OTHER HISTORICAL RECORDS.
_China_--Oldest existing Civilization--but Records much later
than those of Egypt and Chaldæa--Language and Traditions
Accadian--Communication how effected.
_Elam_--Very Early Civilization--Susa, an old City in First
Chaldæan Records--Conquered Chaldæa in 2280 B.C.--Conquered by
Assyrians 645 B.C.--Statue of Nana--Cyrus an Elamite King--His
Cylinder--Teaches Untrustworthiness of Legendary History.
_Phoenicia_--Great Influence on Western Civilization--but Date
comparatively late--Traditions of Origin--First distinct Mention
in Egyptian Monuments 1600 B.C.--Great Movements of Maritime
Nations--Invasions of Egypt by Sea and Land, under Menepthah,
1330 B.C., and Ramses III., 1250 B.C.--Lists of Nations--Show
Advanced Civilization and Intercourse--but nothing beyond 2000
or 2500 B.C.
_Hittites_--Great Empire in Asia Minor and Syria--Turanian
Race--Origin Cappadocia--Great Wars with Egypt--Battle of
Kadesh--Treaty with Ramses II.--Power rapidly declined--but
only finally destroyed 717 B.C. by Sargon II.--Capital
Carchemish--Great Commercial Emporium--Hittite Hieroglyphic
Inscriptions and Monuments--Only recently and partially
deciphered--Results.
_Arabia_--Recent
Discoveries--Inscriptions--Sabæa--Minæans--Thirty-two Kings
known--Ancient Commerce and Trade-routes--Incense and
Spices--Literature--Old Traditions--Oannes--Punt--Seat of
Semites--Arabian Alphabet--Older than Phoenician--- Bearing on
Old Testament Histories.
_Troy and Mycenæ_--Dr. Schliemann's
Excavations--Hissarlik--Buried Fortifications, Palaces,
and Treasures of Ancient Troy--Mycenæ and Tiryns--Proof of
Civilization and Commerce--Tombs--Absence of Inscriptions and
Religious Symbols--Date of Mycenæan Civilization--School of
Art--Pictures on Vases--Type of Race.
CHINA.
The first country to which we might naturally look for independent
annals approaching in antiquity those of Egypt and Chaldæa is China.
Chinese civilization is in one respect the oldest in the world;
that is, it is the one which has come down to the present day from
a remote antiquity with the fewest changes. What China is to-day it
was more than 4000 years ago; a populous empire with a peaceful and
industrial population devoted to agriculture and skilled in the arts
of irrigation; a literary people acquainted with reading and writing;
orderly and obedient, organized under an emperor and official
hierarchy; paying divine honours to ancestors, and a religious
veneration to the moral and ceremonial precepts of sages and
philosophers. Addicted to childish superstitions, and yet eminently
prosaic, practical, and utilitarian. Unlike other nations they have
no traditions attributing the origin of arts and sciences to foreign
importation, as in the Chaldæan legend of Oannes, or, as in Egypt,
to native gods; that is, to development on the soil from an unknown
antiquity. The Chinese annals begin with human emperors, who are only
divine in the sense of being wise and virtuous ancestors, and who are
represented as uttering long discourses on the whole duty of man, in
a high moral and philosophical tone.
But these annals do not profess to go back further than to about 2500
B.C., or to a period at least 2000 and probably 3000 years later
than the commencement of historical annals, confirmed by monuments
in Egypt and Chaldæa, and any traditions prior to this period are
of the vaguest and most shadowy descriptions. We only know with
certainty that prior to Chinese civilization there was an aboriginal,
semi-savage race, the Miou-tse, remnants of whom are still to
be found in the mountainous western provinces; and it had been
conjectured from the form of the hieroglyphics to which the Chinese
written characters can be traced back, that they were invented by a
pastoral people who roamed with flocks and herds over the steppes of
Central Asia. Thus the sheep plays a very prominent part, the idea of
"beauty" being conveyed by an ideogram meaning "a large sheep"; that
of "right" or "property" by one which means "my sheep," and so on in
many other instances.
There is a tradition also of a clan of 100 families who came down
from the West and descended the valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang,
expelling the aboriginal Miou-tse. But for any real information as
to Chinese origins we are indebted to recent discoveries of Accadian
records. It has been proved by Lacouperie, Bell, and other experts
in the oldest forms of the Chinese and Accadian languages, that they
are not only closely allied, as both forming part of the Ugrian or
Turkish branch of the Turanian family, but almost identical. Thus,
by following the well-known philological law by which an initial
'g' is often softened in course of time into a 'y,' it was found
that by writing 'g' for 'y' in many Chinese words beginning with the
latter letter, pure Accadian words were obtained. Thus "to speak"
is in Accadian _gu_, in the Mandarin Chinese _yu_, and in the old
form of Chinese spoken in Japan _go_; night is _ye_ in Chinese, _ge_
in Accadian. The very close connection between Accadian and Chinese
civilization is still more conclusively shown by the identity in many
matters which could not have been invented independently. Thus the
prehistoric period of Chaldæa before the Deluge is divided, according
to Berosus and the tablets, into ten periods of ten kings, whose
reigns lasted for 120 Sari or 432,000 years, a myth which is purely
astronomical. The early Chinese writers had a myth of precisely the
same number of ten kings and the same period of 432,000 years for
their united reigns. Chinese astronomy also, said by their annals
to have been invented by the Emperor Yao about 2000 B.C., was an
almost exact counterpart of that of the earliest Accadian records.
They recognized the same planets, and gave them names with the same
meanings; they divided the year into the Chaldæan period of twelve
months of thirty days each, making the new year begin, as in Chaldæa,
in the third month after the winter solstice; and counting the
calendar for the surplus days by the same cycle of intercalary days.
The oldest Chinese dictionaries give names of the months, which had
become obsolete, since the usage of mentioning the months by their
numbers, as second, third, and fourth months, had become general,
and the meaning of which had been lost. It turns out that several of
these names correspond with those of the Accadian calendar.
Such coincidences as these cannot be accidental, and it is obvious
that one nation must have derived its civilization from the other,
or both from a common source. There can be little doubt in this case
that Chaldæa taught China, for its astronomy, knowledge of the arts,
and general culture are proved by its records to have existed at
least 4000, and probably 5000 years B.C., and then to be attributed
to mythical gods and to a fabulous antiquity; while in China they are
said to have been taught ready-made by human emperors, at a date from
2000 to 3000 years later. The inference is irresistible that somehow
the elements of Accadian civilization must have been imported into
China from Chaldæa, at what is a comparatively modern date in the
history of the latter country. The only approach to a clue to this
date is that the great Chinese historian Szema-Tsien says that the
first of their emperors was Nai-kwangti, who built an observatory,
and by the aid of astronomy "ruled the varied year." The name is
singularly like that of Kuder-Na-hangti, who was the Elamite king who
conquered Babylonia about 2280 B.C. It is difficult to see how such
an intercourse between Chaldæa and China could have been established
across such an enormous intervening distance of mountains and
deserts, or by such a long sea-voyage; but it is still more difficult
to conceive how not only language, physical characteristics, and
civilization should have been so similar, but myths and calendars
should have been almost _verbatim_ the same in the two countries,
unless a communication really existed between them. Nor will the
theory of a common origin apply, for it is impossible to suppose that
any common ancestors of the Chinese and Accadians could have attained
to such a knowledge of astronomy, and of the industrial arts and
agriculture, while wandering as nomad shepherds over the steppes of
Central Asia.
