2. _Egyptian Records._--The decipherment of the inscriptions of the XVIIIth Theban Dynasty led, before the middle of the 19th century, to the discovery of the important part played in the Syrian campaigns of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III. by the H-t8 (vulgarly transliterated _Kheta_, though the vocalization is uncertain). The coincidence of this name, beginning with an aspirate, led H. K. Brugsch to identify the Kheta with Heth. That identification stands, and no earlier Egyptian mention of the race has been found. Tethmosis III. found the Kheta ("Great" and "Little") in N. Syria, not apparently at Kadesh, but at Carchemish, though they had not been in possession of the latter place long (not in the epoch of Tethmosis I.'s Syrian campaign). They were a power strong enough to give the Pharaoh cause to vaunt his success (see also EGYPT: _Ancient History_, S "The New Empire"). Though he says he levied tribute upon them, his successors in the dynasty nearly all record fresh wars with the Kheta who appear as the northernmost of Pharaoh's enemies, and Amenophis or Amenhotep III. saw fit to take to wife Gilukhipa, a Syrian princess, who may or may not have been a Hittite. This queen is by some supposed to have introduced into Egypt certain exotic ideas which blossomed in the reign of Amenophis IV. The first Pharaoh of the succeeding dynasty, Rameses I., came to terms with a Kheta king called Saplel or Saparura; but Seti I. again attacked the Kheta (1366 B.C.), who had apparently pushed southwards. Forced back by Seti, the Kheta returned and were found holding Kadesh by Rameses II., who, in his fifth year, there fought against them and a large body of allies, drawn probably in part from beyond Taurus, the battle which occasioned the monumental poem of Pentaur. After long struggles, a treaty was concluded in Rameses's twenty-first year, between Pharaoh and "Khetasar" (i.e. Kheta-king), of which we possess an Egyptian copy. The discovery of a cuneiform tablet containing a copy of this same treaty, in the Babylonian language, was reported from Boghaz Keui in Cappadocia by H. Winckler in 1907. It argues the Kheta a people of considerable civilization. The Kheta king subsequently visited Pharaoh and gave him his daughter to wife. Rameses' successor, Mineptah, remained on terms with the Kheta folk; but in the reign of Rameses III. (Dyn. XX.) the latter seem to have joined in the great raid of northern tribes on Egypt which was checked by the battle of Pelusium. From this point (c. 1150 B.C.)--the point at which (roughly) the monarchic history of Israel in Palestine opens--Egyptian records cease to mention Kheta; and as we know from other sources that the latter continued powerful in Carchemish for some centuries to come, we must presume that the rise of the Israelite state interposed an effective political barrier.