_THE HITTITES._[65]
The name of Hittites (Khatti, Kheta) appears simultaneously in the
Bible, the hieroglyphic documents, and the cuneiform texts. It is given
to populations of different origin who inhabited Syria from the
Euphrates to the borders of Egypt, and also Cappadocia and the greater
part of Asia Minor from the mountains of Armenia to the banks of the
Halys and the Hermus. But the country which was particularly the centre
of the Hittite dominions, and in which they established a homogeneous
and lasting empire, is Northern Syria, that is to say, the territory
which extends from the great bend of the Euphrates to the Orontes, and
from the limits of the Aramæan oases of Palmyra and Damascus to the
mountains of the Taurus. On the Euphrates they built the fortress of
Carchemish (Jerablus), which remained like a threatening challenge in
the face of Nineveh until the day when, about the year B.C. 710, the
Assyrians gained possession of it; on the Orontes their chief towns were
Kadesh and Hamath. It is among the ruins of these cities or in the
neighbouring country, including Cilicia, a geographical appendage of
Syria, and also among the sparsely scattered ruins of Cappadocia and
Asia Minor, that the remains of Hittite civilisation have recently been
discovered, and that the works of its peculiar art have been found which
we are about to describe in a few words.
§ I. HITTITE MONUMENTS IN SYRIA.
[Illustration: Fig. 149.--The lion of Marash (after Wright, pl. 27).]
The Hittite art of Syria is derived from Assyrian art; it has nothing
original either in the conception of its forms or in its technical
execution. To characterise it in one word, we might call it Assyrian art
interpreted by barbarians. In all its manifestations it is inferior to
its model, like the works of the barbarians who copied Greek and Roman
art. In imitation of the Assyrians, the Hittites confined themselves
almost exclusively to sculpture in bas-relief. At Marash, on the Pyramus
in Cilicia, it is true, a fragmentary torso has been obtained; but this
is almost the only example of a Hittite statue in the round that we can
cite. This figure, of coarse workmanship, is dressed in a fringed cloak
like that which is to be seen everywhere on the walls of Ninevite
palaces.[66]
The bulls and other winged monsters, placed at the entrance of Assyrian
and Persian palaces, which keep the mean between statuary and the
bas-relief, also find their parallel among the Hittites. There is at the
Imperial Museum at Constantinople a basalt lion, found at Marash, the
head and neck of which are completely disengaged from the stone block;
the fore paws are even with the front surface of the wall, and the body
of the beast is continued round the corner. Thus it is sculptured on two
sides in imitation of the Ninevite bulls, and the extent of servility in
the copy is finally proved by an inscription in Hittite hieroglyphs
covering the fore paws, in accordance with the singular fashion observed
at Nineveh.
[Illustration: Fig. 150.--Stela from Birejik (British Museum).]
Assyrian influence is even more obviously conspicuous at Carchemish, a
fact to which witness is borne by two figures standing on a crouching
lion, which remind us of the rock sculptures of Sennacherib at Bavian
and Malthaiyah.[67] Is not a pseudo-Assyrian style also to be detected
in this figure[68] (fig. 150) surmounted by the winged disk, with his
tunic open in front? However, his cylindrical tiara, his twisted hair,
and the peculiar disks which he holds in his two hands, are features
which the artist did not copy from Mesopotamia.
Like the Babylonian Istar, the Hittite Astarte is represented standing,
in full face and entirely nude; she holds her breasts with the same
indecent gesture, the first example of which belongs to the plastic art
of Chaldæa. Nevertheless Astarte is winged and crowned with a conical
tiara which are peculiarities of Hittite symbolism. The priestess
performing adoration before her is veiled, like the figures of Assyrian
women.
[Illustration: Fig. 151.--Fragments of sculpture from Carchemish (from
the _Graphic_, Dec. 1880).]
Sculptures in debased imitation of the Ninevite reliefs were ranged on a
series of slabs in the Hittite palaces, as at Khorsabad or Kouyunjik. At
Sinjerli, M. O. Puchstein found still in place, that is to say, lining
the lower portion of the wall of an edifice, a complete set of
bas-reliefs representing a deer hunt, a man struggling with a fantastic
genius, and a train of prisoners of war.[69] In another tell in the
same region, three slabs placed end to end contain a scene from a lion
hunt; the king is in his chariot with his charioteer, and draws his bow.
