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

786 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
handle or pole stands for the full human figure below the
head. This mav mean one of two things, either a human
being in general
or a member of the people of the inscriptions
; but it does not stand for either man or woman, the
hieroglyphs for which are different. If, however, the kings
mentioned above feel it incumbent upon them to call themselves
in their inscriptions X son of an X, the first alternative
may be dismissed, X accordingly meaning one belonging
to the people in
as its
last consonant.
question, whose national name has a dental
It is a fact that a very large number of the inscriptions
come from the country of Khate ; and it is also true that
just as we know of no people with a like appellation, we
know in those parts of no other country the name of which
could occur in all the inscriptions mentioned above, and at the
same time have a dental as its final consonant. Hence it is
enticing to see in the name of our people, ending as it does
in a dental and i or e and a or o, a form derived from Khate
with the old Armenian ending io 3
thus justifying the name
Hittite to some extent. The inscriptions themselves, however,
provide no convincing proof for this reading. But
here the relationship of the speech of the inscriptions with
Armenian seems to intervene in our behalf. We saw that
in the phonetic writing of X, the shoe, which is the symbol
for / or a 1 , can be left out at pleasure. Hence it serves here
as a mere phonetic complement ; that is to say, it signifies
part of the reading of the sign which precedes, indicating
that the hand with the knife has a phonetic value in which
a dental is the last consonant. The hand with the knife
represents the idea of cutting. In the event of the character
having been invented by predecessors of the Armenians,
its phonetic value will therefore connect itself with an
Old-Armenian word for " to cut." " To cut " in Armenian
being hatand (with the stem hat), the hand with the
knife should apparentlv be read as h{a)t or h(a)d. The