Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/31

 The History of the Hittites. 15 § 3. — The History of the Hittites from Biblical ^ Egyptian^ and Assyrian Documents. The recitals of battles and the bulletins of victories which may be seen on the walls of Theban temples and the palaces at Nineveh, Avere the instances that led us to infer the place which the warlike race variously called Kheta, Khati, and Khatti, whose history we are about to summarise, had occupied for centuries in the Eastern world, so far at least as translations made by Egyptologists and Assyriologists of the various texts will enable us to reconstitute it. But long before these had been deciphered we read their name in the Old Testament, where they appear as Hitti, pi, Hittim ; Bene-Heth, son of Heth ; whilst in the Septuagint we find the variants Xer, IL^TTiVy XeTfirj, Xeratoii whence the French Hdtdens. The initial letter is the Hebrew n, ch, always pronounced with an aspirate guttural sound, and the double r is a strong terminal dental. These, it will be seen, are the same, whether we find them in Hebrew texts, Egyptian or Assyrian inscriptions. The vowels, it is well known, have but a relative importance in those languages, and were seldom noted in writing ; hence some degree of un- certainty must always exist as to their full value. The power of the Hittites was already on the wane when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan. They had ceased to occupy advanced outposts in the south, and had concentrated their forces towards northern Syria, where their cities were far beyond the farthest limits ever attained by the Israelites under David and Solomon to render a conflict between the two races possible. Hence it is, that in the Bible their name occurs as though from hearsay rather than personal knowledge. But, however meagre our information from this source may be, it coincides in a marvel- lous manner with Assyrian and Egyptian inscriptions. Aided by these, mere biblical allusions become rich in suggestive mean- ing, and enable us to read aright many a passage that had been obscure and a dead letter in reference to the Hittites, who at one time made their influence felt almost over the whole of Syria. Thus, in Genesis (x. 15, 16), they head the list of the sons of Canaan, coming immediately after Sidon. When Abraham came to Hebron as a wanderer, he found the Hittites among the settled and peaceful inhabitants of the country ; clearly evidenced by the