Everything here--the form of the chariot, the harness of the horses, the
costume of the prince covered with his coat of mail--betrays a copy of
Ninevite sculpture. Even the lion, the anatomical forms of which are
learnedly reproduced, brings to our memory the hunting expeditions of
Assurbanipal. But at the same time the inferiority of the imitator is
conspicuous in the arrangement of the scene, which lacks life and
movement: the lion allows the javelins to be thrust into his eye and
haunches in the most benevolent manner. What a difference from the
vigour and litheness of the terrible beasts which bound roaring around
the hunters, true sons of Nimrod!
[Illustration: Fig. 152.--Bas-relief at Rum-Qalah (_Gazette archéol._
1883.)]
When we leave the regions which lie near the Euphrates, the imitation of
Assyria, though equally perceptible, is, perhaps, less servile and more
free; a larger number of original elements enter into the composition of
the scenes. At Rum-Qalah a bas-relief represents a bearded personage,
wearing a cap, and dressed in a long tunic, drawn apart as if in
imitation of the form of the drooping wings of Assyrian genii. At his
girdle he carries a dagger; in his left hand is a sort of lyre, in his
right a palm-branch; the handle of a leathern bag is passed over his
arm. The coarseness of the workmanship makes the imitation itself almost
unrecognisable. On a basalt stela at Marash (fig. 153) two women,
sitting on chairs with backs, are separated by a table similar to those
that we have seen in Assyria; the costume of these women has also much
analogy to the Ninevite garments; however, their high tiara, under their
long veil, seems to be indigenous. The same characteristics of imperfect
and coarse imitation are to be observed in other pieces of sculpture
from the same place; the only features which are particularly original
are the expression of the faces, the diadem, and the arrangement of the
hair: the spectator feels that he is on the confines of a territory
which is already coming under the direct influence of the Hellenic art
of Asia Minor.[70]
[Illustration: Fig. 153.--Stela at Marash (after Hirschfeld).]
According to these examples, two groups of clearly distinguished Hittite
monuments may be established in Syria itself: those of Carchemish and
the region of the Euphrates, which are colourless copies of Assyrian
works; and those of western Syria and especially of Cilicia, which,
though also derived from Ninevite art, separate themselves from it to a
greater extent, are ruder, and contain elements at once more original
and more barbarous. As peculiar characteristics of the Hittites, we will
point out the diadem, the high cap of the women, to which a long veil is
fitted, and, above all, the shoes with turned-up points. These shoes,
worn by men and women, have been described as the chief mark of the
Hittite monuments; however, it must not be forgotten that these shoes
are still worn, in our own day, not only in Syria but throughout Asia
Minor, by the most various races.
§ II. HITTITE MONUMENTS IN CAPPADOCIA.
A canton of ancient Cappadocia, the Pteria of Herodotus, on the Halys,
where the first meeting between Cyrus and Crœsus took place, contains
a considerable number of Hittite ruins which have been particularly
explored by MM. Perrot and Guillaume, and form a group by themselves in
the history of oriental art. The village of Boghaz-Keui, the ancient
capital of the Pterians has still, besides its fortifications 3¾ miles
in circumference, bas-reliefs carved upon rocks which are called
Iasili-Kaïa, “the inscribed stone,” and remains of buildings not
completely indistinguishable. The royal palace, almost rased to the
level of the ground, is a parallelogram 136 ft. by 185 ft. In the blocks
which compose the wall, holes are observed for iron clamps, as in the
Achæmenid edifices; as in the latter also, the stones are large but
irregular; the upper portion of the wall was of brick-work, as at
Nineveh and Persepolis; lastly, the palace of Boghaz-Keui was built on
an artificial terrace. In the arrangement of the rooms, details peculiar
to princely residences in all oriental countries are to be recognised.
The principal door forms an independent structure, to be compared to
that of the palace at Khorsabad: it is 58 ft. high; two lions’ heads,
original in style, project on each side of the aperture, above
monolithic doorposts.
[Illustration: Fig. 154.--The sphinx of Euyuk (from Perrot and
Guillaume[71]).]
