Hittites
HITTITES
Descendants of Heth, Gen 10:15, a Canaanite tribe dwelling near Hebron in the time of Abraham, Gen 15:20,21, and subdued in the Israelitish invasion, Exo 3:8 Jos 3:10 . They were not, however, exterminated: Uriah was a Hittite, 2Sa 11:3 ; Solomon used their services, 1Ki 10:29 2Ki 7:6 ; and they were not lost as a people until after the Jews’ return from captivity, Ezr 9:1 . See CANAANITES.
Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
Hittites
(A.V. HITTITES)
One of the many peoples of North-Western Asia, styled Hittim in the Hebrew Bible, Khuti or Kheta on the Egyptian monuments, and Hatti in the cuneiform documents. For many centuries the existence of the Hethites was known only from scanty allusions in the Bible. Egyptian and Assyrian documents revealed to the scholars of the latter part of the nineteenth century the power of the Hethite empire, and discoveries now pursued at the very home of this long-forgotten people almost daily supply important new information concerning it, whetting the interest of scholars, and fostering the hope that before long Hethite history will be as well known as that of Egypt and Assyria. In the latter part of the eighteenth century a German traveller had noticed two figures carved on a rock near Ibreez, in the territory of the ancient Lycaonia. Major Fischer rediscovered them in 1838, and made a drawing of the figures and a copy of the two short inscriptions in strange-looking characters which accompanied these figures. But what they were no one could tell at the time. In his travels along the Orontes (1812) Burckhardt had likewise noticed at Hamah, the site of the ancient city of Hamath, a block covered with what appeared to be an inscription, although the characters were unknown. He mentioned this discovery in his “Travels in Syria” (p. 146), without, however, attracting the attention of travellers and Orientalists. Almost sixty years later three other slabs of the same description were found in the same place by Johnson and Jessup; and in 1872 Dr. W. Wright had the stones removed to the Imperial Museum of Constantinople. The characters carved in relief on the stones were long designated as “Hamathite writing”, although as early as 1874 Dr. Wright had suggested that they were of Hethite origin. Comparing the inscriptions of Ibreez with those from Hamah, E. J. Davis noticed that the former were also in the “Hamathite writing”. Soon new texts were discovered at Aleppo, Jerabûls, Ninive, Ghiaur-ka-lessi, Boghaz-Keui, Mount Sipylus, the Pass of Karabel: all presented the same strange hieroglyphic characters, engraved in relief and in boustrophedon fashion. When figures accompanied the inscriptions, they likewise bore a striking resemblance to one another: all were clad in a tunic reaching to the knees, were shod with boots with turned-up ends, and wore a high peaked cap. It became certain that these monuments belonged to the Hethite population located by Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions in the east of Asia Minor. The true home of the Hethite monuments, indeed, extends from the Euphrates to the Halys River; monuments found beyond these limits either mark the site of eccentric colonies, or are memorials of military conquests. This geographical distribution, as well as some of the features noticeable in the figures carved on these monuments, makes it clear that the Hethites must have been originally inhabitants of a cold and mountainous region, and that the high plateaux of Cappadocia should be regarded as their primeval home. Both their own and the Egyptian monuments describe them as ugly in appearance with yellow skins, black hair, receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws. The type may still be found in Cappadocia.
