RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hirscher
Hittites, The
trological inscriptions believed to belong about
2000 b.c. Mention of them by name occurs in the
annals of Tiglath-Pileser I. (c. 1100
2. Assyrian B.C.), at which time there appears to Notices, have been a number of Hittite states
in northern Aramsea and Syria, Kummuh (see Assyria, VI., 2, § 1 ; 3, § 3) being the limit westward of which information is given in this source and this being under Hittite control. In the ninth century the conquests of Asshurnasirpal subjected Hittite kingdoms in the region named, as did those of Shalmaneser II. Sargon finally overthrew the Hittites and ended their career in the east by capturing Carchemish, the great center of their power in that region. The sum of the notices in Egyptian and Assyrian monuments would lead then to two conclusions. The first is that the Hittites were widely scattered north and northwest of the Syrian desert, their southern boundary being in Palestine at least as far south as Kadesh, their eastern frontier coincident with the western limits of Assyria, and their western limits at least as far west as Kummuh . The second is that they were an element of the pre- Hebraic population of northern Palestine.
With these conclusions the scattered notices in the Old Testament fully agree, except that they carry the Hittites still farther south to Hebron.
Gen. x. 15 (J) connects them with the
3. Biblical Canaanites as of Cushite stock. This Mention, is also the view of E (Ex. xxiii. 28,
xxxiii. 2), with which P (Gen. xxiii. 3, 5, etc., xxv. 9, xxvi. 34-35, xxvii. 46, xlix. 29) and the writers closest to him (Ezra ix. 1-2; Ezek. xvi. 3) fully coincide, and also R and D in the Hexateuch (Josh. ix. 1, xi. 3). The passages in Samuel and Kings and their parallels in Chronicles reflect the Hittites either as an absorbed element of the population (I Sam. xxvi. 6; II Sam. xi., xii. 9-10) or as a power to be reckoned with outside Palestine (I Kings x. 29, xi. 1; II Kings vii. 6).
The history of the modern discovery of Hittite monuments begins with 1736, when Otter found at Irviz in Asia Minor some peculiar hieroglyphic inscriptions. In 1812 Burckhardt found others at Hamath in Syria; in 1834 Texier discovered still more at Boghazkeui in northern Asia Minor, and in 1851 Layard found some Hittite seals at Nineveh. These and other isolated inscriptions were not connected until 1872, when W Wright secured the Hamath inscriptions for the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. From that time these monuments have been found in considerable numbers from near the Mgean coast of Asia
4. Hittite Minor along the old roads leading to Monuments. Cappadocia and to Syria, and as far east as Carchemish and to the south as far as Babylon (in the latter place being of course spoils of war, among which is a splendid dolorite relief of the Hittite war-god wielding hammer and lightning bolts). They are collected partly in Perrot and Chipiez and more fully in Messerschmidt. The most recent researches have been conducted by Prof. Hugo Winckler at Boghazkeui, in Asia Minor, in 1906-08, one result of which has been the recovery of a large number of documents, a second is the identification of Bo-
ghazkeui with Arzaba (one of the leading Hittite cities between 1500-1100 b.c), and a third is the assurance that the Hittites formed a large confederation of states under the leadership of a single king. The inscriptions, except the most recent, are in relief, not incised, thus agreeing in form with the oldest Aramean inscriptions, and they are boustrophedon (a discovery due to Dr. W H. Ward in 1873). Their age is placed by Jensen between 1300 and 550 b.c. All are monolingual so far as known, except that called the boss of Tarkondemos, which is in Hittite and Assyrian, but is so brief that the cuneiform is of little use as an aid to decipherment. Two of the Amarna Tablets are in an unknown tongue, and may be Hittite.
Since these inscriptions are not in any strict sense deciphered, the information they afford is little, apart from the indications their situation gives concerning the region covered by Hittite action. While for years Professor Sayce has 5. Attempted been claiming to have deciphered Decipher- parts of them, and others, as Conder
ment of and Jensen, make like claims, except Inscriptions, in isolated cases no one of these concedes the claim of the others, and in general the assumed decipherments assign the language to different basal stocks. Ward holds the language to be Turanian, possibly Ural-Altaic; Conder declares it Ural-Altaic, with suggestions of a connection with the Akkadian; Campbell masses under the name Hittites a number of races and tribes; Halevy thinks he has proved the language to be Semitic; Jensen calls it " proto-Armenian," i.e., Indo-Germanic, and in his " decipherment " attempts to make out a connection with the Armenian (of which he naively acknowledges that he knows little), and charges his predecessors in the attempt to read the inscriptions with " wild logic," a charge which Messerschmidt retorts upon him with many exclamation-marks. Thus the Hittite people and language have been connected with both of the great families of nations and with the Turanian group, a fact which speaks eloquently of the obscurity in which the subject still lies. Professor Sayce in 1906 made the candid statement that decipherment of the inscriptions is yet unaccomplished. While shrewd deductions have been made, a few names read with general agreement, and in several cases, probably, fairly close approach to the meaning has been gained, these facts do not contradict the statement that the Hittite script is still a puzzle for the solution of which adequate material and clear clues have till the present been lacking. It now seems possible, however, with the very abundant material recovered from Boghazkeui, including treaties between the Hittites and the Mitanni, that a solution of the vexed problems will be reached. Thus it has been shown that a group of Indian deities is appealed to in the treaties referred to, the names Mitra, Indra, Varuna, and Nasatya being unmistakable. The indications given by the divine names are strengthened by dynastic and proper names of Iranian type. These facts suggest either Hindu-Aryan affinities or borrowing, the former much the more likely. Decided progress has been made in reading the records, and
Hittites, The Hoadly