I Carchemish being placed in it, as we shall show in a later part of this article. The territory of these Hit- tites, therefore, lay in the valley of the Orontes. It probably extended towards the Euphrates, for the Kne- TA are also connected with neharena, or Mesopotamia, not the XAHiRi of the cuneiform inscriptions, but it is not clear that they ruled that coimtrj\ Probably they drew confederates thence, as was done by the Syrians in David's time.
The greatest achievement of Rameses H was the de- feat of the KiicTA and their allies near KeTesir, in the fifth year of his reign. This event is commemorated in a papyrus and by several inscriptions and sculptures. The nations confederate with the KiiexA were the ARATu (Aradus?), jiaal'su (Mash?),PAATSA or patasa,
KESIiKESH, ARUNU, KATAWATAXA, KHERABU (Helbou?), AKATERA, KETESIf, RCTA, ArkiteS, TENTEXE (or TRA-
tesuee), and karakamasha (Carchemish). These names are difficult to identify save the seventh and the last, but it is evident that they do not belong to Pales- tine. The Hittites are represented as having a regular army, which was strong in chariots, a particular which we should expect from the Biblical notices of them and of the Canaanites, where the latter name seems applied to the tribe so called. Each chariot was drawn l>y t'.vo horses, and held three men, a charioteer and two warriors. They had also cavalry and disciplined infan- try. In the great battle with Rameses they had 2500 horses, that is, chariots. The representations of the KiieTA in the sculptures relating to this campaign prob- ably show that their forces were composed of men of two different races. Sir Gardner Wilkinson thinks that both belonged to the kiicta nation, and it seems hardly possible to form any other conclusion. '• The nation of Sheta [the initial character is thus sometimes read s/;] seems to have been composed of two distinct tribes, both comprehended under the same name, uniting in one common cause, and probably subject to the same gov- ernment." These supposed tribes differed in dress and arms, and one was sometimes bearded, the other was beardless {Ancient Ef)tjptians,i,\). AW sq.). They are rather fair than yellow, and the beardless warriors are probably of a different race from the people of Palestine
I
4
Ancient Hittites. From trie Egj'ptian Monuments.
HITTITE
281
HIVITE
generally. In some cases they remind us of the. Tatars, and it is impossible to forget that the Egyptians of the Greek period evidently took the KiieTA for Scythians or Bactrians. The name Scythian is not remote, nor is that of the Kittas, or warrior-Tatars in the Chinese garrisons ; but mere word resemblances are dangerous ; and the circumstance that the Scythians appear in his- tory when the Hittites have just disappeared is not of much value. But it is worthy of remark that in the time of Moses there was a Rephaite ruling the Amorites in Palestine, as the sons of Anak had apparently long Tided the Hittites in Hebron, so that we need not be surprised to find two races under the same government in the case of the Hittites of Syria.
In the twenty-first year of Rameses II, the great king of the Hittites, KneTSEKA, came to Egypt to make a treaty of jieace. A copy of the treaty is preserved in a hieroglyphic inscription. From this it appears that KiieTSEKA had been preceded by his grandfather sa- TRARA, his father maurasara, and his brother maut- NURA, and that in the reigns of saprara and jiautnu- ra peace had been made upon the . same conditions. In a tablet of the thirty-fourth year of the same king, one of his wives, a Hittite princess with the Egyptian name itA-jiA-UK-Ne-FRU, is represented as well as her father, the king (or a king) of the KiiexA. Solomon also, as Dr. Brugsch remarks, took Hittite women into his harem (1 Kings xi, 1). Rameses III (B.C.cir. 1200) had a war with the KiieTA, mentioned in one of his in- scriptions with KCTE (Ke-rcsii) kara[k]amsa (Carche- misli), aratu (Aradus?), and arasa, all described as in the land ajiaba.
The religion of the Hittites is only known from the above treaty with Rameses II, though it is probable that additional information may be derived from an exami- nation of proper names. In this inscription the divini- ties both of the land of khbta and of Egypt are men- tioned, probably because they were invoked to see that the compact was duly kept. They are described from a Hittite point of view, a circumstance which is curious as showing how carefully the Egyptian scribe liad kept to the document before him. They are the gods of war, and the gods of women of the land of khcta and of Egypt, the sl'tkkh of tlie land of khcta, the sutekii of several forts, the asiitcrat (written antcrat) of the land of KHexA, several unnamed gods and goddesses of places or countries, and of a fortress, the mountahis and rivers of the land of kiicta, and of Egypt, Amen, sutekh, and the winds. Suteku, or set, was the chief god of the Shepherd-kings of Egypt (one of whom appears to have abolished all other Avorship in his dominions), and is also called BAR, or Baal. Sittekh is perhaps a foreign form, sprr seems certainly of foreign origin. Ashtcrat is, of course, Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal in Palestine. They were the principal divinities of the kiicta, for they are mentioned by name, and as worshipped in the whole land. The worship of the mountains and rivers is re- markably indicative of the character of the religion, and the mention of the gods of special cities points in the same direction. The former is low nature-worship, the latter is entirely consistent with it, and, indeed, is never found but in connection with it.