We must remember also the fact that caravans actually do travel, and
have travelled for time immemorial, over enormous distances, across
the steppes of Central and Northern Asia, and that within quite
recent historical times, a whole nation of Calmucks migrated under
every conceivable difficulty from hostile tribes, pursuing armies,
and the extremes of winter cold and summer heat, first from China to
the Volga, and then back again from the Volga to China. Nor must we
overlook the fact that Ur and Eridhu were great sea-ports at a very
remote period, and that the facilities for pushing their commerce
far to the east were great, owing to the regular monsoons, and the
configuration of the coast.
We must be content, therefore, to take the facts as we find them, and
admit that China gives us no aid in carrying back authentic history
for anything like the time for which we have satisfactory evidence
from the monuments and records of Egypt and Chaldæa.
ELAM.
As regards other nations of antiquity, their own historical records
are either altogether wanting or comparatively recent, and our
only authentic information respecting them in very early times is
derived from Egyptian or Babylonian monuments. The most important
of them is Elam, which was evidently a civilized kingdom at a very
remote period, contemporary probably with the earliest Accadian
civilization, and which continued to play a leading part in history
down to the recent date of Cyrus. Elam was a small district between
the Zagros mountains and the Tigris, extending to the south along the
eastern shore of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. Its capital
was Shushan or Susa, an ancient and renowned city, the name of which
survives in the Persian province of Shusistan, as that of Persia
proper does in the mountainous district next to the east of Elam,
known as Farsistan. The original population was Turanian, speaking an
agglutinative language, akin to though not identical with Accadian,
and its religion and civilization were apparently the same, or
closely similar. As in Chaldæa and Assyria, a Semitic element seems
to have intruded on the Turanian at an early date, and to have become
the ruling race, while much later the Aryan Persians to some extent
superseded the Semites. The name "Elam" is said to have the same
significance as "Accad," both meaning "Highland," and indicating
that both races must have had a common origin in the mountains and
steppes of Central Asia. The native name was Anshad, and Susa was
"the City of Anshad." Elam was always considered an ancient land and
Susa an ancient city, by the Accadians, and there is every reason
to believe that Elamite civilization must have been at least as old
as Accadian. This much is certain, that as far back as 2280 B.C.,
Elam was a sufficiently organized and powerful state to conquer the
larger and more populous country of Mesopotamia, and found an Elamite
dynasty which lasted for nearly 300 years, and carried on campaigns
in districts as far distant as Southern Syria and the Dead Sea.
The dynasty was subverted and the Elamites driven back within their
own frontiers, but there they retained their independence, and took a
leading part in all the wars waged by Chaldæa and other surrounding
nations against the rising power of the warlike Assyrian kings of
Nineveh. The statue of the goddess Nana, which had been taken by the
Elamite conquerors from Erech in 2280 B.C., remained in the temple at
Susa for 1635 years, until the city was at length taken by one of the
latest Assyrian kings, Asshurbanipal, in the year 645 B.C.
We have already pointed out the great historical importance of the
Elamite conquest of Mesopotamia in 2280 _B.C._ as inaugurating the
era of great wars between civilized states, and probably giving the
impulse to Western Asia, which hurled the Hyksos on Egypt, and by
its reaction first brought the Egyptians to Nineveh, and then the
Assyrians to Memphis. A still more important movement at the very
close of what may be called ancient history, originated from Elam. To
the surprise of all students of history, it has been proved that the
account we have received from Herodotus and other Greek sources, of
the great Cyrus, is to a great extent fabulous. A cylinder and tablet
of Cyrus himself were quite recently discovered by Mr. Rassam and
brought to the British Museum, in which he commemorates his conquest
of Babylon. He describes himself as "Cyrus the great King, the King
of Babylon, the King of Sumir and Accad, the King of the four zones,
the son of Kambyses the great King, the King of Elam; the grandson
of Cyrus the great King, the King of Elam; the great-grandson of
Teispes the great King, the King of Elam; of the Ancient Seed-royal,
whose rule has been beloved by Bel and Nebo"; and he goes on to say
how by the favour of "Merodach the great lord, the god who raises
the dead to life, who benefits all men in difficulty and prayer, he
had conquered the men of Kurdistan and all the barbarians, and also
the black-headed race (the Accadians), and finally entered Babylon
in peace and ruled there righteously, favoured by gods and men, and
receiving homage and tribute from all the kings who dwelt in the high
places of all regions from the Upper to the Lower Sea, including
Phoenicia." And he concludes with an invocation to all the gods whom
he had restored to their proper temples from which they had been
taken by Nabonidus, "to intercede before Bel and Nebo to grant me
length of days; may they bless my projects with prosperity; and may
they say to Merodach my lord, that Cyrus the King, thy worshipper,
and Kambyses his son deserve his favour." This is confirmed by a
cylinder of a few years earlier date, of Nabonidus the last King
of Babylon, who relates how "Cyrus the King of Elam, the young
servant of Merodach," overthrew the Medes, there called "Mandan" or
barbarians, captured their King Astyages, and carried the spoil of
the royal city Ecbatana to the land of Elam.
How many of our apparently most firmly established historical
dates are annihilated by these little clay cylinders! It appears
that Cyrus was not a Persian at all, or an adventurer who raised
himself to power by a successful revolt, but the legitimate King
of Elam, descended from its ancient royal race through an unbroken
succession of several generations. He was in fact a later and
greater Kudur-Na-hangti, like the early conqueror of that name who
founded the first Elamite empire some 1800 years earlier. It may
be doubtful whether he was even an Aryan. At any rate this much is
certain, that his religion was Babylonian, and that we must dismiss
all Jewish myths of him as a Zoroastrian Monotheist, the servant of
the most high God, who favoured the chosen race from sympathy with
their religion. On his own showing he was as devoted a worshipper of
Merodach, Bel, and Nebo, and the whole pantheon of local gods, as
Nebuchadnezzar or Tiglath-Pileser.[2]
[2] Sayce, in his _Fresh Light from Ancient Monuments_, says,
"Both in his cylinder and in the annalistic tablet, Cyrus,
hitherto supposed to be a Persian and Zoroastrian Monotheist,
appears as an Elamite and a polytheist." It is pretty certain,
however, that although descended from Elamite kings, these were
kings of Persian race, who, after the destruction of the old
monarchy by Asshurbanipal, had established a new dynasty at the
city of Anshad or Susa. Cyrus always traces his descent from
Achæmenes, the chief of the leading Persian clan of Pasargadæ,
and he was buried there in a tomb visited by Alexander.