As to their language, it may be said, despite the researches of Conder, Sayce, and others, to have so far challenged the patience and genius of Orientalists. The first Hethite texts known were all written in the so-called Hamathite characters; the royal archives discovered since 1905 at Boghaz-Keui, under the auspices of the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft”, contain many Hethite texts written in cuneiform characters. It is to be hoped that this will enable scholars to detect the secret of that old language which still lingered in Lycaonia at the time of St. Paul’s missionary journeys in these regions. Little likewise is known of the Hethite religion. The special difficulty here arises partly from the syncretic tendencies manifest in the religious development of the ancient peoples in the East, and partly from the scarcity of information bearing on distinctly Hethite worship. Lucian’s description of the great temple of Mabog and its worship may contain some features of the worship going on in the older city of Carchemish; but it seems to be a hopeless task to try to trace back these features over a gap of some ten centuries. Owing to the permanence of popular customs in remote country places, and particularly in mountainous regions, less accessible to foreign influence, there is perhaps more reliable information to gather on the primitive Hethite worship from Strabo’s description of Cappadocian religious solemnities in classical times (Strabo, XII, ii, 3, 6, 7). The Hethite pantheon is known, however, to a certain extent, from the proper names which quite frequently contain as a constitutive element the title of some deity. Among the divine names most usually employed may be mentioned here: Tarqû, Rho, Sandan, Kheba, Tishûbû, Ma, and Hattû. The compact entered upon by Ramses II and Hattusil suggests the idea that heaven, earth, rivers, mountains, lands, cities, had each its male or female Sutekh, a kind of genius loci, like the Aramæan Ba‘al or Ba‘alath. A treaty between the same Hattusil and the ruler of Mitanni mentioning first deities of Babylonian origin, then others of a more distinctly Hethite character, and lastly some Indo-Persian gods, witnesses to the syncretic character of the Hethite religion as early as the fourteenth century B. C. Thanks to the Egyptian and Assyrian documents we are in possession of more details concerning the history of the Hethites. At an early date some of their tribes forced their way through the defiles of the Taurus range into Northern Syria and established themselves in the valley of the Orontes: Hamath and Cades (A. V. Kadesh) were very early Hethite cities. Some bands, pursuing their march southwards, settled in the hilly region of Southern Palestine, where they intermingled with the Amorrhites, then in possession of the land. Ezechiel, stating that the mother of Jerusalem was a Hethite (an Hittite–A. V., xvi, 3, 45; D. V.: Cethite), very likely refers to an old tradition concerning the origin of the city. At all events, when Abraham came to Chanaan he found a Hethite colony clustered around Hebron (Genesis 23:3; 26:34, etc.). The bulk of the nation established itself in the Naharina (comp. Hebr.: Aram Naharaim), between the River Balikh and the Orontes, on the slopes of the Amanus range and in the Cilician plains. This position, between the two foremost empires of the ancient world, namely Chaldee and Egypt, made the territory occupied by the Hethites, on the road followed by the merchants of both nations, one of the richest commercial countries in the East.
But the population was perhaps still more inclined to war than to commerce, and local monuments, no less than Egyptian records, bear witness to the military conquests and the power of the Hethites in the distant regions of Western and Southern Asia Minor. There are some grounds for the belief that certain traditions lingering on in those regions centuries later (origin of the Lydian dynasty, legend of the Amazons) originated in the Hethite conquests, and that we may recognize the swarthy Cappadocian warriors in the Kéteioi mentioned in Odyss., XI, 516-521. Certain it is, at any rate, that the Troad, Lydia, and the shores of the Cilician Sea acknowledged the Hethite supremacy at the beginning of the eighteenth century B. C.
The Hethites first appear in historical documents at the time of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (about 1550 B. C.). Thothmes I, in the first year of his reign, carried his arms to N. Syria and set up his trophies on the banks of the Euphrates, perhaps near Carchemish. His grandson, Thothmes III, was a great warrior. Twice, he tells us, in 1470 and 1463 B. C., the king of the land of the Hethites, “the Greater”, paid him tribute. After a signal victory at Megiddo, and the taking of this city, which was the key to the Syrian valleys, Thothmes III repeatedly seized Cades and Carchemish and invaded the Naharina. At his death the Egyptian empire bordered on the land of the Hethites. The successes of the Egyptian armies did not dishearten their sturdy neighbours. Their restless enterprises forced Ramman-Nirari, King of Assyria, to invoke the aid of Thothmes IV against the Hethites of Mer’ash; and the help was apparently given, for an inscription tells us that the first campaign of the Egyptian prince was directed against the Khetas. These, however, with their allies the Minni, the Amurru, the Kasi, and the King of Zinzar, did not cease to press southwards, thereby causing serious alarm to the Egyptian governors. Held in check until the death of Amenhotep III by the King of Mitanni, Dushratti, who had made alliance with the King of Egypt, the Hethites resumed the offensive during the reign of Amenhotep IV. They were led by Etaqqama, son of Sutarna, Prince of Cades, who had formerly warred against them, had been made captive, and, although professing to be still acting on behalf of the pharaoh, had become their warm supporter. Before Etaqqama, Teuwaatti, Arzawyia, and Dasa, one by one the Syrian cities and the Egyptian strongholds fell, and Cades on the Orontes, conquered, became for centuries a strong centre of Hethite power. Subbiluliuma, during whose reign the Hethite empire won, by its military successes, a place of prominence in the Eastern world, is the first great Hethite sovereign named in inscriptions: Carchemish, Tunip, Nii, Hamath, Cades, are mentioned among the principal cities of his empire; the Mitanni, the Arzapi, and other principalities along the Euphrates acknowledged his suzerainty; and Troad, Cilicia, and Lydia owned his sway.
