wider range. It has usually been assumed that the incised inscriptions, being the more conventionalized, are all of later date than those in relief; but comparison of Egyptian inscriptions, wherein both incised and cameo characters coexisted back to very early times, suggests that this assumption is not necessarily correct. The Hittite symbols at present known show about two hundred varieties; but new inscriptions continually add to the list, and great uncertainty remains as to the distinction of many symbols (i.e. whether mere variants or not), and as to many others which are defaced or broken in our texts. The objects represented by these symbols have been certainly identified in only a few instances. A certain number are heads (human and animal) detached from bodies, in a manner not known in the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, with which some of the other symbols show obvious analogies. Articles of dress, weapons, tools, &c., also appear. The longer inscriptions are disposed in horizontal zones or panels, divided by lines, and, it seems, they were to be read boustrophedon, not only as regards the lines (which begin right to left) but also the words, which are written in columnar fashion, syllable below syllable, and read downwards and upwards alternately. The direction of reading is towards any faces which may be shown among the pictographs. The words are perhaps distinguished in some texts by punctuation marks.
Long and patient efforts have been made to decipher this script, ever since it was first restored to our knowledge; and among the would-be decipherers honourable mention must be made, for persistence and courage, of Professor A. H. Sayce and of Professor P. Jensen. Other interpretations have been put forward by F. E. Peiser (based on conjectures as to the names on the Nineveh sealings), C. R. Conder (based largely on Cypriote comparisons and phonetic values transferred from these) and C. J. Ball (based on Hittite names recorded on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and applied to word-groups on the Hittite monuments). These, however, as having arbitrary and inadequate foundations, and for other reasons, have not been accepted. F. Hommel, J. Halévy and J. Menant have done useful work in distinguishing word-groups, and have essayed partial interpretations. No other decipherers call for mention. A. H. Sayce and P. Jensen alone have enlisted any large body of adherents; and the former, who has worked upon his system for thirty years and published in the Proceedings of the Society for Biblical Archaeology for 1907 a summary of his method and results, has proceeded on the more scientific plan. His system, however, like all others, is built in the main upon hypotheses incapable at present of quite satisfactory verification, such, for example, as the conjectural reading “Gargamish” for a group of symbols which recurs in inscriptions from Jerablus and elsewhere. In this case, to add to the other obvious elements of uncertainty, it must be borne in mind that the location of Carchemish at Jerablus is not proved, though it is very probable. Other conjectural identifications of groups of symbols with the place-names Hamath, Marash, Tyana are bases of Sayce’s system. Jensen’s system may be said to have been effectually demolished by L. Messerschmidt in his Bemerkungen (1898); but Sayce’s system, which has been approved by Hommel and others, is probably in its main lines correct. Its frequent explanation, however, of incompatible symbols by the doctrines of phonetic variation and interchange, or by alternative values of the same symbol used as ideograph, determinative or phonetic complement, and the occasional use of circular argument in the process of “verification,” do not inspire confidence in other than its broader results. Sayce’s phonetic values and interpretations of determinatives are his best assured achievements. But the words thus arrived at represent a language on which other known tongues throw little or no light, and their meaning is usually to be guessed only. In some significant cases, however, the Boghaz Keui tablets appear to give striking confirmation of Sayce’s conjectures.
Writing in 1903 L. Messerschmidt, editor of the best collection of Hittite texts up to date, made a tabula rasa of all systems of decipherment, asserting that only one sign out of two hundred—the bisected oval, determinative of divinity—had been interpreted with any certainty; and in view of this opinion, coupled with the steady refusal of historians to apply the results of any Hittite decipherment, and the obvious lack of satisfactory verification, without which the piling of hypothesis on hypothesis may only lead further from probability, there is no choice but to suspend judgment for some time longer as to the inscriptions and all deductions drawn from them.
Are the Monuments Hittite?—It is time to ask this question, although a perfectly satisfactory answer can only be expected when the inscriptions themselves have been deciphered. Almost all “Hittitologues” assume a connexion between the monuments and the Kheta-Khatti-Hittites, but in various degrees; e.g. while Sayce has said roundly that common sense demands the acceptance of all as the work of the Hittites, who were the dominant caste throughout a loosely-knit empire extending at one time from the Orontes to the Aegean, Messerschmidt has stated with equal dogmatism that the Hittites proper were only one people out of many[1] in N. Syria and Asia Minor who shared a common civilization, and that therefore they were authors of a part of the monuments only—presumably the N. Syrian, Commagenian and Cataonian groups. O. Puchstein[2] has denied to the Hittites some of the N. Syrian monuments, holding these of too late a date (judged by their Assyrian analogies) for the flourishing period of the Kheta-Khatti, as known from Egyptian and Assyrian records. He would ascribe them to the Kummukh (Commagenians), who seem to have succeeded the Khatti as the strongest opponents of Assyria in these parts. He was possibly right as regards the Sinjerli and Sakchegeuzu sculptures, which are of provincial appearance. The following considerations, however, may be stated in favour of the ascription of the monuments to the Hittites:—
(1) The monuments in question are found frequently whereever, from other records, we know the Hittites to have been domiciled at some period, i.e. throughout N. Syria and in Cataonia. (2) It was under the Khatti that Carchemish was a flourishing commercial city; and if Jerablus be really Carchemish, it is significant that apparently the most numerous and most artistic of the monuments occur there. (3) Among all the early peoples of N. Syria and Asia Minor known to us from Egyptian and Assyrian records, the Kheta-Khatti alone appear frequently as leading to war peoples from far beyond Taurus. (4) The Kheta certainly had a system of writing and a glyptic art in the time of Rameses II., or else the Egyptian account of their copy of the treaty would be baseless. (5) The physiognomy given to Kheta warriors by Egyptian artists is fairly representative of the prevailing type shown in the Hittite sculptures.
Furthermore, the Boghaz Keui tablets, though only partially deciphered as yet, go far to settle the question. They show that whether Boghaz Keui was actually the capital of the Hatti or not, it was a great city of the Hatti, and that the latter were an important element in Cappadocia from very early times. Before the middle of the 16th century B.C. the Cappadocian Hatti were already in relations, generally more or less hostile, with a rival power in Syria, that of Mitanni; and Subbiluliuma (= Saplel or Saparura), king of these Hatti, a contemporary of Amenophis IV. and Rameses I., seems to have obtained lasting dominion in Syria by subduing Dushratta of Mitanni. Carchemish thenceforward became a Hatti city and the southern capital of Cappadocian power. Since all the Syrian monuments of the Hittite class, so far known, seem comparatively late (most show such strong Assyrian, influence that they must fall after 1100 B.C. and probably even considerably later), while the North Cappadocian monuments (as Sayce, Ramsay, Perrot and others saw long ago) are the earlier in style, we are bound to ascribe the origin of the civilization which they represent to the Cappadocian Hatti.
- ↑ The Assyrian records, as well as the Egyptian, distinguish many peoples in both areas from the Kheta-Khatti; and the most we can infer from these records is that there was an occasional league formed under the Hittites, not any imperial subjection or even a continuous federation.
- ↑ Pseudo-Hethitische Kunst (Berlin, 1890).