But as regards religion, it is clear that Cyrus professed
himself, and was taken by his contemporaries to be, a devoted
servant of Merodach, Nebo, and the other Babylonian deities,
to whom he prays for protection and thanks for victories,
without any mention of the Zoroastrian supreme God, Ahura-Mazda.
Zoroastrian Monotheism only came in with Darius Hystaspes, the
founder of the purely Persian second dynasty, after that of Cyrus
became extinct with his son Cambyses.
What a lesson does this teach us as to the untrustworthy nature
of the scraps of ancient history which have come down to us from
verbal traditions, and are not confirmed by contemporary monuments!
Herodotus wrote within a few generations of Cyrus, and the relations
of Greece to the Persian Empire had been close and uninterrupted. His
account of its founder Cyrus is not in itself improbable, and is full
of details which have every appearance of being historical. It is
confirmed to a considerable extent by the Old Testament, and by the
universal belief of early classical writers, and yet it is shown to
be in essential respects legendary and fabulous, by the testimony of
Cyrus himself.
PHOENICIA.
Phoenicia is another country which exercised a great influence on the
civilization and commerce of the ancient world, though its history
does not go back to the extreme antiquity of the early dynasties of
Egypt and of Chaldæa. The Phoenicians spoke a language which was
almost identical with that of the Hebrews and Canaanites, and closely
resembled that of Assyria and Babylonia, after the Semite language
had superseded that of the ancient Accadians. According to their own
tradition, they came from the Persian Gulf, and the island of Tyros,
now Bahrein, in that Gulf, is quoted as a proof that it was the
original seat of the people who founded Tyre. There is no certain
date for the period when they migrated from the East, and settled
in the narrow strip of land along the coast of the Mediterranean
between the mountain range of Lebanon and the sea, stretching from
the promontory of Carmel on the south to the Gulf of Antioch on the
north. This little strip of about 150 miles in length, and ten to
fifteen in breadth, afforded many advantages for a maritime people,
owing to the number of islands close to the coast and small indented
bays, which afforded excellent harbours and protection from enemies,
which was further secured by the precipitous range of the Lebanon
sending down steep spurs into the Mediterranean, and thus isolating
Phoenicia from the military route of the great Valley of Coelo-Syria,
between the parallel ranges of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, which
was taken by armies in the wars between Egypt and Asia. Here the
Phoenicians founded nine cities, of which Byblos or Gebal was reputed
to be the most ancient, and first Sidon and then Tyre became the
most important. They became fishermen, manufacturers of purple from
the dye procured from the shell-fish on their shores, and above all
mariners and merchants. Before the growth of other naval powers in
the Mediterranean they had established factories along the coasts
of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and in all the islands of the
Egæan and the Cyclades. They had founded colonies in Cyprus, Crete,
Sicily, and on the mainland of Greece at Boeotian Thebes. They had
mined extensively wherever metals were to be found, and, as Herodotus
states, had overturned a whole mountain at Thasos by tunnelling it
for gold. They had even extended their settlements into the Black
Sea, along the northern coast of Africa, and somewhat later to Spain,
passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and finally reached the British
Isles in pursuit of tin.
There can be no question that this Phoenician commerce was a
principal element in introducing not only their alphabet, but many
of the early arts of civilization, among the comparatively rude
races of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Britain. The date however of this
earliest Phoenician commerce is very uncertain. All we can discern is
that, after having enjoyed an undisputed supremacy, the progress of
civilization among the Mediterranean races enabled them to develop a
maritime power of their own, superior to that of Phoenicia, and to
drive the Phoenicians from most of their settlements on the mainland
and islands, confining them to a few trading posts and factories,
and directing their more important enterprises towards the Western
Mediterranean, where they encountered less formidable rivals.
But although Phoenicia contributed thus largely to the civilization
of the ancient world, its antiquity cannot be compared to that of
Egypt and Chaldæa. The first reference to the country is found in
the cylinder of Sargon I., B.C. 3800, who marched to the coast of
the Mediterranean, and crossed over to Cyprus, where a cylinder of
his son Dungi has been found, but there is nothing to show that the
district was then occupied by the Phoenicians of later times. Kopt,
or the land of palms, of which Phoenicia is the Greek translation,
is first mentioned in the Egyptian annals of the Middle Empire, and
during the rule of the Hyksos the mouth of the Nile had become so
thickly populated by Phoenician emigrants as to be known as Kopt-ur,
Caphtor, or greater Phoenicia. The priests of the temple of Baal
Melcart, the patron deity of Tyre, told Herodotus that it had been
founded 2300 years before his time, or about 2750 B.C., and Old Tyre
which stood on the mainland was reputed to be more ancient than the
city of New Tyre which stood on an island. But this date is negatived
by the fact that in an Egyptian papyrus in which an envoy from Ramses
II. or Menepthah to the Court of Babylon about 1320 B.C. records his
journey, he mentions Byblos, Beryta, and Sidon as important cities,
while Tyre is only an insignificant fishing town.
The first distinct mention of Phoenician cities in Egyptian annals is
in the enumeration of towns captured by Thotmes III., B.C. 1600, in
his victorious campaigns in Syria, among which are to be found the
names of Beyrut and Acco, and two centuries later Seti I., the father
of Ramses II., records the capture of Zor or Tyre, probably the old
city on the mainland.
The first authentic information, however, as to the movements of the
Mediterranean maritime races is afforded by the Egyptian annals,
which describe two formidable invasions by combined land armies and
fleets, which were with difficulty repulsed. The first took place in
the reign of Menepthah, son of the great Ramses II. of the eighteenth
dynasty, about 1330 B.C.; the second under Ramses III. of the
nineteenth dynasty, about 1250 B.C. The first invasion came from the
West, and was headed by the King of the Lybians, a white race, who
have been identified with the Numidians and modern Kabyles, but were
reinforced to a confederacy of nearly all the Mediterranean races who
sent auxiliary contingents both of sea and land forces. Among these
appear, along with Dardanians, Teucri and Lycians of Asia Minor, who
were already known as allies of the Hittites in their wars against
Ramses II., a new class of auxiliaries from Greece, Italy, and the
islands, whose names have been identified by some Egyptologists as
Achæans, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sardinians.
[Illustration: SEA-FIGHT IN THE TIME OF RAMSES III. (From temple
of Ammon at Medinet-Abou.)]