The successors of Amenhotep IV, hampered by the trouble and disorder prevailing at home, were no match for such a powerful neighbour; Ramses I, the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, after an attack, the success of which seems to have been doubtful, was compelled to conclude with Subbiluliuma a treaty which left the Hethites their entire freedom of action. His son and successor, Seti I, attempted to reconquer Syria. At first he was victorious. Marching his armies through Syria as far as the Orontes, he fell suddenly upon Cades which he wrested from the hands of Muttalu. The success of this campaign was, however, by no means decisive, and an honourable peace was concluded with the Hethite ruler, Mursil.
The epoch of Seti’s death was one of revolution in the Hethite Government. Muttallu, the son of Mursil, having been murdered, his brother Hattusil was called to the throne (about 1343 B. C.). He at once mustered all his forces against Egypt. The encounter took place near the city of Cades: in a hard-fought battle in which the Egyptian king, surprised from an ambush, hardly escaped, the northern confederacy was defeated and the Hethite ruler sued for peace. The treaty then concluded was, however, but a short truce, and only sixteen years later, the twenty-first year of Ramses, on the twenty-first day of the month Tybi, was peace finally signed between the Egyptian ruler and “the great king of the Hethites”. The treaty, the Egyptian text of which has long been known in full, and of which a Babylonian minute was found in 1906 at Boghaz-Keui, was a compact of offensive and defensive alliance between the two powers thus put on a par; this treaty, as well as the marriage of Hattusil’s daughter to Ramses in the thirty-fourth year of the latter’s reign, shows forcibly the position then attained by the Hethite empire. So powerful a prince indeed was Hattusil that he pretended to interfere in Babylonian politics. An alliance had been entered upon between him and Katachman-Turgu, King of Babylon. At the latter’s death Hattusil threatened to sever the alliance if the son of the deceased prince was not given the crown. The peaceful relations of the Hethite empire with its southern neighbour continued during the reign of Ramses’ son, Mineptah, the pharaoh of the Exodus; this prince, indeed, soon after his accession, sent corn to the Hethites at a time when Syria was devastated by famine. It is true that Egypt had to repel on its own shores an invasion of the Libyans and other peoples of Asia Minor; but although these peoples seem to have been vassals to the Hethites, nothing indicates that the latter had any interest in the enterprise. Such was not the case under Ramses III. A formidable confederacy of the nations of the coast and of the islands of the Ægean Sea swept N.-W. Asia, conquered the Hethites and other inland peoples and, swollen by the troops of the conquered kingdoms, fell upon the shores of Egypt. The invading army met with a complete disaster, and, among other details, Ramses III records that the King of the Hethites was captured in the battle. The Hethite empire was no longer a political unity, but had been split into independent states: perhaps some tribes in the far west and the south of Asia Minor had shaken off the Hethite allegiance; however, we learn from Theglathphalasar I (A. V. Tiglath-pileser) that, towards the end of the twelfth century, the “land of the Hatti” still extended from the Lebanon to the Euphrates and the Black Sea. As early as the close of the fourteenth century B. C., Hattusil had showed good political foresight in warning the Babylonian king against the progress of Assyria. It was indeed at the hands of the Assyrians that the Hethites were to meet their doom. The first dated mention of the latter in the Assyrian documents is found in the annals of Theglathphalasar I (about 1110 B. C.). In various expeditions against the land of Kummukh (Commagene), he penetrated farther and farther into the Hethite country; but he never succeeded in forcing his way across the fords of the Euphrates: the city of Carchemish, commanding them, compelled his respect.
