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
Westward of the Halys and Kappadokia they are marked by certain
peculiarities. They are found either in the vicinity of silver mines,
like those of Lykaonia, or else on the line of the ancient roads, which
finally converged in Lydia. None have been discovered in the central
plateau of Asia Minor, in the mountains of Lykia in the south, or the
wide-reaching coast-lands of the north. They mark the sites of small
colonies, or else the lines of road that connected them. Moreover, with
the exception of the image of the goddess who sits on her throne in
Mount Sipylos, the western monuments represent the figures of warriors
who are in the act of marching forward. This is the case at Karabel; it
is also the case at Ghiaur-kalessi, where the rock on which the two
Hittite warriors are carved lies close below the remains of a
pre-historic fortress.
Such facts admit of only one explanation. The Hittite monuments of
Western Asia Minor must be memorials of military conquest and supremacy.
In the warriors whose figures stood on either side of the Pass of
Karabel, the sculptor must have seen the visible symbols of Hittite
power. They showed that the Hittite had won and kept the pass by force
of arms. They are emblems of conquest, not creations of native art.
But it was inevitable that conquest should bring with it a civilising
influence. The Hittites could not carry with them the art and culture
they had acquired in the East without influencing the barbarous
populations over whom they claimed to rule. The vassal chieftains of
Lydia and the Troad could not lead their forces into Syria, or assist in
the invasion of Egypt, without learning something of that ancient
civilisation with which they had come in contact. The Hittites, in fact,
must be regarded as the first teachers of the rude populations of the
West. They brought to them a culture the first elements of which had
been inspired by Babylonia; they brought also a system of writing out of
which, in all probability, the natives of Asia Minor afterwards
developed a writing of their own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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