The source of a good deal of the trouble was the great Hittite power, away to the north in the mountains of Anatolia. The Hittite kings had formed a confederation of their own peoples north of the Taurus, and they were now pressing southwards into Phœnicia and the Lebanon. They coveted the fertile plains of Northern Syria, and Egypt was the power that blocked their path. They were not at first strong enough to challenge Egypt by direct invasion of her provinces, so they confined themselves to stirring up rebellion among the native princes of Canaan. These they encouraged to throw off the Egyptian yoke, and to attack those cities which refused to join them. The loyal chiefs and governors appealed for help to Egypt, and their letters show that they generally appealed in vain. For Akhenaten was a weak monarch, and was far more interested in his heretic worship of the Solar Disk than in retaining the foreign empire he had inherited. It was in his reign that the Anatolian Hittites began to take an active part in the politics of Western Asia. [Illustration: FIGS. 47 AND 48. REPRESENTATIONS OF HITTITES IN EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. The two Figures are parts of the same scene from a relief found at Karnak, representing the introduction of Asiatic ambassadors by an Egyptian prince to Rameses II. The bearded Semites are readily to be distinguished from their Hittite colleagues, clean-shaven and with their long plaits of hair, or pig-tails, hanging down the back. (After Meyer.)] Until the discovery of the documents at Boghaz Keui, it had only been possible to deduce the existence of the Hittites from the mark they had left in the records of Egypt and Assyria; and at that time it was not even certain whether we might regard as their work the hieroglyphic rock-inscriptions, which are scattered over a great part of Asia Minor. But it is now possible to supplement our material from native sources, and to trace the gradual extension of their power by both conquest and diplomacy. They were a virile race, and their strongly marked features may be still seen, not only on their own rock-sculptures, but also in Egyptian reliefs beside those of other Asiatics.[28] In facial type, too, they are quite distinct, for the nose, though prominent and slightly curved, is not very fleshy, mouth and chin are small, and the forehead recedes abruptly, with the hair drawn back from it and falling in one, or possibly in two plaits, or pig-tails, on the shoulders.[29] It is still not certain to which of the great families of nations they belonged. The suggestion has been made that their language has certain Indo-European characteristics, but for the present it is safer to regard them as an indigenous race of Asia Minor.[30] Their facial type in any case suggests comparison as little with Aryan as with Semitic stock. [Illustration: FIG. 49. HITTITE FOOT-SOLDIERS AT THE BATTLE OF KADESH.