Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/140

138 Carchemish had, it is true, been originally derived from Babylonia, like most of the elements of Hittite culture, but it had made itself so thoroughly at home in the Hittite capital as to be called after its name. Nothing can show more clearly than this the leading position held by the Hittites in general, and the city of Carchemish in particular, in regard to commerce and industry.

Carchemish was, in fact, the centre of the overland trade in Western Asia. It commanded the high-road which brought the products of Phoenicia and the West to the civilised populations of Assyria and Babylon. It was this which made its possession so greatly coveted by the Assyrian kings. Its capture assured to Sargon the command of the Mediterranean coast, and the transference to Assyrian hands of the commerce and wealth which had flowed in to the merchant-princes of the Hittite city.

The sumptuous furniture in which they indulged is mentioned by Assur-natsir-pal. Like the luxurious monarchs of Israel, they reclined on couches inlaid with ivory, of which it is possible that they were the inventors. At all events, elephants were still hunted by Tiglath-pileser I., in the neighbourhood of Carchemish, as they had been by Thothmes III. four centuries earlier, and elephants' tusks were among the tribute paid by the Hittites to the Assyrian kings. It may be that the extinction of the elephant in this part of Asia was due to Hittite huntsmen.

The ivory couches of Carchemish, however, were not employed at meals, as they would have been in Assyria or among the Greeks and Romans of a later day. Like the Egyptians, the Hittites sat when eating, and their chairs were provided with backs as well as with curiously-