Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/81

Rh on the Ægean coast was ascribed to them,—Myrina and Kyme, Smyrna and Ephesos, where the worship of the great Asiatic goddess was carried on with barbaric ceremonies into the later age of civilised Greece.

Now these Amazons are nothing more than the priestesses of the Asiatic goddess, whose cult spread from Carchemish along with the advance of the Hittite armies. She was served by a multitude of armed priestesses and eunuch priests; under her name of Ma, for instance, no less than six thousand of them waited on her at Komana in Kappadokia. Certain cities, in fact, like Komana and Ephesos, were dedicated to her service, and a large part of the population accordingly became the armed ministers of the mighty goddess. Generally these were women, as at Ephesos in early days, where they obeyed a high-priestess, who called herself 'the queen-bee.' When Ephesos passed into Greek hands, the goddess worshipped there was identified with the Greek Artemis, and a high-priest took the place of the high-priestess. But the priestess of Artemis still continued to be called 'a bee,' reminding us that Deborah or 'Bee' was the name of one of the greatest of the prophetesses of ancient Israel; and the goddess herself continued to be depicted under the same form as that which had belonged to her in Hittite days. On her head was the so-called mural crown, the Hittite origin of which has now been placed beyond doubt by the sculptures of Boghaz Keui, while her chariot was drawn by lions. It was from the Hittites, too, that Artemis received her sacred animal, the goat.

The 'spear-armed host' of the Amazons, which came from Kappadokia, which conquered Asia Minor, and was so closely connected with the worship of the Ephesian