shores of the Ægean; as far north as Pontus (where also Ma was worshipped according to Strabo), and as far south as Hamath and perhaps Damascus. In the ruins of Lachish, west of Hebron, a Hittite seal has been found in connexion with others of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, reminding us that, in the days of Amraphel and Abraham (or about 2100 B.C. at latest) there was a Hittite settlement among the Amorites of Hebron (Gen. xxiii. 3).

Something has already been said of the symbolism of these very ancient monuments, which is practically the same found in Babylonia. Besides the eagle, the sphinx, and the lion-headed god, with the deities standing on lions, we find the winged Sun commonly shown on these bas-reliefs. At Ibreez in Lycaonia we have a gigantic deity, holding corn and grapes in his hands, and wearing a cap with horns-as on the ex votos above mentioned-which recalls the representation of Bel in Assyria. The Hittites were also fond of introducing winged figures; and the naked Istar holding her breasts (a common Babylonian figure) is represented at Carchemish with wings. Representations of Ma, the Earth 'Mother,' occur at Meràsh, where she holds the infant Sungod on her knees, at Eyuk, and far away west at Mount Sipylos. In all cases the gods seem to be represented as much larger than their human worshippers.

The physical type represented is similar to that of the Akkadians, as found at Tell Loh, and it recalls the Etruscan. Dr. Isaac Taylor points out the Mongol character of Etruscan faces and figures. Dr. Birch said the same twenty years ago of the Hittites. The prominent nose, receding forehead and chin, beardless face, and slanting eyes recall the pure Tartar type of to-day. The Hittites, Kati, &c., wear pigtails-also a Tartar fashion-and beards are allowed only to ancient gods and kings; for, as Dr. Beddoe remarks, the Tartar beard remains scanty until late in life.

The high conical cap, which was also worn by Etruscans, was a distinctive Turkish dress down to the present century in Asia Minor. The curled-up toe of the boot is less distinctive, since even the Jews are represented wearing it on the 'Black Obelisk.' The very archaic character, both of these sculptures and of the accompanying hieroglyphic emblems, cannot be reconciled with any theory of late date for such monuments. It is the character of the oldest Akkadian sculptures, and of the oldest linear' emblems, which they used about 3000 B.C., or earlier.

At Samalla, the great Phoenician city above the pass

VOL. CXCI. NO. CCCXCII.

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which leads down to Issus in North Syria, Humann excavated remains of the same class, but found also Phoenician inscriptions of the eighth century B.C., and one in Assyrian as late as 670 B.C. M. Halévy jumped to the conclusion that the Hittites were thus proved to be Semitic. But the texts are separate, and the writer speaks of rebuilding his palace. An inspection of Humann's photographs shows that the sculptures are older and have been re-used. Only one Hittite symbol occurs, accompanying a lion-headed god-probably Set. The conclusion that all Hittite texts were therefore later than 800 B.C. was entirely unwarranted by the facts; and in 717 B.C. the Hittites were carried away captive to the east by Sargon. The finest and most clearly pictorial texts are those of Hamath and Carchemish; those of Cappadocia, Armenia, and Ionia are more hastily and irregularly carved, and approach the later Cypriote forms, the hieratic' developement of the script. The term Kali (people of the left hand' or North') suggests an extension from the south; and Cappadocia lies north of Syria. It was probably not reached until after Syria had been colonised, when the Hittites crossed the Euphrates at Carchemish.

Dr. Sayce has lately suggested that this conquest of Syria did not occur until the time of Amenophis IV.; and he dates the texts as not older than 1400 B.C. He ignores the Bible. statement that Hittites dwelt in Hebron seven centuries earlier, and believes that Hamath was not founded till after the fifteenth century B.C. But he seems to forget that the Hittites are noticed in Syria as early as the reign of Thothmes I. (probably about 1650 B.C.), and that they were tributary to Thothmes III. The geographic lists of the latter (about 1600 B.C.) mention Hamath, with Kadesh, the great Hittite capital (now Kedes) east of Tripoli. Thothmes IV. also attacked the Hittites of Merash, in the extreme north of Syria. In the reign of Amenophis III., according to the Amarna letters, Artasumara of Matiene was leagued with Hittites, Kassites, and Amorites, who attacked Gebal in Syria, and advanced as far south as Sidon. All these notices precede the reign of Amenophis IV., when Edugamma of Kadesh-probably a Hittite-aided the Amorites in their attack on Tyre and on Damascus. † The

*

Berlin Collection, Nos. 9, 10, 42; British Museum Collection, No. 61.

+ Berlin Collection, Nos. 37, 142; British Museum Collection, Nos. 30, 46, 64, 76.

people of Matiene, however, were then under Dusratta, father-in-law of Amenophis IV., and the Kassites were under Burnaburias, who was also related to him by marriage. They therefore discouraged this revolt, and even appear to have attacked the Canaanites in rear.

Of the later history it is unnecessary to speak at length, because it does not affect the question of the antiquity of the monuments under consideration. The Hittites, by about 1500 B.C., and the Kati, probably before 1200 B.C., had ceased to use their own characters, and had adopted the cuneiform, which was the common script of all Western Asia, and even understood in Egypt. The famous treaty of Rameses II. with Khetasar of Kadesh, whose daughter he married; the friendly relations between Mineptah and the Hittites in the next reign; their conquest by Tiglath Pileser I.; and their final destruction by Sargon in 717 B.C., are well known and have often been described. It is more important to consider the new facts, brought to light at Nippur and Tell Loh and Nineveh, respecting the spread of the Mongols to the west, before the reign of the great Ammurabi-the Amraphel of the Bible--and the question of recent proposals for decipherment, which have been commended by some writers who have not the necessary special knowledge to enable them to judge, and whose opinions appear now to have been finally disproved by the discoveries of M. Chantre.

