THE HITTITE CITIES AND RACE.
Of the history of the 'White Syrians' or Hittites who lived in the land
of Pteria, near the Halys, we know nothing at present beyond what we can
gather from the ruins of their stronghold at Boghaz Keui and their
palace at Eyuk. The same is the case with the Hittite tribes of
Malatiyeh and Komagênê. When the inscription which adorns the body of a
stone lion found at Merash can be deciphered, it will doubtless cast
light on the early history of the city; at present we do not know even
its ancient name. It is not until we leave the mountainous region
originally occupied by the Hittite race, and descend into the valleys of
Syria, that the annals of their neighbours begin to tell us something
about their fortunes and achievements. The history of their two southern
capitals, Carchemish and Kadesh, broken and imperfect though it may be,
is not an utter blank.
The site of Carchemish had long been looked for in vain. At one time it
was identified with the Kirkesion or Circesium of classical geography,
built at the confluence of the Khabour and the Euphrates. But the
Assyrian name of Kirkesion was Sirki, and its position did not agree
with that assigned to 'Gargamis' or Carchemish in the Assyrian texts.
Professor Maspero subsequently placed the latter at Membij, the ancient
Mabog or Hierapolis, on the strength of the evidence furnished by
classical authors and the Egyptian monuments; but the ruins of Membij
contain nothing earlier than the Greek period, and their position on a
rocky plateau at a distance from the Euphrates, is inconsistent with the
fact known to us from the Assyrian inscriptions, that Carchemish
commanded the fords over the Euphrates.
To Mr. Skene, for many years the English consul at Aleppo, is due the
credit of first discovering the true site of the old Hittite capital. On
the western bank of the Euphrates, midway between Birejik and the mouth
of the Sajur, rises an artificial mound of earth, under which ruins and
sculptured blocks of stone had been found from time to time. It was
known as Jerablûs, or Kalaat Jerablûs, 'the fortress of Jerablûs,'
sometimes wrongly written Jerabîs; and in the name of Jerablûs Mr. Skene
had no difficulty in recognising an Arab corruption of Hierapolis. In
the Roman age the name of Hierapolis or 'Holy City' had been transferred
to its neighbour Membij, which inherited the traditions and religious
fame of the older Carchemish; but when the triumph of Christianity in
Syria brought with it the fall of the great temple of Membij, the name
disappeared from the later city, and was remembered only in connection
with the ruins of the ancient Carchemish.
Two years after Mr. Skene's discovery, Mr. George Smith visited
Carchemish on his last ill-fated journey from which he never returned,
and recognised at once that Mr. Skene's identification was right. The
position of Jerablûs suited the requirements of the Assyrian texts, it
lay on the high-road which formerly led from east to west, and among its
ruins was an inscription in Hittite characters. Not long afterwards
there were brought to the British Museum the bronze bands which once
adorned the gates of an Assyrian temple, and on one of these is a
picture in relief of Carchemish as it looked in the days of Jehu of
Israel. The Euphrates is represented as running past its walls, thus
conclusively showing that Jerablûs, and not Membij, must be the site on
which it stood.
The site was bought by Mr. Henderson, Mr. Skene's successor at Aleppo,
and the money was invested by the former owner in the purchase of a cow.
The mighty were fallen indeed, when the Hittite capital which had
resisted the armies of Egypt and Assyria was judged to be worth no more
than the price of a beast of the field. In 1878 Mr. Henderson was
employed by the Trustees of the British Museum in excavating on the
spot; but no sufficient supervision was exercised over the workmen, and
though a few remains of Hittite sculpture and writing found their way to
London, much was left to be burned into lime by the natives or employed
in the construction of a mill.
The ancient city was defended on two sides by the Euphrates, and was
exposed only on the north and west. Here, however, an artificial canal
had been cut, on either side of which was a fortified wall. The mound
which had first attracted Mr. Skene's attention marks the site of the
royal palace, where the excavators found the remains of a dado like that
of Eyuk, the face of the stones having been sculptured into the likeness
of gods and men. The men were shod with boots with upturned ends, that
unfailing characteristic of Hittite art.
Carchemish enjoyed a long history. When first we hear of it in the
Egyptian records it was already in Hittite hands. Thothmes III. fought
beneath its walls, and his bravest warriors plunged into the Euphrates
in their eagerness to capture the foe. Tiglath-pileser I. had seen its
walls from the opposite shore of the Euphrates, but had not ventured to
approach them. Assur-natsir-pal and his son Shalmaneser had received
tribute from its king, and when it finally surrendered to the armies of
Sargon it was made the seat of an Assyrian satrap. The trade which had
flowed through it continued to pour wealth into the hands of its
merchants, and the 'maneh of Carchemish' remained a standard of value.
