3. _Assyrian Records._--In an inscription of Tiglath Pileser I. (about
1100 B.C.), first deciphered in 1857, a people called _Khatti_ is
mentioned as powerful in Girgamish on Euphrates (i.e. Carchemish); and
in other records of the same monarch, subsequently read, much mention is
made of this and of other N. Syrian names. These Khatti appear again in
the inscriptions of Assur-nazir-pal (early 9th century B.C.), in whose
time Carchemish was very wealthy, and the Khatti power extended far over
N. Syria and even into Mesopotamia. Shalmaneser II. (d. 825 B.C.) raided
the Khatti and their allies year after year; and at last Sargon III., in
717 B.C., relates that he captured Carchemish and its king, Pisiris, and
put an end to its independence. We hear no more of it thenceforward.
These _Khatti_, there is no reasonable doubt, are identical with
_Kheta_. (For the chronology see further under BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.)
4. _Other Cuneiform Records._--The name of the race appears in certain
of the Tel-el-Amarna letters, tablets written in Babylonian script to
Amenophis (Amenhotep) IV. and found in 1892 on the site of his capital.
Some of his governors in Syrian districts (e.g. one Aziru of Phoenicia)
report movements of the Hittites, who were then pursuing an aggressive
policy (about 1400 B.C.). There are also other letters from rulers of
principalities in N. Syria (Mitanni) and E. Asia Minor (Arzawa), who
write in non-Semitic tongues and are supposed to have been Hittites.
Certain _Khate_ or _Khati_ are mentioned in the Vannic inscriptions
(deciphered partially by A. H. Sayce and others) as attacked by kings
of Bianas (Van), and apparently domiciled on the middle Euphrates N. of
Taurus in the 9th century B.C. This name again may safely be identified
with _Khatti-Kheta_.
The Khatti also appear on a "prophecy-tablet," referring ostensibly to
the time of Sargon of Agade (middle of 4th millennium B.C.); but the
document is probably of very much later date. Lastly, a fragmentary
chronicle of the 1st Babylonian Dynasty mentions an invasion of Akkad by
them about 1800 B.C.
From all these various sources we should gather that the Hittites were
among the more important racial elements in N. Syria and S.E. Asia Minor
for at least a thousand years. The limits at each end, however, are very
ill defined, the superior falling not later than 2000 B.C. and the
inferior not earlier than 600 B.C. This people was militant, aggressive
and unsettled in the earlier part of that time; commercial, wealthy and
enervated in the latter. A memorial of its trading long remained in Asia
in the shape of the weight-measure called in cuneiform records the
_maneh_ "of Carchemish." These Hittites had close relations with other
Asia Minor peoples, and at times headed a confederacy. During the later
part of their history they were in continual contact with Assyria, and,
as a Syrian power, and perhaps also as a Cappadocian one, they finally
succumbed to Assyrian pressure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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