The palace of Euyuk, as well as that of Boghaz-Keui, presents striking
features of resemblance to those of Nineveh; its terrace, 812 ft.
square, still rises to the height of 39 ft. The corners are turned
towards the four cardinal points. The principal doorway is 11 ft.
broad,[71] and on each side stand two sphinxes, in place of the
human-headed bulls. Next to these, all along the façade, was a series of
bas-reliefs, the arrangement of which was the same as that upon the
façades of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik; only, the sphinx, which is not
Assyrian, discloses another foreign influence--that of Egypt.
Cappadocian art was able to interpret the Egyptian type, and, on this
occasion, did not limit itself to a dull copy. “In Egypt,” observes M.
Perrot, “the sphinx, to whatever variety of the type it belongs, is
always represented in the reclining posture, never standing as here:
instead of being treated as a bas-relief and placed in front of the
doorway, it is sculptured in the round and set on both sides of the
entrance, perpendicular to the path, towards the axis of which it
looks.”[72] Besides, in the sphinxes on the banks of the Nile, the
extremities of the hair, on each side of the head, fall straight without
forming the curls which we see here. At Euyuk, the Egyptian sphinx is
treated in the Assyrian style; the place which it occupies on the sides
of the doorway, and the position of its paws, turn it into a sort of
compromise between Egypt and Assyria, which vied with one another in
this land of Cappadocia, in artistic influence as in political
preponderance.
[Illustration: Fig. 155.--Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa (after Perrot
and Guillaume).]
This double tendency is also observed at Iasili-Kaïa. Here a rectangular
chamber has been found 81 ft. by 37½ ft., hewn in the rock on three
sides; the walls are covered with bas-reliefs forming a plinth.
[Illustration: Fig. 156.--Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa (after Perrot
and Guillaume).]
[Illustration: Fig. 157.--Rock sculptures at Iasili-Kaïa (after Perrot
and Guillaume).]
Another smaller chamber and a corridor contain similar sculptures; the
height of the figures varies from 4 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. Two
processions of figures go round the larger chamber and meet one another:
on the right, women dressed in long robes with trains, their hair
falling upon their shoulders, wearing a round tiara like the women at
Marash; on the left the men, with the conical cap assigned by Herodotus
to the Cimmerians, and a short tunic reaching no lower than the knees in
front, but longer behind. In each group the figures grow larger in
proportion to their nearness to the centre. Many of them are not human
beings, but winged genii, satyrs with goats’ feet, dog-headed monsters.
Nearly all hold in their hands sceptres, curved staves, two-edged
hatchets; some stand upon quadrupeds. Two are seen perched upon a
two-headed eagle; another, accompanied by a kid, stands on the
shoulders of two porters.
[Illustration: Fig. 158.--Rock sculpture at Iasili-Kaïa (Perrot and
Guillaume).]
[Illustration: Fig. 159.--Rock sculpture of Iasili-Kaïa (after Perrot
and Guillaume).]
Close to the entrance of this vast hall, a separate relief represents a
giant standing on two mountains. This personage holds in his right hand
a shrine, and in his left hand has a sort of long staff, the lower end
of which is curved like a crosier; he wears a hemispherical skull-cap,
and is dressed in a long robe open at the side. The shrine which this
deity holds is provided with two Ionic columns supporting the winged
disk; beneath the disk is a figure between two bulls seen in full face.
At some distance a group of two figures is observed. One of them, of
colossal proportions, is found elsewhere standing upon a quadruped.
Here, he wears a highly decorated conical tiara, and is armed with a
sword and clothed in a short tunic. He stretches out his right hand as
if to carry or to seize a child standing before him. The second figure,
protected by the deity, who passes his left arm round his neck and
holds his hand, is the same as he whom we noticed just before.
The sculptures which decorate the walls of the vestibule in the palace
of Euyuk have so great an analogy to those of Iasili-Kaïa that it is
impossible not to recognise their common style and origin. We observe
among them a woman, seated upon a throne, with her hair flowing down
upon her shoulders, decorated with a necklace and bracelets, who reminds
us of the Assyrian queen sharing the banquet of Assurbanipal; she raises
a goblet to her lips, and holds a flower in her hand.
[Illustration: Fig. 160.--Rock sculpture of Iasili-Kaïa (after Perrot
and Guillaume).]
[Illustration: Fig. 161.--Tomb of Gherdek-Kaïasi (after Perrot and
Guillaume).]
