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 dresses of cloth and linen with which the Hittites clothed
themselves were dyed with various colours, and were ornamented with
fringes and rich designs. That of the priest at Ibreez is especially
worthy of study. Among the patterns with which it is adorned are the
same square ornament as is met with on the tomb of the Phrygian king
Midas, and the curious symbol usually known as the 'swastika,' which has
become so famous since the excavations of General di Cesnola in Cyprus,
and of Dr. Schliemann at Troy. The symbol recurs times without number on
the pre-historic pottery of Cyprus and the Trojan plain; but no trace of
it has ever yet been found in Egypt, in Assyria, or in Babylonia. Alone
among the remains of the civilised nations of the ancient East the
rock-sculpture of Ibreez displays it on the robe of a Lykaonian priest.
Was it an invention of the Hittite people, communicated by them to the
rude tribes of Asia Minor, along with the other elements of a cultured
life, or was it of barbarous origin, adopted by the Hittites from the
earlier population of the West?
Before we can answer this question we must know far more than we do at
present about that long-forgotten but wonderful race, whose restoration
to history has been one of the most curious discoveries of the present
age. When the sites of the old Hittite cities have been thoroughly
explored, when the monuments they left behind them have been
disinterred, and their inscriptions have been deciphered and read, we
shall doubtless learn the answers to this and many other questions that
are now pressing for solution. Meanwhile we must be content with what
has already been gained. Light has been cast upon a dark page in the
history of Western Asia, and therewith upon the sacred record of the
Old Testament, and a people has advanced into the forefront of modern
knowledge who exercised a deep influence upon the fortunes of Israel,
though hitherto they had been to us little more than a name. At the very
moment when every word of Scripture is being minutely scrutinised, now
by friends, now by foes, we have learnt that the statement once supposed
to impugn the authority of the sacred narrative is the best witness to
its truth. The friends of Abraham, the allies of David, the mother of
Solomon, all belonged to a race which left an indelible mark on the
history of the world, though it has been reserved in God's wisdom for
our own generation to discover and trace it out.
INDEX.
Adah, Esau's Hittite wife, 13.
Aleppo, Hittite inscription at, 62.
Amanus, cedar forests of, 47.
Amazons, the, legend of, 78.
Amenophis III., wars of, 21;
marriage of, 21.
Amenophis IV., a heretic king, founds a new capital, 22;
discovery of tablets of, 22.
Amorite captives taken by Shishak, 16.
Amorites interlocked with Hittites, 14;
possessions of, 14;
physical description of, 15;
descendants of, 16;
history of, 17.
Anakim, height of, 16.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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