When Egypt made her final struggle for supremacy in Asia, it was under
the walls of Carchemish that the decisive struggle was fought. The
battle of Carchemish in B.C. 604 drove Necho out of Syria and Palestine,
and placed the destinies of the chosen people in the hands of the
Babylonian king. It is possible that the ruin of Carchemish dates from
the battle. However that may be, long before the beginning of the
Christian era it had been supplanted by Mabog or Membij, and the great
sanctuary which had made it a 'holy city' was transferred to its rival
and successor.
Like Carchemish, Kadesh on the Orontes, the most southern capital the
Hittites possessed, was also a 'holy city.' Pictures of it have been
preserved on the monuments of Ramses II. We gather from them that it
stood on the shore of the Lake of Horns, still called the 'Lake of
Kadesh,' at the point where the Orontes flowed out of the lake. The
river was conducted round the city in a double channel, across which a
wide bridge was thrown, the space between the two channels being
apparently occupied by a wall.
Kadesh must have been one of the last conquests made by the Hittites in
Syria, and their retention of it was the visible sign of their supremacy
over Western Asia. We do not know when they were forced to yield up its
possession to others. As has been pointed out, the correct reading of 2
Sam. xxiv. 6 informs us that the northern limit of the kingdom of David
was formed by 'the Hittites of Kadesh,' 'the entering in of Hamath,' as
it seems to be called elsewhere. In the age of David, accordingly,
Kadesh must still have been in their hands, but it had already ceased to
be so when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. led his armies to the
west. No allusion to the city and its inhabitants occurs in the Assyrian
inscriptions, and we may conjecture that it had been destroyed by the
Syrians of Damascus. As Membij took the place of Carchemish, so Emesa or
Homs took the place of Kadesh.
We have seen that the Hittites were a northern race. Their primitive
home probably lay on the northern side of the Taurus. What they were
like we can learn both from their own sculptures and from the Egyptian
monuments, which agree most remarkably in the delineation of their
features. The extraordinary resemblance between the Hittite faces drawn
by the Egyptian artists and those depicted by themselves in their
bas-reliefs and their hieroglyphs, is a convincing proof of the
faithfulness of the Egyptian representations, as well as of the identity
of the Hittites of the Egyptian inscriptions with the Hittites of
Carchemish and Kappadokia.
It must be confessed that they were not a handsome people. They were
short and thick of limb, and the front part of their faces was pushed
forward in a curious and somewhat repulsive way. The forehead retreated,
the cheek-bones were high, the nostrils were large, the upper lip
protrusive. They had, in fact, according to the craniologists, the
characteristics of a Mongoloid race. Like the Mongols, moreover, their
skins were yellow and their eyes and hair were black. They arranged the
hair in the form of a 'pig-tail,' which characterises them on their own
and the Egyptian monuments quite as much as their snow-shoes with
upturned toes.
In Syria they doubtless mixed with the Semitic race, and the further
south they advanced the more likely they were to become absorbed into
the native population. The Hittites of Southern Judah have Semitic
names, and probably spoke a Semitic language. Kadesh continued to bear
to the last its Semitic title, and among the Hittite names which occur
further north there are several which display a Semitic stamp. In the
neighbourhood of Carchemish Hittites and Arameans were mingled together,
and Pethor was at once a Hittite and an Aramean town. In short, the
Hittites in Syria were like a conquering race everywhere; they formed
merely the governing and upper class, which became smaller and smaller
the further removed they were from their original seats. Like the
Normans in Sicily or the Etruscans in ancient Italy, they tended
gradually to disappear or else to be absorbed into the subject race. It
was only in their primitive homes that they survived in their original
strength and purity, and though even in Kappadokia they lost their old
languages, adopting in place of them first Aramaic, then Greek, and
lastly Turkish, we may still observe their features and characteristics
in the modern inhabitants of the Taurus range. Even in certain districts
of Kappadokia their descendants may still be met with. 'The type,' says
Sir Charles Wilson, 'which is not a beautiful one, is still found in
some parts of Kappadokia, especially amongst the people living in the
extraordinary subterranean towns which I discovered beneath the great
plain north-west of Nigdeh.' The characteristics of race, when once
acquired, seem almost indelible; and it is possible that, when careful
observations can be made, it will be found that the ancient Hittite race
still survives, not only in Eastern Asia Minor, but even in the southern
regions of Palestine.