All these scenes are priestly and religious, and not, as in Assyria,
devoted to the glory of the king and to the memory of his warlike
exploits. They refer to the worship of the god Mên or of the goddess Mâ
or Enio, the Cappadocian name of Anaïtis or Astarte, whose rites Strabo
describes as performed in the two towns of Comana.
To this Cappadocian civilisation, again, purely oriental and anterior to
Greek influence as it is, the sculpture of tombs observed at
Gherdek-Kaïasi, near Boghaz-Keui and Euyuk, must be referred. The
principal of these caves hewn in the rock, like those of Phœnicia and
Nakhsh-i-Rustam, has a façade adorned with a portico with three low
colonnades, the style of which closely resembles the Greek Doric order
(fig. 161). At the extremities of this portico are the doors of two
chambers intended to contain sarcophagi. Both of them have windows
opened in the wall of rock; the sepulchral couches are hewn in the wall
like alcoves. There is something in these monuments which partakes of
the character both of the Phrygian tombs and of those of
Nakhsh-i-Rustam; and perhaps they are not anterior to the destruction of
Pteria by Crœsus in B.C. 549.
To sum up: we must conclude, with M. Perrot,[73] that the monuments of
Boghaz-Keui and Euyuk, witnesses of primitive Cappadocian civilisation,
underwent Assyrian influence as well as those of Northern Syria. The
palaces look like “a reduced copy of the great royal edifices on the
banks of the Tigris and Euphrates.” The winged figures, the monsters
with eagles’ and lions’ heads, are Assyrian, and so are the deities
borne on the backs of different quadrupeds, the flowers in the hands of
the figures and the winged disk, the symbol of the deity. Various
elements of the Cappadocian sculptures seem, upon no less evidence, to
have been borrowed from Egypt, Persia, and even from the Greeks of Asia
Minor, but this is exceptional. In any case there is nothing original
and individual in this Hittite art of Pteria, except the eagle with two
heads (fig. 162), which is evidently connected with the most ancient
Asiatic worship, and suggests reminiscences of the Sirens; except also
the long curved _lituus_, the robe cut in the form of a chasuble, the
peaked tiara, the pointed shoes; details of dress more interesting for
the history of costume than for that of art.
[Illustration: Fig. 162.--Sculpture at Iasili-Kaïa.]
The connection of the sculptures of Pteria with those of Hittite Syria
is quite clear; there are the same hieroglyphs, the same short tunic,
the same long robe, the same shoes, the same peaked tiara, and the same
round skull-cap. The female garments are almost identical at Marash and
Iasili-Kaïa; the deities have similar attributes; the lion and the bull
are the animals which both regions prefer to represent. We must conclude
that the same semi-barbarous race, powerless to free itself, whether in
art or politics, from the yoke of Egypt and Assyria, inhabited both the
slopes of the Taurus; we will now examine how far this Hittite race
extended its branches towards the west, and what monuments it left in
Asia Minor beyond the Halys.
§ III. HITTITE MONUMENTS IN ASIA MINOR.
To the north of the Taurus and beyond the Halys, the monuments belonging
to Hittite civilisation are, as in Cappadocia, bas-reliefs carved on the
sides of rocks or not.
[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Rock sculptures at Ghiaur-Kalesi (after Perrot
and Guillaume, pl. x.).]
At Kalaba, near Ancyra, in Galatia, M. Perrot discovered a large slab (4
ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 6 in.) on which is carved a lion, analogous in style
to those which we have met in Syria or in Cappadocia.[74] A nine hours’
journey south-west of Ancyra, among the ruins called Ghiaur-Kalesi, the
same scholar found two large figures, cut this time on the side of the
rock. These are warriors, like several of those at Boghaz-Keui; both
wear a conical helmet or tiara, to which a piece of stuff is attached
behind, which covers the nape of the neck; they are clothed in a short
tunic, drawn in at the waist by a sash; their feet are shod with curved
boots.
The sculpture at Ibriz, in Lycaonia, consists of an inscription in
Hittite hieroglyphs and two colossal figures, one 19 ft. 9 in. high, the
other 11 ft. 9 in. A priest is standing in adoration before his deity.
