The tradition of the Hebrews derived the Hittites from Heth, the second son of Canaan. The centre of their land, which stretched from the coast to the Jordan, was formed by the bare and stony mountains round Hebron. Here, according to Hebrew story, giants once dwelt--the Anakim--whose father and chief was Arba; after this prince, Hebron was formerly called Kirjath-Arba. To this city also the Hebrews ascribe a great antiquity; it was built seven years earlier than Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt.[488] We do not know the date of the building of Zoan, but the name occurs as early as the inscriptions of Sesurtesen I., whose reign we must place about the year 2,350 B.C.[489] With the Hittites of Hebron the Hebrew Scriptures represent their own forefathers as living in peaceful and friendly intercourse in the century 2100-2000 _B.C._ We have already seen what a sustained resistance the disciplined forces of the princes of the Hittites were able to make against the attacks of Egypt for two centuries--from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of the thirteenth century B.C. War against the Cheta is a standing item in the inscriptions of the Ramessids. Northward of the Hittites lay the tribes which the tradition of the Hebrews derives from Hivi and Amori, the younger sons of Canaan, the Hivites and Amorites--the former in the beautiful mountain valleys round Gibeon and Sichem, northwards as far as Mount Hermon; the latter, a numerous and powerful tribe, outside the land of Canaan, north-east of Jordan, from the Jabbok in the south to Hermon in the north.[490] The Amorites, as we may venture to assume, were the Amari of Egyptian inscriptions. Furthest to the north, in the valley of the Orontes, were the Hamathites, whom the Hebrews also reckon among the sons of Canaan.