In n.c. 880 Assur-nazir-pal, the Assyr. king, received tribute from Sangara of Carcheniish, and forced his way over the fords of the Eu])hrates to the west. His successor. Shalmaneser II. (n.c. 854), defeated a league of Hittites and Aram;eans from Kummukh and the adjoining countries, of which Sangara was the head. The Assyrians had already extended the name of 'Hittite' from the Hittites proper to all the inhabitants of Syria and I'alestine, and we find Shalmaneser II. including even the kings of Israel, of Amnion, and of the Arabs, among the 'Hittite' princes. .Ju.st as the UabylonlaiLS had given the name of 'Amorites' to all the inhabitants of Syria and I'alestine, the 'Amorites' having been the dominant people of the west when the Habyloniaus first became ac(iuainted with it, .so the fact that the Hittites were the first and most powerful of the antagonists whom the Assyrians encountered in their Syrian campaigns, caused the name of ' Hittite' in the Assyr. period to be applied to all the nations west of the Euphrates. The capture of Carcheniish by Sargoii in n.c. 717, and the death of its last king, I'isiris, broke up the Hittite power in northern Syria, and threw the trade of W. Asia into As.syr. bands.
The Hittites under the name of Khate are mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions of Armenia or Ararat. In the 9th cent. u.c. Menuas, king of liiainas or Van, defeated the Hittite king Sada-balis. and s.acked the towns of Surisilis and Tarkhi-gamas. His son and .sucees- .sor, Argistis I., continued the war and conquered the Hittite city of .Milid (the modern Malatiyeh). The 'land of the Hittites' of the Vannic inscrip- tions extended along the banks of the Euphrates from I'alu in the e.Tst to Malatiyeh in the west.
A study of tlie Hittite i>roper names preserved in the Egyp. and cuneiform texts goes to show that they all belonged to the same family of speeih, anil that tln^y can be tniced far to the westward in Asia Minor. Thus the names of the Hittite i)rinies, Sajtlil, Mutal, and Khata-s.ar, mentioned by the Egjiitians. reapiH'ar in tlio.se of Sapalulvi, .Mnlalln, and Kliatlu-.sjir, who, accord- ing to the A.Hsyr. monuments, were kings of Gurgnm (in the neighbourhood of Zinjerli. N. of the (iulf of Antioch) and of Kumnmkh or Com- maizene, while Miitalln is the Motnlos i>f eerlnin Gr. inscriptions of Asia Minor. It is furtlur clear from the Tel el-Amarna tablets that the Hittites were of Cap)>adocian origin, that they had ixjured down
392
IlITTITES
HIVITES
frnin tliL' fasUiesses of the'l'imius and had occupied tlie Araiiiiuan cities and firlile lields of northern Syria. We may fiirllur fialher from the Kf^p. records that in the Htli and l.'itli cent. ii.c. tliey liad nut only estalilisln-d Iheniselvcs so far to the south as Kadesh on the (Ironies, but had founded a military empire, winch enabled the kint; of Kadesh to sumuiun allies and vassals from Asia .Minor.
The Ilittites, as represented on the Kfryp. niiiMUineMts, were an ujjly race, with yellow skins, black hair and eye.s, recedin;; foreheads, ami protrusive ujjper jaws. The type is still pre- .S'rved ami>u;.r some of the Cappadoclan peasantry, especially S. \V. of Nii;deh in the neiKlibourhond of the ancient Tyana. They wore boots with U|>turned ends, orisiinally intended for ii.se amoiif; the snows of the Taurus mountains ; but they b(>- oame so characteristic a national dress that at the Kamesseum in Thebes even the Hittiles of Kadesli, on the warm jilains of Syria, are depicted as wearing them, (iver a tunic they also wore a long robe, which was allowed to fall open on one side in walkin<r, and they seem to have gathered the hair at the back of the head into a .sort of pigtail.
A curious cla.ss of monuments has been discovered of late years in Asia .Miiinr and nortliGrn Syria, on vvliich all lhe.se characteristics are reproduced. The monuiuents consist of b.a.s-reliefs in a peculiar style of art. and of inscriptions in an equally peculiar hierou'lyiihic system of writing. Uoth the sculp- tures and the in.scriptions exhibit heads and figtires with exactly the same features, the same pijitails, costume, and snow-shoes as those which the I'"gyp. artists a.ssigned to the Ilittites. As we learn from the KgJ'p. recorils that the Ilittites had a script of their own, as, moreover, the monuments referred to are found in the region over which the Ilittite jjower extended according to the I\gyp. and Assyr. texts, while there is no other known power to which they can be ascribed, the conclusion is obvious that tliey must be the monuments of the people called Ilittites by the Hebrews, Egyptian.s, Assyrians, and Armenians. A reminiscence of their empire is probably preserved in a passage of Solinus (ch. xli. p. 19.3, ed. Mommsen).
Ilittite art was based on that of early Babylonia, though some of the later monunu'iits of it are modelled on the A.s.syr. art of the 9th anil 8lh cent. n.c. But, though based on Babylonian art, the elements which had been bm'rowed were pro- foundly modified, and a mnv and remarkable style of art was thus developed. The Ilittites seem to have had a special fancy for combining parts of different animals into strangely composite and sometimes grotesque forms. It was through the Hittiles that the winged hor.se made its way into Europe, like the two-headed eagle, originally derived, it would seem, frcim the heraldic symbol of the ancient Bab. city of Lagas (Telloh), inu in later days adopted by the Seljukian sultans, and borrowed from them by the Crusaders.