Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19 CENTURY : HITTITES 7G9
cover gives not the slightest
Hittite empire in
ground for postulating a great
ancient times extending as far as the shores
of the iEgean Sea, as the " Hittitologists " have done. If,
therefore, we understand by the name " Hittite," as is commonly
done, both the Khate of the Egyptian kings and
the later non-Semitic inhabitants of Syria, we have no right
to call the authors of our inscriptions Hittites as long as a
relationship between the two has not been proved. But if
we are content to apply this name only to the non-Semitic
population in Assyrian times inhabiting Syria and the district
to the north, i. e.> Khate, whosoever these inhabitants
were and of whatever nationality, then we may apply it to
the authors of the inscriptions
found there, but only
to these, not to the authors
of those monuments found
over a great part of Asia Minor,
the conquest of which by
" Hittites " from Khate has
still to be proved. Out
chronological
investigations
have shown that the use of
the name "Hittites" for the
people of our inscriptions
is
Bilingual Inscription on the Silver Boss
of Tarkondemos
as yet most precarious,
though justifiable under certain suppositions, which, however,
are nothing more than suppositions.
Though it was comparatively easy to fix the chronology
of the inscriptions approximately, insurmountable difficulties
seemed to stand in the way of their decipherment.
Writing, language, and content were equally unknown. In
the year 1880, however, Sayce anew discovered the so-called
Tarkondemos bilingual inscription, and with this there
emerged the hope of at last extracting from the inscriptions
their hidden meaning. Sayce made the attempt at attain-