The second and more formidable attack came from the East, and was
made by a combined fleet and land army, the latter composed of
Hittites and Philistines, with the same auxiliaries from Asia Minor,
and the fleet of the same confederation of Maritime States as in
the first invasion, except that the Achæans have disappeared as
leaders of the Greek powers, and their place is taken by the Danaoi,
confirming the Greek tradition of the substitution of the dynasty of
Danaus for that of Inachus, on the throne of Argos and Mycenæ. The
Phoenicians alone of the Maritime States do not seem to have taken
any part in these invasions, and, on the contrary, to have lived on
terms of friendly vassalage and close commercial relations with Egypt
ever since the expulsion of the Hyksos, and the great conquests of
Ahmes and Thotmes III. in Syria and Asia. It is probably during this
period that the early commerce and navigation of Jebail and Sidon
took such a wide extension.
The details of these two great invasions, which are fully given
in the Egyptian monuments, together with a picture of the naval
combat, in which the invading fleet was finally defeated by Ramses
III., after having forced an entrance into the eastern branch of
the Nile, are extremely interesting. They show an advanced state of
civilization already prevailing among nations whose very names were
unknown or legendary. More than 300 years before the siege of Troy
it appears that Asia Minor and the Greek mainland and islands were
already inhabited by nations sufficiently advanced in civilization
to fit out fleets which commanded the seas, and to form political
confederations, to undertake distant expeditions, and to wage war on
equal terms with the predominant powers of Asia and of Egypt. But
though ancient as regards classical history, these beginnings of
Greek civilization are comparatively modern, and cannot be carried
back further than about 1500 B.C., while there is no evidence to
carry the preceding period of Phoenician supremacy and commerce in
the eastern Mediterranean, with the existence of the great trading
cities of its earliest period, Byblos and Sidon, beyond 2000, or, at
the very outside, 2500 B.C.
HITTITES.
The history of another great Empire has been partially brought to
light, which was destroyed in 717 B.C. by the progress of Assyrian
conquest, after having lasted more than 1000 years, and long
exercised a predominant influence over Western Asia, viz. that of
the Hittites. The first mention of them in the Old Testament appears
in the time of Abraham, when we find them in Southern Syria, mixed
with tribes of the Canaanites and Amorites, and grouped principally
about Hebron. They are represented as on friendly terms with Abraham,
selling him a piece of land for a sepulchre, and intermarrying with
his family--Rebecca's soul being vexed by the contumacious behaviour
of her daughters-in-law, "the daughters of Heth." This, however, was
only an outlying branch of the nation, whose capital cities, when
they appear clearly in history, were further north at Kadesh on the
Orontes, and Carchemish on the Upper Euphrates, commanding the fords
on that river on the great commercial route between Babylonia and the
Mediterranean. They were a Turanian race, whose original seat was in
Cappadocia, and the high plateaux and mountainous region extending
from the Taurus range to the Black Sea. They are easily recognized
on the Egyptian monuments by their yellow colour, peculiar features
which are of Ugro-Turkish type, and their dress, which is that of
highlanders inhabiting a snowy district, with close-fitting tunics,
mittens, and boots resembling snowshoes with turned-up toes. They
have also the Mongolian characters of beardless faces, and coarse
black hair, which is sometimes trained into a pigtail.
[Illustration: KING OF THE HITTITES. (From photograph by Flinders
Petrie, from Egyptian Temple at Luxor.)]
The earliest mention of them is found in the tablets which were
compiled for the library of Sargon I. of Accad, in which reference is
made to the Khatti, which probably means Hittites, showing that at
this remote period, about 3800 B.C., they had already moved down from
their northern home into the valley of the Euphrates and Upper Syria.
Their affinity with the Accadians of Chaldæa is clearly proved
by their language, which the recent discovery of papyri at
Tell-el-Amara, containing despatches from the tributary King of
the Hittites to Amenophus IV., written in cuneiform characters,
has proved to be almost identical with Accadian. It seems probable
that part of the army which fought in defence of Troy may have been
Hittite, and there are many indications that the Etruscans, who were
generally believed to have come from Lydia, were of the same race and
spoke the same language.
It is in Egyptian records, however, that we meet with the first
definite historical data respecting this ancient Hittite Empire. In
these they are referred to as "Kheta," and probably formed part of
the great Hyksos invasion; but the first certain mention of them
occurs in the reign of Thotmes I., about 1600 B.C., and they appear
as a leading nation in the time of Thotmes III., who defeated a
combined army of Canaanites and Hittites under the Hittite King of
Kadesh, at Megiddo, and in fourteen victorious campaigns carried the
Egyptian arms to the Euphrates and Tigris.
For several subsequent reigns we find the Hittites enumerated as one
of the nations paying tribute to Egypt, whose extensive Empire then
reckoned Mesopotamia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Cyprus, and
the Soudan among its tributary states. Gradually the power of Egypt
declined, and in the troubled times which followed the attempt of the
heretic King Ku-en-Aten to supersede the old religion of Egypt by
the worship of the solar disc, the conquered nations threw off the
yoke, and the frontiers of Egypt receded to the old limits. As Egypt
declined, the power of the Hittites evidently increased, for when
we next meet with them it is contending on equal terms in Palestine
with the revival of the military power of Egypt under Ramses I., the
founder of the nineteenth dynasty, and his son Seti I.
The contest continued for more than a century with occasional
treaties of peace and various vicissitudes of fortune, and at last
culminated in the great battle of Kadesh, commemorated by the
Egyptian epic poem of Pentaur, and followed by the celebrated treaty
of peace between Ramses II. and Kheta-Sira, "the great King of the
Hittites," the Hittite text of which was engraved on a silver tablet
in the characters of Carchemish, and the Egyptian copy of it was
engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls of the temples of Ramses, of
which we fortunately possess the entire text. The alliance was on
equal terms, defining the frontier, and providing for the mutual
extradition of refugees, and it was ratified by the marriage of
Ramses with the daughter of the Hittite King.
The peace lasted for some time; but in the reign of Ramses III. of
the twentieth dynasty, we find the Hittites again heading the great
confederacy of the nations of Asia Minor and of the islands of the
Mediterranean, who attacked Egypt by sea and land. The Hittites
formed the greater part of the land army, which was defeated with
great slaughter after an obstinate battle at Pelusium, about 1200
B.C. From this time forward the power both of the Hittites and of
Egypt seems to have steadily declined. We hear no more of them as a
leading power in Palestine and Syria, where the kingdoms of Judah,
Israel, and Damascus superseded them, until all were swallowed up by
the Assyrian conquests of the warrior-kings of Nineveh, and finally
the Hittites disappear altogether from history with the capture of
their capital Carchemish by Sargon II. in 717 B.C.
