In 1876 Sayce pointed out the resemblance between certain Hittite signs and characters in the lately deciphered Cypriote syllabary, and suggested that the comparison might lead to a beginning of decipherment; but the hope has proved vain. To this scholar, however, is owed the next great step ahead. In 1879 it first occurred to him to compare the rock-monuments at Boghaz Keui (see PTERIA) and Euyuk in N. Cappadocia, discovered by Texier and Hamilton in 1835 and subsequently explored by G. Perrot and E. Guillaume. These, he now saw, bore Hittite pictographs. Other rock-sculptures at Giaur Kalessi, in Galatia, and in the Karabel pass near Smyrna, he suspected of belonging to the same class[2]; and visiting the last-named locality in the autumn, he found Hittite pictographs accompanying one of the two figures.[3] He announced his discoveries in 1880, and proclaimed the fact that a great Hittite empire, extending from Kadesh to Smyrna, had risen from the dead. A month later he had the good fortune to recover copies of a silver boss, or hilt-top, offered to various museums about 1860, but rejected by them as a meaningless forgery and for a long time lost again to sight. Round the rim was a cuneiform legend, and in the field a Hittite figure with six Hittite symbols engraved twice over on either hand of it. Reading the cuneiform as _Tarqu-dimme sar mat Erme_ (i.e. "T. king of the country E."), Sayce distributed phonetic values, corresponding to the syllables of the two proper names, among four of the Hittite characters, reserving two as "ideograms" of "king" and "country," and launched into the field of decipherment. But he subsequently recognized that this was a false start, and began afresh from another basis. Since then a number of other monuments have been found, some on new sites, others on sites already known to be Hittite, the distribution of which can be seen by reference to the accompanying map. It will be observed that, so far as at present known, they cluster most closely in Commagene, Cappadocia and S. Phrygia. The following notes supplement the map:-- A. WEST ASIA MINOR.--"_Niobe_" (_Suratlu Tash_) and _Karabel_ (two); rock-cut figures with much defaced hieroglyphs in relief. Remains of buildings, not yet explored, lie near the "Niobe" figure. Nothing purely Hittite has been found at Sardis or in any W. Asian excavation; but small Hittite objects have been sold in Smyrna and Aidin.