The god holds in his left hand an ear of corn, and in his right hand the
branches of a vine which grows from the ground behind him. His tiara is
provided with several pairs of horns, and his beard and hair are curled
in the Assyrian fashion. The pontiff is thoroughly Assyrian in
appearance and costume; his robe edged with fringes is decorated with
square or lozenge-shaped designs, which remind us of the tunic of
Marduk-nadin-akhi (fig. 22), and also of the ornaments of the
Phrygo-Hellenic tomb called that of Midas.
[Illustration: Fig. 164.--Rock sculpture at Ibriz (from Wright, _Empire
of the Hittites_).]
The ruins of Eflatoun, in Lycaonia, scarcely consist of anything more at
the present day than the façade of a ruined edifice; it is adorned with
a bas-relief in which the winged solar disk is to be distinguished, the
symbol of the deity in Egypt and in Assyria; below are two other smaller
disks; then come two rows of figures with their arms raised above their
head, as if to support an entablature.
[Illustration: Fig. 165.--Rock sculpture at Nymphio (_Revue arch._, t.
xiii, 1866).]
Hittite monuments grow more rare as we leave Cilicia, Lycaonia,
Cappadocia and Phrygia to penetrate into more western regions. However,
fresh monuments are met with every day in Lydia and even on the coast of
Ionia, accompanied by hieroglyphs which do not allow us to doubt of the
origin of the people who carved them on the rocks. Herodotus attributed
to Sesostris two Hittite bas-reliefs, near Smyrna, which are to be seen
at the present day. One, at the village of Nymphio, on the side of a
rock which overhangs a branch of the river Hermus, rises at least 162
ft. above the ravine. In a niche, 8 ft. high, a warrior is seen wearing
the conical tiara and clothed in a short tunic; he carries a lance and a
bow; he is shod with the pointed boots. The second monument alluded to
by Herodotus has been lately discovered by M. Humann; it is less well
preserved, and represents an almost exactly similar warrior.[75]
Besides traces of Hittite inscriptions, the style of these rock
sculptures, the costume and attitude of the figures connect them
inevitably with the bas-reliefs of Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia and
Syria; there is the same indistinct outline and the same lack of
modelling. Wherever the Hittite people went, they remained feeble
imitators; the works of art which they have left us can be referred to
two or three types, copied from Assyrian and sometimes from Egyptian
sculpture, but always much inferior to the model.
Less mediocre is the manufacture of models in serpentine which have come
down to us, and which were employed by Hittite or Lydo-Phrygian
goldsmiths in making metal ornaments or talismanic figures. The two most
curious of these matrices are that which is preserved in the Cabinet de
Médailles under the name of _Baphomet_, and another, found a few years
ago near Thyatira in Mæonia.[76] The latter, which is 3½ in. high by 4½
in. broad and ½ in. thick, shows us a naked woman, with her hands upon
her breasts like the Babylonian Istar; next a man, perhaps Bel-Marduk,
clothed in the Chaldæan robe with a series of fringes one above the
other. Farther on there is a lion with a ring, intended to hang the
ornament when it came out of the mould; a sort of altar; and, finally,
the planetary symbols found on a large number of Assyrian monuments.
In the glyptic art, Hittite engravers surpassed themselves, and showed
themselves worthy of their Ninevite masters. Far be it from us to treat
with disdain the seal-impressions on terra-cotta, the seals of precious
stone and the cylinders, the inscriptions and figures upon which have
only recently attracted the attention of archæologists. The silver seal,
now lost, of the king Tarkudimme, bears a bilingual inscription in
Hittite hieroglyphs and in Assyrian cuneiform. A cylinder at the Louvre,
found at Aïdin, in Lydia, shows a scene of presentation to a deity (fig.
167). Three figures walk in the same direction, with their hand upon
their mouth, carrying the curved sceptre which we noticed in the rock
sculptures of Iasili-Kaïa; a large table, supported by two lions, is
laden with offerings. Then comes an Assyrian genius with two faces, a
deity sitting upon a throne, and some secondary figures. M. Heuzey[77]
has observed that though the subject is almost entirely Assyrian, there
is, nevertheless, a national element in it; this is the decorative part
of the cylinder. The ornamental design occupies, indeed, a considerable
place on the surface; it is composed of a double border of interlacing
lines and symmetrical scrolls, which are never met with except in
monuments of the Hittite glyptic art.
[Illustration: Fig. 166.--Boss of Tarkudimme (after Wright).]
[Illustration: Fig. 167.--Hittite cylinder (Louvre).]