The wide extent, however, of the Hittite Empire when at its height
is proved by the fact that at the battle of Kadesh the Hittite army
was reinforced by vassals or allies from nearly the whole of Western
Asia. The Dardanians from the Troad, the Mysians from their cities of
Ilion, the Colchians from the Caucasus, the Syrians from the Orontes,
and the Phoenicians from Arvad are enumerated as sending contingents;
and in the invasion of Egypt in the reign of Ramses III., the
Hittites headed the great confederacy of Hittites, Teucrians,
Lycians, Philistines, and other Asiatic nations who attacked Egypt
by land, in concert with the great maritime confederacy of Greeks,
Pelasgians, Tuscans, Sicilians, and Sardinians who attacked it by
sea.
The mere fact of carrying on such campaigns and forming such
political alliances is sufficient to show that the Hittites must
have attained to an advanced state of civilization. But there is
abundant proof that this was the case from other sources. They were
a commercial people, and their capital, Carchemish, was for many
centuries the great emporium of the caravan trade between the East
and West. The products of the East, probably as far as Bactria and
India, reached it from Babylon and Nineveh, and were forwarded by
two great commercial routes, one to the south-west to Syria and
Phoenicia, the other to the north-west through the pass of Karakol,
to Sardis and the Mediterranean. The commercial importance of
Carchemish is attested by the fact that its silver mina became the
standard of value at Babylon, and throughout the whole of Western
Asia. The Hittites were also great miners, working the silver mines
of the Taurus on an extensive scale, and having a plentiful supply
of bronze and other metals, as is shown by the large number of
chariots attached to their armies from the earliest times. They were
also a literary people, and had invented a system of hieroglyphic
writing of their own, distinct alike from that of Egypt and from
the cuneiform characters of the Accadians. Inscriptions in these
peculiar characters, associated with sculptures in a style of art
different from that of either Egypt or Chaldæa, but representing
figures identical in dress and features with those of Hittites in
the Egyptian monuments, have been found over a wide extent of Asia
Minor, at Hamath and Aleppo; Boghaz-Keni and Eyuk in Cappadocia; at
the pass of Karakol near Sardis, and at various other places. Several
of those attributed by the Greeks to Sesostris or to fabulous
passages of their own mythology, have been proved to be Hittite, as,
for instance, the figure carved on the rocks of Mount Sipylos, near
Ephesus, and said to be that of Niobe, is proved to be a sitting
figure of the great goddess of Carchemish.
For a long time these inscriptions were an enigma to philologists,
but the researches of Professor Sayce and other scholars have quite
recently thrown much light on the subject, and enabled us partially
to decipher some of them, and the recent discovery of papyri at
Tel-el-Amara written partly in the Hittite language in cuneiform
characters, removes all doubt as to its nature and affinities.
It may be sufficient to state the result, that the Hittite language
was Turanian or agglutinative, closely allied, and indeed almost
identical, with Accadian on the one hand, and on the other so similar
to the ancient Lydian and Etruscan, as to leave it doubtful whether
these nations were themselves Hittites, or only very close cousins
descended from a common stock. For instance, the well-known Etruscan
names of Tarquin and Lar occur as parts of many names of Hittite
kings, and in the same, or a slightly modified form, in Accadian,
and survive to the present day in various Turkic and Mongolian
dialects. This much appears to be clear, that this Hittite Empire,
which vanished so completely from history more than 2500 years ago,
had for nearly 1000 years previously exercised a paramount influence
in Western Asia, and was one of the principal channels through which
Asiatic mythology and art reached Greece in early times, and through
the Etruscans formed an important element in the civilization of
ancient Rome. It was itself probably an offshoot from the still
older civilization of Accadia, though after a time Semitic and
Egyptian influences were introduced, as appears from the fact that
Sutek, Set or Seth, was the supreme god of the Hittites, as is
shown by the text of the treaty of peace between their great King
Khota-Sira and Ramses II.
As regards chronology, therefore, Hittite history only carries us
back about half-way to the earliest dates of Egypt and Chaldæa, and
only confirm these dates incidentally, by showing that other powerful
and civilized states already existed in Asia at a remote period.
ARABIA.
The best chance of finding records which may vie in antiquity with
those of Egypt and Chaldæa, has come to us quite recently from an
unexpected quarter. Arabia has been from time immemorial one of the
least known and least accessible regions of the earth. Especially
of recent years Moslem fanaticism has made it a closed country to
Christian research, and it is only quite lately that a few scientific
travellers, taking their lives in their hands, have succeeded in
penetrating into the interior, discovering the sites of ruined
cities, and copying numerous inscriptions. Dr. Glaser especially has
three times explored Southern Arabia, and brought home no less than
1031 inscriptions, many of them of the highest historical interest.
By the aid of these and other inscriptions we are able to reduce
to some sort of certainty the vague traditions that had come down
to us of ancient nations and an advanced state of civilization and
commerce, existing in Arabia in very ancient times. In the words
of Professor Sayce, "the dark past of the Arabian peninsula has
been suddenly lighted up, and we find that long before the days of
Mohammed it was a land of culture and literature, a seat of powerful
kingdoms and wealthy commerce, which cannot fail to have exercised an
influence upon the general history of the world."[3]
[3] The facts of this section are taken mainly from two articles
by Professor Sayce in the _Contemporary Review_, entitled
"Ancient Arabia" and "Results of Oriental Archæology."
The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon affords one of the first
glimpses into this past history. It is evident that she either was,
or was supposed to be by the compiler of the Book of Kings not many
centuries later, the queen of a well-known, civilized, and powerful
country, which, from the description of her offerings, could hardly
be other than Arabia Felix, the spice country of Southern Arabia,
the Sabæa or Saba of the ancient world, though her kingdom, or
commercial relations, may have extended over the opposite coast of
Abyssinia and Somali-land, and probably far down the east coast of
Africa. Assyrian inscriptions show that Saba was a great kingdom in
the eighth century B.C., when its frontiers extended so far to the
north as to bring it in contact with those of the Empire of Nineveh
under Tiglath-Pileser and Sargon II. It was then an ancient kingdom,
and, as the inscriptions show, had long since undergone the same
transformation as Egypt and Chaldæa, from the rule of priest-kings of
independent cities into an unified empire. These priest-kings were
called "Makârib," or high-priests of Saba, showing that the original
state must have been a theocracy, and the name Saba like Assur that
of a god.
But the inscriptions reveal this unexpected fact, that old as the
kingdom of Saba may be, it was not the oldest in this district, but
rose to power on the decay of a still older nation, whose name of
Ma'in has come down to us in dim traditions under the classical form
of Minæans.
