"HITTITES C'-i" Hitti, pi. HUtimJ XerraToi).— In .Jos l-* the country between the Lebanon and the Euphrates is described as ' the land of the
0 V(. l.k 4M 'Simon's wife's mother."
■t- The proper name rn Hetli llJn 10*'' 2.3^) maybe an assimt iation to tlie Bab. name Kliatti which we find in contract-tablets of tile aire of Abraham. Charlex Srribner's Sons
UITTITES
HITTITES
301
Ilittitt'.s,' wlik-li is more closely defined in Jg 1-* as tcj ilii- norlli of I'alustinc. In 2 S 24" the unin- U-lli^rible and corrupt ' 'ralitiiii-lindslii ' must be corrected iuli) 'tlie llittiles of Kadesli.' accordin;; to a corrected reading of the LXX (Luc. tij 7^1- X(TTteifi Kaoijs), SO that the power of David ex- tended northward as far as Kadesh on the Orontes close to the lake of Ilonis. Solomon imported horses from 'the kings of the Ilitlites,' as well as from the kings of Aram, from Kgypt, or perhaps a nortliern Mizir, and (according to a suggestion of Kr. Lenormant) from Kue on the (iulf of Antioch, the price of a liorse being 150 shekels of silver (about £25, 1 IC W^-^). These northern ' kings of the Hittites ' were supposed by the Syrians of Damascus, when they were besieging Samaria at a later date, to have been 'hired' against them by the king of Israel (2 K ?*).
Hesides the northern Ilitlites, other Hittites, or •sons of Ileth,' are mentioned in the ()T as in- hal)iting the south of I'alestine. Abraham found tliL-m at Hebron (Gn 2:i» 25""); in Nu 13-" the Hittites are named along with the Jebusites and Amorites as dwelling in the moinitains of Canaan ; and Kzk (lt>^) declares that the father of Jerus. was an Amorite, and its mother a llittite. These soutliern Hittites are probably alone meant in Gn 10''', thou'^h, as tlie llamathites are also included among the children of Canaan, it is possible tliat the nortliern Hittites may be referred to as well. ' L'riah the Hittite ' (2 >S 12) may have belonged to the Hittites of the south, like the two Hittite wives of Esau (Gn 26" 36- ; cf. 27*»).
On the Egyp. moimments the Khata or Hittites are first mentioned in the Annals of Thothmes III. of the l.sth .lynasty (n.c. 1.503-14-lil). In n.e. 1470 the I'haraoh inarched to the baidis of the Euphrates and received the tribute of the land of the Hittites, ' the Greater,' consisting of 8 rings of silver 400 lb. in Weight, and ' a great piece of cry.stal.' In n.c. 14(i.'l tribute was again sent from 'the king of the Greater Hittite land.' Thotbmes iv., the grand- son of Thothmes 111., reinilsed an attack made by the Hittites upon Tunip (now Tcnnih) in N. Syria, and his two .successors, Amenojihis (Amen-hoti'p) III. and IV., as we learn from the Tel el-Amarna tablets, were constantly called on to oppo.se the Hittite 'king,' who led his forces through the pas.ses of the Taurus into the Egj'p. province of N. Syria, or intrigtied with disaffected Canaanites in Palestine. We hear, finally, of Eta-gania, the native governor of Kadesh on the Orontes, joining with the king of tlio Hittites and the king of Jlitainii or .Aram-naharaim against the Egyptians.
The decay of the Egyp. power in Syria enabled the Ilittitis to establish them.selves, not only at Carcheniish on the Euphrates, but also in the Amorite city of Kadesh on the Orontes, near the lake of Homs. Scti 1., the second king of the I'.itli dynasty, claims to have overthrown them. They were ruled at the time by .\Intal, the son of Mul-sar, who had been murdered, and who was the son of Saplil. Hamses 11., the successor of Seti, contiimeil the war. In the 5th year of the I'haraoh's reign (n.c. 1343), Kamses, while besieging Kadesh, saved him.self from a Hittite ambuscade only liy i>erforraing prodigies of valour, which formed (he .subject of a sort of epic on the part of the court-poet I'entaiir. In the 21st year of Hamses (n.c. 1327) a treaty, offensive an<l defensive. w.is made between him and 'the great king of the Ilitlites,' Khata-sar, who had succeeded his brother .Mutal, which put an end to the war. Among other .stipulations it was agreed that all political refugees on either side slnmld be pardoned. The ob.servancp of the treaty w:ts placeil under tlie proti'Ction of the Hittite and Ei;yiiii:iu deities, aihl llu' Hittite text of it w<is engraved on a silver plate, on whicli
was an image of the god Sutekh embracing the Hittite king. Tiie i)late was brought to Egypt by the Hittite ambassador Tar-Tiseh. The treaty was faithfully kept, being cemented by the marriage of the daughter of the Hittite king to Hamses, and Kadesh continued to mark the southern limit of Hittite rule.
In the Araimean districts south of the Taurus the Hittites do not seem to have been more than a conquering ca.ste, and their power was broken by the invasion of the hordes frnm the islands and coasts of the Greek seas, who poured through Syria and the land of the Amorites into Egypt in the reign of Kamses III. of the 20th dyna.sty. When the Assyr. monuments, in the time of Tiglath- pilcser I. (n.c. 1100), first begin to refer to the Khaltii (also written Khate), in place of a single llittite king who is able to summon allies from the distant regions of Asia .Minor, we find a number of separate Hittite states. Of these Carcheniish .seems to have been the wealthie.st and most important. The Assyrians penetrated into Kumniukh (Commagene), and compelled Sadi- Tesub (or Sadi-.\ntern). .son of Khattu-sar, the Hittite king, to become tributary. The name of Khattu-sar is plainly the same as that of the opponent of Kam.ses II.