Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/125

Rh interpreter. The sculptured monuments the Hittites have left behind them, the seals they engraved, the cities they inhabited, the memorials of them preserved in the Old Testament, in the cuneiform tablets of Assyria, and in the papyri of Egypt, have all served to build up afresh the fabric of a mighty empire which once exercised so profound an influence on the destinies of the civilised world.

But the Hittite inscriptions have not been altogether useless. They have helped to connect together the scattered monuments of Hittite dominion, and to prove that the peculiar art they display was of Hittite origin. It was the Hittite hieroglyphs which accompany the figure of the warrior in the Pass of Karabel, and of the sitting goddess on Mount Sipylos, that proved these sculptures to be of Hittite origin. It has similarly been inscriptions containing Hittite characters which have enabled us to trace the march of the Hittite armies along the high-roads of Asia Minor, and to feel sure that Hittite princes once reigned in the city of Hamath.

The Hittite texts are distinguished by two characteristics. With hardly an exception, the hieroglyphs that compose them are carved in relief instead of being incised, and the lines read alternately from right to left and from left to right. The direction in which the characters look determines the direction in which they should be read. This alternate or boustrophedon mode of writing also characterises early Greek inscriptions, and since it was not adopted by either Phœnicians, Egyptians, or Assyrians, the question arises whether the Greeks did not learn to write in such a fashion from neighbours who made use of the Hittite script.

Another characteristic of Hittite writing is the frequent employment of the heads of animals and men.