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SLABS WITH HITTITE SCULPTURE.By-Paths of Bible Knowledge.
XII.
THE HITTITES
THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN EMPIRE.
BY
A. H. SAYCE, LL.D.
DEPUTY PROFESSOR OF PHILOLOGY, OXFORD;
AUTHOR OF 'FRESH LIGHT FROM THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS,'
'ASSYRIA, ITS PRINCES, PRIESTS AND PEOPLE,' ETC., ETC.
Second Edition
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, and 164 Piccadilly.
1890.
Oxford
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE.
The discovery of the important place once occupiedby the Hittites has been termed 'the romance of ancienthistory.' Nothing can be more interesting than theresurrection of a forgotten people, more especially whenthat people is so intimately connected with Old Testamentstory, and with the fortunes of the Chosen Race.How the resurrection has been accomplished, by puttingtogether the fragmentary evidence of Egyptian andAssyrian inscriptions, of strange-looking monuments inAsia Minor, and of still undeciphered hieroglyphics,will be described in the following pages. It is marvellousto think that only ten years ago 'the romance' couldnot have been written, and that the part played by theHittite nations in the history of the world was stillunsuspected. Yet now we have become, as it were,familiar with the friends of Abraham and the race towhich Uriah belonged.
Already a large and increasing literature has beendevoted to them. The foundation stone, which waslaid by my paper 'On the Monuments of the Hittites'in 1880, has been crowned with a stately edifice inDr. Wright's Empire of the Hittites, of which thesecond edition appeared in 1886, and in the fourthvolume of the magnificent work of Prof. Perrot and[Pg 6]M. Chipiez, L'Histoire de l'Art dans l'Antiquité, publishedat Paris a year ago. Profusely illustrated, thelatter work sets before us a life-like picture of Hittitearchitecture and art.
It cannot be long before the inscriptions left to us bythe Hittites, in their peculiar form of hieroglyphicwriting, are also made to reveal their secrets. All thatis required are more materials upon which to work, andwe shall then know which, if any, of the attemptshitherto made to explain them has hit the truth.Major Conder's system of decipherment has not yetobtained the adhesion of other scholars; neither hasthe rival system of Mr. Ball, ingenious and learned asit is. But if we may judge from the successes of thelast few years, it cannot be long before we know asmuch about the Hittite language and writing as wenow know about Hittite art and civilisation. To quotethe words of Dr. Wright: 'We must labour to unloosethe dumb