We are already acquainted with the names of thirty-two Minæan kings,
and as comparatively few inscriptions have as yet been discovered,
many more will doubtless be found. Among those known, however, are
some which show that the authority of the Minæan kings was not
confined to their original seat in the south, but extended over all
Arabia and up to the frontiers of Syria and of Egypt. Three names of
these kings have been found at Teima, the Tema of the Old Testament,
on the road to Damascus and Sinai; and a votive tablet from Southern
Arabia is inscribed by its authors, "in gratitude to Athtar (Istar or
Astarte), for their rescue in the war between the ruler of the South
and the ruler of the North, and in the conflict between Madhi and
Egypt, and for their safe return to their own city of Quarnu." The
authors of this inscription describe themselves as being under the
Minæan King "Abi-yadá Yathi," and being "governors of Tsar and Ashur
and the further bank of the river."
Tsar is often mentioned in the Egyptian monuments as a frontier
fortress on the Arabian side of what is now the Suez Canal, while
another inscription mentions Gaza, and shows that the authority of
the Minæan rulers extended to Edom, and came into close contact with
Palestine and the surrounding tribes. Doubtless the protection of
trade-routes was a main cause of this extension of fortified posts
and wealthy cities, over such a wide extent of territory. From the
most ancient times there has always been a stream of traffic between
East and West, flowing partly by the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and
from the ends of these Eastern seas to the Mediterranean, and partly
by caravan routes across Asia. The possession of one of these routes
by Solomon in alliance with Tyre, led to the ephemeral prosperity of
the Jewish kingdom at a much later period; and the wars waged between
Egyptians, Assyrians, and Hittites were doubtless influenced to a
considerable extent by the desire to command these great lines of
commerce.
Arabia stood in a position of great advantage as regards this
international commerce, being a half-way house between East and
West, protected from enemies by impassable deserts, and with inland
and sheltered seas in every direction. Its southern provinces also
had the advantage of being the great, and in some cases the sole,
producers of commodities of great value and in constant request.
Frankincense and other spices were indispensable in temples where
bloody sacrifices formed part of the religion. The atmosphere of
Solomon's temple must have been that of a sickening slaughterhouse,
and the fumes of incense could alone enable the priests and
worshippers to support it. This would apply to thousands of other
temples through Asia, and doubtless the palaces of kings and nobles
suffered from uncleanliness and insanitary arrangements, and required
an antidote to evil smells to make them endurable. The consumption of
incense must therefore have been immense in the ancient world, and it
is not easy to see where it could have been derived from except from
the regions which exhaled.
"Sabæan odours from the shores of Araby the blest."
The next interesting result, however, of these Arabian discoveries
is, that they disclose not only a civilized and commercial kingdom at
a remote antiquity, but that they show us a literary people, who had
their own alphabet and system of writing at a date comparable to that
of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chaldæan cuneiforms, and long prior
to the oldest known inscription in Phoenician characters. The first
Arabian inscriptions were discovered and copied by Seetzen in 1810,
and were classed together as Himyaritic, from Himyar, the country of
the classical Homerites. It was soon discovered that the language
was Semitic, and that the alphabet resembled that of the Ethiopic or
Gheez, and was a modification of the Phoenician written vertically
instead of horizontally. Further discoveries and researches have
led to the result, which is principally due to Dr. Glaser, that
the so-called Himyaritic inscriptions fell into two groups, one of
which is distinctly older than the other, containing fuller and more
primitive grammatical forms. These are Minæan, while the inscriptions
in the later dialect are Sabæan. It is apparent, therefore, that the
Minæan rule and literature must have preceded those of Sabæa by a
time sufficiently long to have allowed for considerable changes both
in words and grammar to have grown up, not by foreign conquest, but
by evolution among the tribes of the same race within Arabia itself.
Now the Sabæan kingdom can be traced back with considerable certainty
to the time of Solomon, 1000 years B.C., and had in all probability
existed many centuries before; while we have already a list of
thirty-three Minæan kings, which number will doubtless be enlarged by
further discoveries; and the oldest inscriptions point, as in Egypt,
to an antecedent state of commerce and civilization. It is evident
therefore that Arabia must be classed with Egypt and Chaldæa as one
of the countries which point to the existence of highly civilized
communities in an extreme antiquity; and that it is by no means
impossible that the records of Southern Arabia may ultimately be
carried back as far as those of Sargon I., or even of Menes.
This is the more probable as several ancient traditions point to
Southern Arabia, and possibly to the adjoining coast of North-eastern
Africa, as the source of the earliest civilizations. Thus Oannes is
said to have come up from the Persian Gulf and taught the Chaldæans
the first arts of civilization. The Phoenicians traced their origin
to the Bahrein Islands in the same Gulf. The Egyptians looked with
reverence and respect to Punt, which is generally believed to have
meant Arabia Felix and Somali-land; and they placed the origin of
their letters and civilization, not in Upper or Lower, but in Middle
Egypt, at Abydos where Thoth and Osiris were said to have reigned,
where the Nile is only separated from the Red Sea by a narrow land
pass which was long one of the principal commercial routes between
Arabia and Egypt.
The close connection between Egypt and Punt in early times is
confirmed by the terms of respect in which Punt is spoken of in
Egyptian inscriptions, contrasting with the epithets of "barbarian"
and "vile," which are applied to other surrounding nations such as
the Hittites, Libyans, and Negroes. And the celebrated equipment of
a fleet by the great queen Hatasu of the nineteenth dynasty, to make
a commercial voyage to Punt, and its return with a rich freight, and
the king and queen of the country with offerings, on a visit to the
Pharaoh, reminding one of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon,
shows that the two nations were on friendly terms, and that the Red
Sea and opposite coast of Africa had been navigated from a very early
period. The physical type also of the chiefs of Punt as depicted on
the Egyptian monuments is very like that of the aristocratic type of
the earliest known Egyptian portraits.
[Illustration: CHIEF OF PUNT AND TWO MEN.]
One point seems sufficiently clear; that wherever may have been the
original seat of the Aryans, that of the Semites must be placed
in Arabia. Everywhere else we can trace them as an immigrating or
invading people, who found prior populations of different race,
but in Arabia they seem to have been aboriginal. Thus in Chaldæa
and Assyria, the Semites are represented in the earliest history
and traditions as coming from the South, partly by the Persian
Gulf and partly across the Arabian and Syrian deserts, and by
degrees amalgamating with and superseding the previous Accadian
population. In Egypt the Semitic element was a late importation
which never permanently affected the old Egyptian civilization. In
Syria and Palestine, the Phoenicians, Canaanites, and Hebrews were
all immigrants from the Persian Gulf or Arabian frontier, either
directly or through the medium of Egypt and Assyria, who did not
even pretend to be the earliest inhabitants, but found other races,
as the Amorites and Hittites, in possession, whose traditions again
went back to barbarous aborigines of Zammumim, who seemed to them to
stammer their unintelligible language. The position of Semites in the
Moslem world in Asia and Africa is distinctly due to the conquests of
the Arab Mohammed and the spread of his religion.
