Among the great political forces of the ancient Oriental world we now know that none exercised a more profound influence than the Hittites of Asia Minor. It was they who overthrew the Amorite dynasty of Babylonia to which the Amraphel of Genesis belonged; to them was due the fall of the Egyptian empire in Asia, and it was they who checked for centuries the desolating advance of the Assyrians. In Palestine their influence was supreme, and it is with good reason that in the tenth chapter of Genesis Heth is named second among the sons of Canaan. They were the founders of the Heraklid dynasty in Lydia, and Babylonian art as modified in Asia Minor was carried by them to the Greek seas. Greek religion and mythology owed much to them; even the Amazons of Greek legend prove to have been the warrior-priestesses of the great Hittite goddess. Above all, it was the Hittites who controlled the mines of Asia Minor which supplied the ancient world with silver, copper, lead, and perhaps also tin. Before the age of Abraham traders carried the bronze of Asia Minor to Assyria and Palestine, and thus transformed the whole culture of western Asia. The story of the forgotten people is a fascinating one, and the reader cannot do better than study it under the guidance of Professor Garstang, whose work will be the standard authority on the subject for a long while to come. A. H. SAYCE. NUBIA, _December 1, 1909_. AUTHOR’S PREFACE Since Professor Sayce and Dr. Wright first called attention, more than thirty years ago, to the forgotten empire and civilisation of the Hittites, no book has appeared to keep the English reader abreast of the further information which has since come to light upon that subject. In the meantime researches made by British and German explorers in northern Syria and Asia Minor, and the studies of numerous scholars who have applied themselves to this problem, have advanced the position so far that the Hittites are nebulous no longer, but stand revealed in the clear light of history, claiming the attention of all those interested in the story of the Bible Lands, of Asia Minor, and of early Greece. The position and character of Asia Minor lend a wide interest and charm to its past no less than its present.