The two hundred years which followed the death of Theglathphalasar I were for the Assyrian empire a period of decay. The relations of the Hethites with the Israelite kingdom, which, under David and Solomon, rose then to prominence, seem to have been few. David, we are told, had Hethites in his army and in his bodyguard (1 Samuel 26:6; 2 Samuel 11:6, etc.); these were possibly descendants of the Hethites settled in S. Palestine. Bethsabee, Solomon’s mother, perhaps belonged to their race. At any rate, it seems that Adarezer, King of Soba, was endeavouring to extend his possessions at the expense of the Hethites’ Syrian dominion (2 Samuel 8:3) when he was smitten by David. It is known also from II Kings, xxiv, 6, that the officers of David went as far as Cades on the Orontes (Hebrew text to be corrected) when they were sent to take the census of Israel. The text of III Kings, x, 28, sq., adds that in Solomon’s time Israelite merchants bought horses in Egypt and from the Syrian and Hethite princes. What Adarezer could not effect the rulers of Damascus succeeded in doing; they built up their power partly out of the empire of Solomon and partly out of the Hethite dominion, which betokens that the once unshaken supremacy of Carchemish was apparently on the wane. Of this the inscriptions of Assurnasirpal (885-860) leave no doubt. Renewing the campaigns of Theglathphalasar I against the Eastern Hethite tribes, he succeeded in crossing the Euphrates; Carchemish escaped assault at the hands of the Assyrian conqueror by buying him off at a tremendous price. Continuing his raid westwards, Assurnasirpal appeared before the capital of the Kattinians: like Carchemish, the city bribed him away and induced him to turn towards the Phœnician cities. A few centuries of profitable commercial operations had, it seems, altogether changed the warlike spirit of the once aggressive Hethite race. Year after year Shalmaneser II (860- 825)–D. V. Salmanasar–led his armies against the various Hethite states, with the purpose of possessing himself of the high road between Phœnicia and Ninive. The overthrow of the Khattinians finally aroused once more the warlike spirit of the Hethite princes; a league was formed under the leadership of Sangara of Carchemish; but the degenerate Hethites, unable to withstand the Assyrian onslaught, were compelled to purchase peace by the payment of a heavy tribute (855). This victory, breaking the power of the Hethites of Syria, and reducing them to the rank of tributaries, opened to the Assyrians the way to Phœnicia and Palestine. The very next year Shalmaneser came into contact with Damascus and Israel. Carchemish, however, was still in the hands of the Hethites. A period of decadence for the Assyrian empire followed Shalmaneser’s death; during this period the mutual relations of the two nations appear to have remained unaltered. But new enemies from the East were pressing close on the land of the Hethites. Vannic inscriptions record the raids of Menuas, King of Dushpas, against the cities of Surisilis and Tarkhigamas, in the territory of the Hethite prince Skadahalis. In another expedition Menuas defeated the King of Gupas and overran the Hethite country as far as Malatiyeh. Menuas’s son, Argistis I, again marched his armies in the same direction, conquering the country along the banks of the Euphrates from Palu to Malatiyeh. The accession of Theglath- phalasar III (745) put a stop to the conquests of the Vannic kings; but this meant no respite for the much weakened Hethites; their country indeed was soon again visited by the Assyrian troops, and, in 739, King Pisiris of Carchemish had to pay tribute to the Ninivite ruler. Profiting, it seems, by the political troubles which marked the close of the reign of Shalmaneser IV, Pisiris, with the help of some neighbouring chieftains, declared himself independent. It was, however, of no avail; in 717 Carchemish fell before Sargon, its king was made a prisoner, and its wealth and trade passed into the hands of the Assyrian colonists established there by the conqueror. The fall of the great Hethite capital resounded through the whole Eastern world and found an echo in the prophetical utterances of Isaias (x, 9); it marked indeed the final doom of a once powerful empire. Henceforth the Hethites, driven back to their original home in the fastnesses of the Taurus, ceased to be reckoned among the peoples worth retaining the attention of historians.
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SAYCE, The Hamathite Inscriptions in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, V, p. 27-29; IDEM, The Monuments of the Hittites, ibid., VII, pp. 251, 284; IDEM, The Hittites. The Story of a Forgotten Empire (3rd ed., London, 1903); WRIGHT, The Empire of the Hittites (London, 1884); CONDER, Heth and Moab (London, 1889); IDEM, Altaic Hieroglyphs and Hittite Inscriptions (London, 1887); IDEM, The Hittites and their language (London, 1898); MASPERO, Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient classique, II (Paris, 1897); DE LANTSHEERE, De la race et de la langue des Hittites in Compte rendu du congrés scientifique international des catholiques (1891); IDEM, Hittites et Omorites (Brussels, 1887); HALÉVY, La langue des Hittites d’après les textes assyriens in Recherches Bibliques, pp. 270-288; VIGOUROUX, Les Héthéens de la Bible, leur histoire et leurs monuments in Mélanges bibliques, (2nd ed., Paris, 1889); JENSEN, Hittiter und Armenien (Strasburg, 1898); WINCKLER, Die im Sommer 1906 in Kleinasien ausgeführten Ausgrabungen in Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung (15 Dec., 1906); IDEM in Mitteilungen der Orient-Gesellschaft (Dec., 1907).