In Arabia alone we find Semites and Semites only, from the very
beginning, and the peculiar language and character of the race must
have been first developed in the growing civilization which preceded
the ancient Minæan Empire, probably as the later stone age was
passing into that of metal, and the primitive state of hunters and
fishers into the higher social level of agriculturists and traders.
To return from these remote speculations to a subject of more
immediate interest, the discovery of these Minæan inscriptions shows
the existence of an alphabet older than that of the earliest known
inscriptions in Phoenician letters. The alphabets of Greece, Rome,
and all modern nations are beyond all doubt derived from that of
Phoenicia, and it has been generally supposed that this was formed
from an abridgment of the hieroglyphics or hieratics of Egypt. But
the Minæan inscriptions raise the question whether the Phoenician
alphabet itself and the kindred alphabets of Palestine, Syria, and
other countries near the Arabian frontier were not derived from
Arabia rather than from Egypt. The Minæan language and letters are
certainly older forms of Semitic speech and writing, and it seems
more likely that they should have been adopted, with dialectic
variations, by other Semitic races, with whom Arabia had a long
coterminous position and constant intercourse by caravans, than that
these races should have remained totally ignorant of letters, until
Phoenicia borrowed them from Egypt. Moreover, as Professor Sayce
shows, this theory gives a better explanation of the names of the
Phoenician letters, which in many cases have no resemblance to the
symbols which denote them. Thus the first letter Aleph, "an ox,"
really resembles the head of that animal in the Minæan inscriptions,
while no likeness can be traced to any Egyptian hieroglyph used for
'a.'
Should these speculations be confirmed, they will considerably modify
our conceptions as to the early history of the Old Testament. It
would seem that Canaan, before the Israelite invasion, was already
a settled and civilized country, with a distinct alphabet and
literature of its own, older than those of Phoenicia; and it may be
hoped that further researches in Arabia and Palestine may disclose
records, buried under the ruins of ancient cities, which may vie in
antiquity with those of Egypt and Chaldæa.
But in the meantime we must be content to rely on the records and
monuments of these two countries, and especially those of Egypt, as
giving us the longest standard of genuine historical time, extending
backwards about 7000 years from the present century.
TROY AND MYCENÆ.
The existence of civilization and commerce among other ancient
nations which have disappeared from history, have received a
remarkable confirmation from the excavations of Dr. Schliemann at
Troy and Mycenæ. The site of Troy has been identified with the
mound of Hissarlik which formed its citadel, and the accuracy of
the descriptions in Homer's _Iliad_ has been wonderfully verified.
The ruins of seven successive towns, superimposed one on the other,
have been found in excavating the mass of _débris_ down to the bed
rock. The lowest of these was a settlement apparently of the later
neolithic or earliest bronze ages, while the next, built on the
ruins of the first at a level of eleven to twenty feet above it, was
a strongly fortified city, which had been destroyed by fire, and
which answers almost exactly to the description of Homer's Troy. The
citadel hill had been inclosed by massive walls, and was surmounted
by a stately palace and other buildings, the foundations of which
still remain. It was protected on one side by the river Scamander,
and on the other the city extended over the plain at the foot of
the citadel, and was itself also surrounded by a strong wall, of
which a small fragment remains. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth
settlements consisted of mean huts or dwelling-houses built of quarry
stones and clay, and the seventh, or uppermost, was the Græco-Roman
Ilion of classical writers. The main interest therefore centres
in the second city, which, from the articles found in it and the
many repairs and alterations of the walls and buildings, must have
been for a long time the seat of a nourishing and powerful people,
enriched by commerce, and far advanced in the industrial and fine
arts.
Notwithstanding the destruction and probable plunder of the city,
the quantity of gold and silver found was very considerable, chiefly
in the vaults or casemates built into the foundations of the walls,
which were covered up with _débris_ when the citadel was burnt,
and the roofs and upper buildings fell in. In one place alone Dr.
Schliemann found the celebrated treasure containing sixty articles of
gold and silver, which had evidently been packed together in a square
wooden box, which had disappeared with the intense heat. The nature
of these citadels shows a high degree not only of civilization but
of wealth and luxury, as proved by the skill and taste of jeweller's
work displayed in the female ornaments, which comprise three
sumptuous diadems, ear-rings, hairpins, and bracelets.
There are also numerous vases and cups of terra-cotta, and a few
of gold and silver, and bars of silver which have every appearance
of being used for money, being of the same form and weight. The
fragments of ordinary pottery are innumerable, the finer and more
perfect vases are often of a graceful form, and moulded into shapes
of animals or human heads, and decorated with spirals, rosettes, and
other ornaments of the type which is more fully illustrated as that
of the pre-Hellenic civilization of Mycenæ.
For Schliemann has not only restored the historic reality of Priam
and the city of Troy, but also that of Agamemnon "King of men,"
and his capital of Mycenæ. The result of his explorations on this
site has been to show that a still larger and more wealthy city
existed here for a longer period than Troy, and which affected a
more extensive area, for its peculiar art and civilization were
widely diffused over the whole of the eastern coast of Greece and
the adjoining islands, and specimens of it have been found on the
opposite coasts of Asia Minor, as we have seen at Troy, and as
far off as Cyprus and Egypt, where they were doubtless carried by
commerce. The existence of an extensive commerce is proved by the
profusion of gold which has been found in the vaults and tombs buried
under the _débris_ of the ruined city, for gold is not a native
product, but must have been obtained from abroad, as also the bronze,
copper, and tin required for the manufacture of weapons. The city
also evidently owed its importance to its situation on the Isthmus of
Corinth, commanding the trade route between the Gulfs of Argos and
of Corinth, and thus connecting the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia
with the Western Sea and Europe. The still older city of Tiryns, of
which Mycenæ was probably an offshoot, stood nearly on the shore of
the eastern gulf, while Mycenæ was in the middle of the isthmus about
eight miles from either gulf. Tiryns was also explored by Schliemann,
and showed the same plans of buildings and fortifications as Troy and
Mycenæ, and the same class of relics, only less extensive and more
archaic than those of Mycenæ, which was evidently the more important
city during the golden period of this great Mycenæan civilization.
