Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/114

112 happened that when a Semitic language came to prevail in Cilicia he was transformed into a supreme Baal. The same transformation had taken place centuries before in the Hittite cities of Syria. Beside the Syrian goddess Kes, who is represented as standing upon a lion, like the great goddess of Carchemish, the Egyptian monuments tell us of Sutekh, who stands in the same relation to his Hittite worshippers as the Semitic Baal stood to the populations of Canaan. Sutekh was the supreme Hittite god, but at the same time he was localised in every city or state in which the Hittites lived. Thus there was a Sutekh of Carchemish and a Sutekh of Kadesh, just as there was a Baal of Tyre and a Baal of Tarsos. The forms under which he was worshipped were manifold, but everywhere it was the same Sutekh, the same national god.

It would seem that the power of Sutekh began to wane after the age of Ramses, and that the goddess began to usurp the place once held by the god. It is possible that this was due to Babylonian and Assyrian influence. At any rate, whereas it is Sutekh who appears at the head of the Hittite states in the treaty with Ramses, in later days the chief cult of the 'Holy Cities' was paid to the Mother-goddess. His place was taken by the goddess at Carchemish as well as at Mabog, at Boghaz Keui as well as at Komana.

In the Kappadokian Komana the goddess went under the name of Ma. She was served by 6000 priests and priestesses, the whole city being dedicated to her service. The place of the king was occupied by the Abakles or high-priest. We have seen that the sculptures of Boghaz Keui give us reason to believe that the same was also the case in Pteria; we know that it was so in