Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/273

 General Characteristics of Hittite Civilization. 255 the numerous tribes in possession of the Armenian plateau, and which for convenience sake are sometimes called Proto- Armenian. Narrowness of space, or some other cause, induced them to forsake their lofty mountains, following the banks of the Euphrates and the Halys, when they spread throughout Syria and Asia Minor.^ Hence they were related to the Muskai and Tublai of the Assyrian monuments, the Meshek and Tubal of the Bible, the Moschai and Tibareni of the classical writers.'^ The instances adduced In favour of this hypothesis rest on insecure foundations. Too much, we think, has been made to depend on the tip-curled shoes, designated by Professor Sayce as " snow boots," which, he argues, could only have originated in a hilly country, where for many months snow lies on the ground ; but could never have been Invented in a flat region, since their usage amidst tall grass and bushes would have been extremely Incon- venient.^ The habit once formed was retained ; perhaps because the peculiar shoe was regarded as part of the national costume, that which distinguished them from their neighbours ; one, too, which had descended to them from their rude mountaineer ancestors. I have not handled the "curled boot ;" but I have seen it throughout the Levant. Is the fact to be explained by per- sistency of habits contracted in some northern country at a remote age ? May not fashion account for Its adoption by those primitive tribes, as in other parts of the world ? Decipherment of Hittite inscriptions would doubtless and may some day lead to more conclusive results. For the present, how- ever, our knowledge is confined to the proper names to be found in the Bible, and In Assyrian and Egyptian Inscriptions ; respecting ^ Sayce, The Monuments^ p. 253. The language of the Vannic inscriptions seems to belong to the Alarodian family of speech, of which modern Georgian is the best- known example. "^ The form Ttfiapoi is found in Hecateus of Miletus, who wrote about the fifth century before Christ The Assyrian inscriptions show that the Tublai were in close alliance with the Cilicians and Muschai on the north, about the twelfth century before Christ. Between this period and the time when the Greeks began to busy themselves with the affairs of their Asiatic neighbours, these tribes seem to have been obliged to fall back towards the Euxine, perhaps before the invading Hittites. They were on the march of the Ten I'housand, and Xenophon alludes to them as veritable Barbarians. Remains of these primitive clans were to be found in the fastnesses of Cilicia as late as Cicero i^AdfamiliareSy XV., iv. 10), ' Sayce, he. cit.^ p. 252.