The details of these two great invasions, which are fully given in the Egyptian monuments, together with a picture of the naval combat, in which the invading fleet was finally defeated by Ramses III., after having forced an entrance into the eastern branch of the Nile, are extremely interesting. They show an advanced state of civilization already prevailing among nations whose very names were unknown or legendary. More than 300 years before the siege of Troy it appears that Asia Minor and the Greek mainland and islands were already inhabited by nations sufficiently advanced in civilization to fit out fleets which commanded the seas, and to form political confederations, to undertake distant expeditions, and to wage war on equal terms with the predominant powers of Asia and of Egypt. But though ancient as regards classical history, these beginnings of Greek civilization are comparatively modern, and cannot be carried back further than about 1500 B.C., while there is no evidence to carry the preceding period of Phoenician supremacy and commerce in the eastern Mediterranean, with the existence of the great trading cities of its earliest period, Byblos and Sidon, beyond 2000, or, at the very outside, 2500 B.C. HITTITES. The history of another great Empire has been partially brought to light, which was destroyed in 717 B.C. by the progress of Assyrian conquest, after having lasted more than 1000 years, and long exercised a predominant influence over Western Asia, viz. that of the Hittites. The first mention of them in the Old Testament appears in the time of Abraham, when we find them in Southern Syria, mixed with tribes of the Canaanites and Amorites, and grouped principally about Hebron. They are represented as on friendly terms with Abraham, selling him a piece of land for a sepulchre, and intermarrying with his family--Rebecca's soul being vexed by the contumacious behaviour of her daughters-in-law, "the daughters of Heth." This, however, was only an outlying branch of the nation, whose capital cities, when they appear clearly in history, were further north at Kadesh on the Orontes, and Carchemish on the Upper Euphrates, commanding the fords on that river on the great commercial route between Babylonia and the Mediterranean. They were a Turanian race, whose original seat was in Cappadocia, and the high plateaux and mountainous region extending from the Taurus range to the Black Sea. They are easily recognized on the Egyptian monuments by their yellow colour, peculiar features which are of Ugro-Turkish type, and their dress, which is that of highlanders inhabiting a snowy district, with close-fitting tunics, mittens, and boots resembling snowshoes with turned-up toes. They have also the Mongolian characters of beardless faces, and coarse black hair, which is sometimes trained into a pigtail. [Illustration: KING OF THE HITTITES. (From photograph by Flinders Petrie, from Egyptian Temple at Luxor.)]