Those who wish to pursue this interesting subject further will
find an admirable account of it in the English translation of
Schliemann's works and essays, with a full description of each
exploration, and numerous illustrations of the buildings and articles
found. For my present object I only refer to it as an illustration
of the position that Egypt and Chaldæa do not stand alone in
presenting proofs of high antiquity, but that other nations, such
as the Chinese, the Hittites, the Minæans of Southern Arabia, the
Mycenæans, Trojans, Lydians, Phrygians, Cretans, and doubtless many
others, also existed as populous, powerful, and civilized states, at
a time long antecedent to the dawn of classical history. If these
ancient empires and civilization became so completely forgotten, or
survived only in dim traditions of myths and poetical legends, the
reason seems to be that they kept no written records, or at any rate
none in the form of enduring inscriptions. We know ancient Egypt from
its hieroglyphics, and from Manetho's history; Chaldæa and Assyria
from the cuneiform writing on clay tablets; China, up to about 2500
B.C., from its written histories; but it is singular that the other
ancient civilizations have left few or no inscriptions. This is the
more remarkable in the case of the Mycenæan cities explored by Dr.
Schliemann, for their date is not so very remote, their jewellery,
vases, and signet-rings are profusely decorated, their dead interred
in stately tombs with large quantities of gold and silver, and
yet not a single instance has been found of anything resembling
alphabetical or symbolical writing, or of any form of inscription.
Atreus, Agamemnon, and a long line of kings lie in their stately
tombs, with their gold masks and breastplates, and their arms and
treasures about them, without a word or sign to distinguish father
from son, ancestor from successor. Their queens are buried in their
robes of cloth of gold, their tiaras, necklaces, bracelets, rings
and jewels, equally without a word to say which was Clytemnestra and
which Electra. How different is this from the Egyptian royal tombs
and palaces, where pompous inscriptions record the genealogies of
kings for fifty or more generations, and the first care of every
Pharaoh is to carve the annals of his exploits on imperishable
granite!
Another strange peculiarity of this Mycenæan civilization is the
absence of religious subjects. Images and pictures of their gods
abound on all the monuments of Egypt and Chaldæa. Every frieze and
tablet, every seal and scarabæus, is full of representations of
Osiris and Isis, of Thoth and Ammon; or in Chaldæa of Bel, Merodach,
and Istar, and their other pantheon of gods, each under its own
symbolical form, and innumerable little idols or figurines attested
their hold on the population. But at Troy, Tiryns, and Mycenæ there
is nothing of the sort. Animals and mortal men are freely depicted
on the vases, and moulded as ornaments for domestic utensils, but
religious subjects are so scarce that it is even doubtful whether a
few scanty specimens bear this character or not.
There is a pit in the central court of the palace at Mycenæ which has
been thought to be a sacrificial pit under an altar, but this rather
because such an altar is described in Homer, than for any positive
evidence. There are also a very few figurines of terra-cotta, which
have been thought to be idols, because they are too clumsy to be
taken for representations of the human figure by such skilled
artists, and because they bear some sort of resemblance to the rude
Phoenician idols of the goddess Astarte. But, with this exception,
there is nothing at Troy or Mycenæ to indicate a belief in the
Homeric or any other mythology.
As a question of dates, we know that the supremacy of Mycenæ and its
civilization came to an end with the invasion of the Dorians, which
is generally placed about 1000 B.C. We know also that it must have
had a long existence, but for anything approaching to a date we must
refer to the few traces which connect it with Egypt. A scarabæus was
found at Mycenæ with the name of Queen Ti engraved on it who lived
in the thirteenth century B.C. Mycenæan vases have been found of the
older type with lines and spirals, in Egyptian tombs of about 1400
B.C., and of the later type with animals in tombs of about 1100 B.C.,
and Mr. Flinders Petrie, by whom they were discovered, says that any
error in these dates cannot exceed 100 years. Mycenæan pottery has
also been found at Thera under volcanic ashes which geologists say
were thrown up about 1500 B.C.
We are pretty safe, therefore, in supposing this Mycenæan
civilization to have flourished between the limits of 1600 and 1000
B.C. In this case it must have been contemporary with the great
events of the New Empire in Egypt which followed on the expulsion
of the Hyksos; with the victorious campaigns of Ahmes and Thotmes
which carried the Egyptian arms to the Euphrates and to the Black
Sea; with the rise of the Hittite power which extended far and wide
over Asia Minor, and contended on equal terms in Syria with Ramses
II.; and with the coalition of naval powers which on two occasions,
in the reigns of Menepthah and Ramses III., commanded the sea
and invaded Egypt. The mention of Achæans among the allies whose
fleet was defeated in the sea-fight on the Pelusian mouth of the
Nile, depicted on the triumphal tablet of Ramses III., becomes an
historical reality, and some of the hostile galleys may well have
been those of a predecessor of Agamemnon.
It is doubtful, however, whether these Mycenæans or Achæans can be
properly called Greek. Both their civilization and art are Asiatic
rather than Hellenic; they have left no clue to their language in any
writing or inscription; and the type of the race, as far as we can
judge of it from paintings on the vases, was totally unlike that of
classical Greece.
[Illustration: QUEEN SENDING WARRIOR TO BATTLE. (From "Warrior
Vase," Mycenæ. Schliemann.)]
In one instance alone the human form is represented on the vases
found at Mycenæ, viz. on that known as the great "warrior vase."
This is a large amphora, with a broad band of figures round it,
representing on one side attacking warriors hurling spears, and on
the other a queen, or female figure, sending out warriors to repel
them. The vase is broken, but there are in all eight figures with
their heads nearly perfect, and all of the same type, which is such
an extraordinary one, that I annex a copy of the woman and one of the
warriors.
One asks oneself in amazement, can this swine-snouted caricature of
humanity be the divine Helen, whose beauty set contending nations
in arms, and even as a shade made Faust immortal with a kiss; and
this other, Agamemnon, king of men, or the god-like Achilles? And
yet certainly they must be faces which the dwellers in Mycenæ either
copied from nature, or introduced as conventional ideals. They cannot
be taken as first childish attempts at drawing the human face, like
those of the palæolithic savages of the grottos of the Vezere, for
they are the work of advanced artists who, in other cases, drew
beautiful decorations and life-like animals; and in these figures the
attitudes, dress, and armour show that they could draw with spirit
and accuracy, and give a faithful representation of details when they
chose to do so.
[Illustration: ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT. (From a Babylonian
cylinder.)]
The only approach to a clue I can find for an explanation of these
extraordinary Mycenæan faces is afforded by the picture of Adam
and Eve, with the Serpent and Tree of Life, on an old Babylonian
cylinder in the British Museum.
It will be seen at once that there is a considerable resemblance
between the two types of countenance, and it strikes me as possible
that, as Mycenæan art was so largely derived from Babylonian, this
may have become a conventional type for the first human ancestors, in
which it was thought by the Mycenæan copyists that heroes and kings
ought to be represented.
This, however, is a mere conjecture, and all we can infer with any
certainty from Troy and Mycenæ is, that a considerable civilization
and commerce must have prevailed in the Eastern Mediterranean at a
date long prior to the commencement of classical history, though much
later than that of the older records of Egypt and Chaldæa.