The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empireSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empire
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Hittites
The treaty was ratified by the visit of the Hittite prince Kheta-sira to
Egypt in his national costume, and the marriage of his daughter to
Ramses in the thirty-fourth year of the Pharaoh's reign (B. C. 1354).
She took the Egyptian name of Ur-maa Noferu-Ra, and her beauty was
celebrated by the scribes of the court. Syria was handed over to the
Hittites as their legitimate possession; Egypt never again attempted to
wrest it from them, and if the Hittite yoke was to be shaken off it must
be through the efforts of the Syrians themselves. For a while, however,
'the great king of the Hittites' preserved his power intact; his
supremacy was acknowledged from the Euphrates in the east to the Ægean
Sea in the west, from Kappadokia in the north to the tribes of Canaan in
the south. Even Naharina, once the antagonist of the Egyptian Pharaohs,
acknowledged his sovereignty, and Pethor, the home of Balaam, at the
junction of the Euphrates and the Sajur, became a Hittite town. The
cities of Philistia, indeed, still sent tribute to the Egyptian ruler,
but northwards the Hittite sway seems to have been omnipotent. The
Amorites of the mountains allied themselves with 'the children of Heth,'
and the Canaanites in the lowlands looked to them for protection. The
Israelites had not as yet thrust themselves between the two great powers
of the Oriental world: it was still possible for a Hittite sovereign to
visit Egypt, and for an Egyptian traveller to explore the cities of
Canaan.
After sixty-six years of vainglorious splendour the long reign of Ramses
II. came to an end (B. C. 1322). The Israelites had toiled for him in
building Pithom and Raamses, and on the accession of his son and
successor, Meneptah, they demanded permission to depart from Egypt. The
history of the Exodus is too well known to be recounted here; it marks
the close of the period of conquest and prosperity which Egypt had
enjoyed under the kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.
Early in his reign Meneptah had sent corn by sea to the Hittites at a
time when there was a famine in Syria, showing that the peaceful
relations established during the reign of his father were still in
force. Despatches dated in his third year also exist, which speak of
letters and messengers passing to and fro between Egypt and Phoenicia,
and make it clear that Gaza was still garrisoned by Egyptian troops. But
in the fifth year of his reign Egypt was invaded by a confederacy of
white-skinned tribes from Libya and the shores of Asia Minor, who
overran the Delta and threatened the very existence of the Egyptian
monarchy. Egypt, however, was saved by a battle in which the invading
host was almost annihilated, but not before it had itself been half
drained of its resources, and weakened correspondingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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