CHARLES L. SOUVAY Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to Fr. John Hilkert and St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Hittites
All that is known concerning this important Canaanitish people, whose history is often referred to on’ the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments under the name Kheta, has been collected by Wright, Empire of the Hittites (Lond. 1884, 8vo).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Hittites
Palestine and Syria appear to have been originally inhabited by three different tribes. (1.) The Semites, living on the east of the isthmus of Suez. They were nomadic and pastoral tribes. (2.) The Phoenicians, who were merchants and traders; and (3.) the Hittites, who were the warlike element of this confederation of tribes. They inhabited the whole region between the Euphrates and Damascus, their chief cities being Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Kadesh, now Tell Neby Mendeh, in the Orontes valley, about six miles south of the Lake of Homs. These Hittites See m to have risen to great power as a nation, as for a long time they were formidable rivals of the Egyptian and Assyrian empires. In the book of Joshua they always appear as the dominant race to the north of Galilee.
Somewhere about the twenty-third century B.C. the Syrian confederation, led probably by the Hittites, arched against Lower Egypt, which they took possession of, making Zoan their capital. Their rulers were the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. They were at length finally driven out of Egypt. Rameses II. sought vengeance against the “vile Kheta,” as he called them, and encountered and defeated them in the great battle of Kadesh, four centuries after Abraham. (See JOSHUA)
They are first referred to in Scripture in the history of Abraham, who bought from Ephron the Hittite the field and the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 15:20: 23:3-18). They were then settled at Kirjath-arba. From this tribe Esau took his first two wives (26:34; 36:2).
They are afterwards mentioned in the usual way among the inhabitants of the Promised Land (Ex. 23:28). They were closely allied to the Amorites, and are frequently mentioned along with them as inhabiting the mountains of Palestine. When the spies entered the land they See m to have occupied with the Amorites the mountain region of Judah (Num. 13:29). They took part with the other Canaanites against the Israelites (Josh. 9:1; 11:3).
After this there are few references to them in Scripture. Mention is made of “Ahimelech the Hittite” (1 Sam. 26:6), and of “Uriah the Hittite,” one of David’s chief officers (2 Sam. 23:39; 1 Chr. 11:41). In the days of Solomon they were a powerful confederation in the north of Syria, and were ruled by “kings.” They are met with after the Exile still a distinct people (Ezra 9:1; comp. Neh. 13:23-28).
The Hebrew merchants exported horses from Egypt not only for the kings of Israel, but also for the Hittites (1 Kings 10:28, 29). From the Egyptian monuments we learn that “the Hittites were a people with yellow skins and ‘Mongoloid’ features, whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies. The Amorites, on the contrary, were a tall and handsome people. They are depicted with white skins, blue eyes, and reddish hair, all the characteristics, in fact, of the white race” (Sayce’s The Hittites). The original seat of the Hittite tribes was the mountain ranges of Taurus. They belonged to Asia Minor, and not to Syria.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Hittites
Descended from Cheth or Heth, second son of Canaan. (See HETH.) A peaceable and commercial people when first brought before us at Kirjath Arba or Hebron (Gen 23:19; Gen 25:9). Their courteous dignity of bearing towards Abraham is conspicuous throughout. As he took the Amorites as his allies in warfare, so he sought: from the Hittites a tomb. The Amalekites’ advance necessitated their withdrawal to the mountains (Num 13:29). In Joshua (Jos 1:4; Jos 9:1; Jos 11:3-4; Jos 12:8) they appear as the principal power occupying upper Syria, between Palestine and the Euphrates. The Egyptian monuments represent them (Sheta) as forming a confederacy of chiefs, Egypt’s opponents in the valley of the Orontes, during the 19th and 20th dynasties of Manetho, including Joshua’s time. Sethos I took their capital Ketesh near Emesa, 1340 B.C.
Two or three centuries later the Assyrian inscription of Tiglath Pileser (1125 B.C.) mentions them. As the Philistines appear in Joshua (Jos 13:3; Jdg 3:3) predominant in S. Canaan toward Egypt, so the Hittites in the N. Their military power is represented in Joshua as consisting in chariots (1Ki 10:29; 2Ki 7:6). A hieroglyphic inscription of Rameses II mentions Astert (Ashtoreth) as their god. Uriah, the unsuspicious, self-denying patriot, whom David so wronged though of his own bodyguard “the thirty,” was a Hittite, and showed the chivalrous bearing which Ephron the Hittite and his people had showed of old.
