Before attempting to answer any of these questions, let us pause to remind ourselves of several fundamental considerations. Recent discoveries have made it clear that in the fourteenth century B.C. the organising centre of the Hatti power—the capital, in short, of the Hittite peoples—was at Boghaz-Keui. So far as we can see, this was the greatest period of the Hittite empire, when their arms were not only contesting the possession of Syria with the Pharaohs, on the one hand, but had penetrated through Lydia to the Ægean on the other. We are prepared to believe that the great sanctuary of Iasily Kaya was also the product of this age, if only from the fact that it is the most imposing monument which has survived. The intimate correspondence, moreover, in the nature and treatment of the chief male figures with those which from their position beyond the Halys must belong to the period of empire, like the sculptures of Kara-Bel and Giaour-Kalesi, points also to this period. We are indeed already prepared in our minds for this suggestion by the clear correspondence of the seal impressed upon the treaty between Hattusil and Rameses the Great with the design of the sculpture in the inner sanctuary described above. Now the constitution of the Hittite power at this period was clearly a confederacy, an alliance of petty states, the traces of which may be found on both sides of the Taurus. The ‘kings’ of those states were the ‘allies’ or vassals of the great king who directed their military operations, and whose seat at this time was at Boghaz-Keui. The archives of the site itself confirm the point, which was already suggested by the Egyptian monuments, and especially from the intrinsic evidence of the treaty (which has now, in view of recent discoveries, become authenticated material for our use).