Those who boldly state that we now know of kings called by the portentous names Lugal-Zag-gisi and Lugal Ki-gub-nidu-du, and that they lived in Chaldea about 7000 B.C., can hardly have studied the evidence on which such assertions rest. These texts, deciphered by Professor Hilprecht, are probably the oldest yet found in Babylonia; but the proposed date is entirely unsupported by evidere, and they may have been written forty centuries later. The first name may probably be read King Sargon,' and the second is very likely not a proper name at all. The Babylonians believed Sargon to have been the first ruler who built up a Chaldean empire such as these texts describe, and they probably knew more about it than we now can learn.

But, in spite of much loose work of this kind, there is no doubt that some centuries before the foundation of Babylon the Akkadians had reached Syria. Texts from Tell Loh, in the time of Dungi (whom the later Babylonians place about 2800 B.C.), show communication with the west as far as Mount Amanus, which overlooks the Gulf of Issus; and

Kazalla, which lay near Cappadocia, was then well known in Chaldea, as was also the Sinaitic peninsula. It is possible that the Akkadian race had then spread over the whole of Palestine.

Babylon was founded in the twenty-third century B.C., and its first kings appear to have been of Kassite race, judging from the facts, that they worshipped Suvu or Sumu, who was a Kassite god, and that at a later period King Agukakrimi (as his name is supposed to read), who was a Kassite, claims descent from the kings of this first dynasty. Their chronicle, written in Akkadian, has recently been published by the British Museum, and we have texts of Ammisatana and Ammizaduga of the same dynasty, also written in Akkadian. From the chronicle we learn that Sumuabi, the first king of Babylon, entered Syria; and he appears to have conquered Aleppo, according to Dr. Sayce. His successors all held on to this extension of the empire between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. A text from Nippur, which seems to record the reign of the famous Ammurabiwhose conquests in the West are well known from other sources -speaks of the marriage of his daughter to the Prince of Merash, who was very probably a Hittite. Another text of Ammizaduga (about 2000 B.c.), also found at Nippur, seems to speak of his conquests as extending to Damascus; and it appears clear that, before the victories of Thothmes III., all Syria-and perhaps Palestine as well-was dominated by the Kassite kings of Babylon, who wrote in the Akkadian language, though they had also a large Semitic population under them, so that many of Ammurabi's letters and records are in Semitic speech as well.

The history so recovered agrees, therefore, entirely with the conclusions of M. Chantre. We have to deal, in treating these ancient populations, not with the Aryans but with the Mongols, whose first centre was at Ur in Chaldea, and their later capital at Babylon. They dominated the Semitic race, which, as far as any extant evidence exists, did not attain to political importance before about 2200 B.C. It is clear that the Hittites, Kati, and other tribes may be supposed, without violating historical probabilities, to have established themselves in Syria and Cappadocia some twenty or thirty centuries B.C.; and the Akkadian language is therefore the tongue most likely to be found in their inscriptions.

Dr. Isaac Taylor was apparently the first to suggest a clue to the decipherment of this distinct system, which is peculiar to the north and west. He proposed comparison

with the syllabary which the Greeks used, in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., in Cyprus, Egypt, and at Xanthus. The emblems are very clearly the later hieratic' forms of the Hittite hieroglyphics, and thus in any Hittite text the sounds of some two-thirds of the emblems are established. It is, of course, no more probable that the Greeks invented this system--which only most imperfectly designates the sounds of the Greek tongue-than that the Persians invented the cuneiform, which they adopted from the older Mongol civilisation of Susiana. Dr. Sayce was at first inclined to accept this principle, but afterwards abandoned it in favour of very doubtful speculations. It has been developed by Colonel Conder, and it has been accepted by M. Chantre as the foundation of decipherment. It is very clear that this new system did not include more than some 160 signs, which constantly recur on all the newly discovered texts. This evidently represents a syllabary-not an alphabet such as the Phoenicians used, nor a picture or ideographic' writing like that of the Chinese. The old Akkadian syllabic texts, found at Tell Loh, Nippur, and elsewhere, are written with about the same number of signs; and George Smith, some twenty years ago, suggested an ultimate connexion between this old linear' hieroglyphic character, which developed later into cuneiform, and the Hittite system--a suggestion which is now supported by many striking coincidences of both form and sound.

The theories of Dr. Jensen on this subject do not require serious notice. His views have been severely condemned by Sayce, Hommel, and Messerschmidt. Dr. Hommel not very courteously calls his supposed decipherment a 'mixed 'composition of tautologies' which are impossible;' and certainly the results, which are quite arbitrary, seem hardly worth the trouble of carving in hard basalt. But Dr. Hommel's suggestions are equally unscientific, and these speculations recall the early attempts to read the Egyptian as a picture writing,' before Champollion determined the sounds of the emblems and the affinity of the language to Coptic.

Dr. Jensen has, unfortunately, started on several false assumptions, which make it impossible that he should succeed, however learned he may be. First, that such texts can be read either by the pictorial values of the emblems or by bold but unsupported assumptions as to the signs. Secondly, that the key to the language is to be