They were a virile race, and their strongly marked features may be still seen, not only on their own rock-sculptures, but also in Egyptian reliefs beside those of other Asiatics.[28]In facialtype, too, they are quite distinct, for the nose, though prominent and slightly curved, is not very fleshy, mouth and chin are small, and the forehead recedes abruptly, with the hair drawn back from it and falling in one, or possibly in two plaits, or pig-tails, on the shoulders.[29]It is still not certain to which of the great families of nations they belonged. The suggestion has been made that their language has certain Indo-European characteristics, but for the present it is safer to regard them as an indigenous race of Asia Minor.[30]Their facial type in any case suggests comparison as little with Aryan as with Semitic stock.

FIG. 49.HITTITE FOOT-SOLDIERS AT THE BATTLE OF KADESH.The figure illustrates the facial type of the Hittite, with his prominent and slightly curved nose and strongly receding brow.(After Meyer.)

FIG. 49.HITTITE FOOT-SOLDIERS AT THE BATTLE OF KADESH.

The figure illustrates the facial type of the Hittite, with his prominent and slightly curved nose and strongly receding brow.

(After Meyer.)

Their civilization was strongly influenced by that of Babylonia, perhaps through the medium of Assyrian trading settlements, which were already established in Cappadocia in the second half of the third millennium. From these early Semitic immigrants, or their successors, they borrowed the clay tablet and the cuneiform systemof writing. But they continued to use their own picture-characters for monumental records; and even in the later period, when they came into direct contact with the Assyrian empire, their art never lost its individual character. Some of the most elaborate of their rock-sculptures still survive in the holy sanctuary at Yasili Kaya, not far from Boghaz Keui. Here on the rock-face, in a natural fissure of the mountain, are carved the figures of their deities, chief among them the great Mother-goddess of the Hittites.

FIG. 50.HITTITE CHIEFTAIN, A CAPTIVE OF RAMESES III.A relief of the twelfth century, perhaps the finest representation of a Hittite on the Egyptian monuments; it is evidently a portrait sculpture, so far as the head is concerned. It illustrates, too, the manner in which the heavy plait of hair ends in a curled tail.(After Meyer.)

FIG. 50.

HITTITE CHIEFTAIN, A CAPTIVE OF RAMESES III.

A relief of the twelfth century, perhaps the finest representation of a Hittite on the Egyptian monuments; it is evidently a portrait sculpture, so far as the head is concerned. It illustrates, too, the manner in which the heavy plait of hair ends in a curled tail.

(After Meyer.)

She and Teshub, the principal male deity, are here represented meeting, with their processions of deities and attendants. Whether it was from precisely this area that the Hittite tribes descended on their raid down the Euphrates, which hastened the fall of Babylon's First Dynasty and perhaps brought it to an end, we have as yet no means of judging.[31]But during the subsequent centuries wemay certainly picture a slow but uninterrupted expansion of the area under Hittite control; and it is probable that authority was divided among the various local kingdoms and chieftainships, which occupied the valleys and upland stretches to the north of the Taurus.

FIG. 51.FIGURE, PROBABLY OF A HITTITE KING, FROM THE ROYAL GATE AT KHATTI.The pose of the figure, slightly leaning to the right, is due to the sloping side of the gateway, beside which it is sculptured in relief.(After a photo by Puchstein.)

FIG. 51.

FIGURE, PROBABLY OF A HITTITE KING, FROM THE ROYAL GATE AT KHATTI.

The pose of the figure, slightly leaning to the right, is due to the sloping side of the gateway, beside which it is sculptured in relief.

(After a photo by Puchstein.)

At the time of their empire, their capital and central fortress was Khatti, which lay to the east of the Halys, on the Anatolian plateau some three thousand feet above sea-level. It occupied a strong position near the crossing of the great lines of traffic through Asia Minor; and expansion from this area must have begun to take place at an early period beyond the west bank of the river, where the country offered greater facilities forpasturage. Another line of advance was southward to the coast-plains beneath the Taurus, and it is certain that Cilicia was occupied by Hittite tribes before any attempt was made on Northern Syria. That at first the Hittites were scattered, without any central organization, among a number of independent city-states, may be inferred from their later records. For when a land is referred to in their official documents, it is designated "the country of the city of so and so," suggesting that each important township had been the centre of an independent district to which it gave its name. Some of the Hittite states attained in time to a considerable degree of importance. Thus we find Tarkundaraba of Arzawa sufficiently eminent to marry a daughter of Amen-hetep III. of Egypt.[32]Another city was Kussar, one of whose kings, Khattusil I., was the father of Shubbiluliuma, under whom the Hittites were organized into a strong confederacy which endured for nearly two hundred years. It must have been owing to its strategic importance that Shubbiluliuma selected Khatti as his capital in place of his ancestral city.

Quite apart from its name, and from the traditions attaching to it, there can be no question but that from this time forward Khatti was the centre of Hittite power and civilization; for it is by far the most extensive Hittite site in existence. It covers the high ground, including the hill-top, above Boghaz Keui, which lies in the valley below; and it is fortunate that the greater part of the modern village was built clear of the outer boundaries of the ancient city, as the ruins have in consequence run far less risk of destruction.[33]It was placed high for purely strategic purposes, commanding as it does the Royal Road from the west and the great trunk-road from the south as they approach the city-walls. The citadel was formed by a flat-topped hill,[34]which dominates the walled city to the north,west, and south of it. Its precipitous slopes descend on the north-east side to a mountain stream outside the walls; and a similar stream, fed by shallow gullies, flows north-westward through the city-area. From the point where they rise in the south, to their junction below the city, the ground falls no less than a thousand feet, and the uneven surface has been fully utilized for its defence. The wall which surrounded the southern and higher half of the city is still comparatively well preserved, and forms three sides of a rough hexagon, but the falling and broken ground to the north prevented a symmetrical completion of the circuit. A series of interior fortification-walls, following the slope of the ground, enclosed a number of irregular areas, subsidiary forts being constructed on four smaller hills along the most southerly cross-wall, which shut in the highest part of the city.

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