Second Edition THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 56 Paternoster Row, 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, and 164 Piccadilly. 1890. Oxford HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY...

The discovery of the important place once occupied by the Hittites has been termed 'the romance of ancient history.' Nothing can be more interesting than the resurrection of a forgotten people, more especially when that people is so intimately connected with Old Testament story, and with the fortunes of the Chosen Race. How the resurrection has been accomplished, by putting together the fragmentary evidence of Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions, of strange-looking monuments in Asia Minor, and of

We are told in the Second Book of Kings (vii. 6) that when the Syrians were encamped about Samaria and the Lord had sent a panic upon them, 'they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.' Nearly forty years ago a distinguished scholar selected this passage for his criticism. Its 'unhistorical tone,' he declared, 'is too manifest to allow of our easy belief in it.' 'No Hittite kings can have compa

In the preceding chapter we have seen what the Bible has to tell us about 'the children of Heth.' They were an important people in the north of Syria who were ruled by 'kings' in the days of Solomon, and whose power was formidable to their Syrian neighbours. But there was also a branch of them established in the extreme south of Palestine, where they inhabited the mountains along with the Amorites, and had taken a share in the foundation of Jerusalem. It was from one of the latter, Ephron the so

It was a warm and sunny September morning when I left the little town of Nymphi near Smyrna with a strong escort of Turkish soldiers, and made my way to the Pass of Karabel. The Pass of Karabel is a narrow defile, shut in on either side by lofty cliffs, through which ran the ancient road from Ephesos in the south to Sardes and Smyrna in the north. The Greek historian Herodotos tells us that the Egyptian conqueror Sesostris had left memorials of himself in this place. 'Two images cut by him in th

We have seen that the Egyptian monuments bear witness to an extension of Hittite power into the distant regions of Asia Minor. When the kings of Kadesh contended with the great Pharaoh of the Oppression they were able to summon to their aid allies from the Troad, as well as from Lydia and the shores of the Cilician sea. A century later Egypt was again invaded by a confederacy, consisting partly of the Hittite rulers of Carchemish and Aleppo, partly of Libyans and Teukrians, and other populations

Of the history of the 'White Syrians' or Hittites who lived in the land of Pteria, near the Halys, we know nothing at present beyond what we can gather from the ruins of their stronghold at Boghaz Keui and their palace at Eyuk. The same is the case with the Hittite tribes of Malatiyeh and Komagênê. When the inscription which adorns the body of a stone lion found at Merash can be deciphered, it will doubtless cast light on the early history of the city; at present we do not know even its ancient

Lucian, or some other Greek writer who has usurped his name, has left us a minute account of the great temple of Mabog as it existed in the second century of the Christian era. Mabog, as we have seen, was the successor of Carchemish; and there is little reason to doubt that the pagan temple of Mabog, with all the rites and ceremonies that were carried on in it, differed but little from the pagan temple of the older Carchemish. It stood, we are told, in the very centre of the 'Holy City.' It cons

How can the history of a lost people be recovered, it may be asked, except through the help of the records they have left behind them? How can we come to know anything about the Hittites until their few and fragmentary inscriptions are deciphered? The answer to this question will have been furnished by the preceding pages. Though the Hittite inscriptions are still undeciphered, though the number of them is still very small, there are other materials for reconstructing the history of the race, an

The Hittites shone as much in the arts of peace as in the arts of war. The very fact that they invented a system of writing speaks highly for their intellectual capacities. It has been granted to but few among the races of mankind to devise means of communicating their thoughts otherwise than by words; most of the nations of the world have been content to borrow from others not only the written characters they use but even the conception of writing itself. We know from the ruins of Boghaz Keui a

PUBLISHED BY "The volumes which the Committee of the Religious Tract Society is issuing under the above title fully deserve success. Most of them have been entrusted to scholars who have a special acquaintance with the subjects about which they severally treat."— The Athenæum. 1. CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. A History of the London Obelisk, with an Exposition of the Hieroglyphics. By the Rev. J. King , Lecturer for the Palestine Exploration Fund. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo., 2 s. 6 d. cloth boards. "M