We are, it would seem, just on the eve of a complete mastery of the secrets of the Hittite inscriptions. The more our knowledge of the Hittites grows, the less simple seems the problem of their racial affinities. Some features of their speech clearly resemble features of the Indo-European family of languages, but other features would seem to denote Tartar affinities. In a number of instances the influence of the Assyrian language can clearly be traced. The same confusion presents itself when we study the pictures of Hittites as they appear in Egyptian reliefs. Two distinct types of face are there portrayed. One type has high cheek bones, oblique eyes, and wears a pigtail, like the peoples of Mongolia and China; the other has a clean-cut head and face which resemble somewhat the early Greeks. These may well have been Aryans. That there was a strain in the Hittite composition that came from Turkestan or that came through that country is also indicated by the fact that the Hittites were the first of the peoples of western Asia to use the horse. Evidence of the use of the horse as a domestic animal by the people of Turkestan at an early date was brought to light by the excavations of Prof. Pumpelly[20] in that land, so that the presence of horses among the Hittites naturally suggests some connection with that region. Among the Hittite allies Semitic Amorites are also pictured. These have receding foreheads and projecting beards. =4. Hittite History.= (1) _First Appearance._--The earliest reference to the Hittites which we have in any written record occurs in a Babylonian chronicle, which states that “against Shamsu-ditana the men of the country Khattu marched.”[21] Shamsu-ditana was the last king of the first dynasty of Babylon. His reign terminated in 1924 B. C. Khattu land, as will appear further on, was the name later given to the Hittite settlement in Cappadocia. One would naturally suppose that the name would have the same significance here, but of this we cannot be certain. The tablet on which this chronicle was written was inscribed in the Persian or late Babylonian period, but there is evidence that it was copied from an earlier original. If its statement is true, the Hittites had made their appearance in history and were prepared to mingle in that _mêlée_ of the races which occurred when the first dynasty of Babylon was overthrown. Nothing is said in the chronicle as to the location of the land of Khattu, but there can be no doubt that the Hittites approached Babylonia from the northwest. Their seat must have been in the region where we later find the Hittites, or Mitanni. At what period the Hittites came into this region we can only conjecture. The excavations at Sakje-Geuze reveal a civilization there extending back to about 3000 B. C., which resembled that found at Susa in Elam belonging to the same period. This civilization may not have been Hittite in its beginnings. Mr. Woolley, a member of the British expedition which has