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

DURING lorn CENTURY: HITTITES 789
familiar to all. In the worship of the Virgin in our own
day there seems still
to live the same force which in a hoary
antiquity was active in Syria, and which the "Hittites" in
Asia Minor may well have helped pass down. Moreover,
this cult also flourished, where we may at least venture to
look for it, viz., in Armenia. It is true that in pre-
Christian times an Iranian cult predominated here, not
without modifications however, which can be completely
explained on the hypothesis that it was grafted upon a
native Old-Armenian, i. e., " Hittite " foundation. What
in the Armenian religion is
not Persian is, unless of Syrian,
of " Hittite " origin.
How far back we can trace the historv of the " Hittite
"-
Armenians is still uncertain. We do not know whether a
king ot Great Khate, mentioned by Thothmes III. of Egypt
about 1500 b. c, belongs to the same race or not. About
1400 b. c, in Palestine, we find two men with names which
appear to be Indogermanic, and therefore may possibly be
Armenian, viz., Shuar-data
and Wash (Yash or Ash)-data,
where data can also represent dato or doto. The names
may accordingly mean "given by Shuar or Wash (Yash or
Ash) " respectively. We certainly find people of Indogermanic
blood, and therefore probably Armenians, in the armv
of King Khate-sere of Khate, who flourished about the year
1300 b. c. ; but whether this monarch himself and his countrymen
were " Hittite "-Armenians must remain an open
question. In such an event the name pronounced by the
Egyptians approximately Khatesere might represent a native
name Hatiseri-s = " Hati-loving," corresponding to
Armenian hayaser.
About 1200 b. c. the inscriptions begin. The very fact
of their existence proves that about iooo b. c. at least
Hamath-Hama and Karkemish were in possession of the
" Hittites." But of a " Hittite " empire in Syria we know
as little as do the Assyrian inscriptions of the first thou-
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