The names of Hittites mentioned in Scripture, Adah, Ahimelech, etc., seem akin to Hebrew. (See HEBREW.) G. Smith has just discovered their capital lying about half way between the mighty cities of the Euphrates valley and those of the Nile. Their art forms the connecting link between Egyptian and Assyrian art. The name of their capital is identical with that of the Etruscans. This implies a connection of the Hittites with that people.
Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary
HITTITES
The Middle Eastern political power known as the Hittite Empire lasted from about 1800 to 1200 BC. It extended from northern Palestine across Syria and into Asia Minor. Tidal, king of Goiim, was possibly a Hittite king of the era before the Empire was fully established (Gen 14:1).
Even after the Empire had collapsed, Syria was still sometimes referred to as the land of the Hittites. Likewise the people of various states and cities in Syria still called themselves Hittites (Jos 1:4; 2Sa 24:6; 1Ki 10:29; 1Ki 11:1; 2Ki 7:6).
However, the Hittites most often mentioned in the Bible are not those of the ancient Hittite Empire in the north, but those of smaller tribal groups in Canaan. They were probably the descendants of migrants from earlier Hittite kingdoms, and formed one of the many tribal groups that occupied Canaan before the conquering Israelites drove them out (Gen 15:20; Exo 3:8; Exo 23:28; Deu 7:1; Jos 3:10; Ezr 9:1).
The main area where the Hittites of Canaan lived was the central mountain region. This included the towns of Bethel, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Beersheba (Gen 23:2-16; Gen 26:34; Jdg 1:23; Jdg 1:26; 2Sa 23:39; Eze 16:3). The Hittites were among the many Canaanite groups whom Solomon used as slaves in his building programs (1Ki 9:20-21). Eventually they were absorbed into the Israelites and so ceased to be a distinct racial group.
Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary
Hittites
HITTITES.A people said in the J [Note: Jahwist.] document (Exo 3:8; Exo 3:17) to have been one of the pre-Israelitish occupants of Palestine. The E [Note: Elohist.] document says they lived in the mountains (Num 13:29). They are often included by D [Note: Deuteronomist.] and his followers among the early inhabitants of the land, while P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] tells us (Gen 23:1-20) that Abraham bought from a Hittite the cave of Machpelah at Hebron. They are probably the people known in Egyptian inscriptions as Kheta, in Assyrian annals as Khatti, and in Homer (Od. xi. 521) as Kteioi.
It is supposed that the carved figures found in many parts of Asia Minor, having a peculiar type of high hat and shoes which turn up at the toe, and containing hieroglyphs of a distinct type which are as yet undeciphered, are Hittite monuments. Assuming that this is correct, the principal habitat of the Hittites was Asia Minor, for these monuments are found from Karabel, a pass near Smyrna, to Erzerum, and from the so-called Niobe (originally a Hittite goddess), near Magnesia, to Jerabis, the ancient Carchemish, on the Euphrates. They have also been found at Zenjirli and Hamath in northern Syria (cf. Messerschmidts Corp. Inscript. Hett. in Mitteilungen der Vorderas. Gesell. vol. v.; and Sayce, PSBA [Note: SBA Proceedings of Soc. of Bibl. Archeology.] vol. xxviii. 9195). It appears from these monuments that at Boghazkui east of the Halys, at Marash, and at various points in ancient Galatia, Lycaonia, Isauria, and Cilicia the Hittites were especially strong. It is probable that their civilization was developed in Asia Minor, and that they afterwards pushed southward into northern Syria, invading a region as far eastward as the Euphrates.
This is confirmed by what we know of them from the inscriptions of other nations. Our earliest mention of them occurs in the annals of Thothmes iii. of Egypt (about b.c. 1500), to whom they paid tribute (cf. Breasteds Ancient Records of Egypt, ii. 213).
In the reign of Amenophis iii. (about b.c. 1400) they attempted unsuccessfully to invade the land of Mittani on the Euphrates, and successfully planted themselves on the Orontes valley in Syria (cf. KIB [Note: IB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek.] v. 33, and 255, 257). In the reign of Amenophis iv. they made much greater advances, as the el-Amarna letters show. In the next dynasty Seti i. fought a battle with the Hittites between the ranges of the Lehanon (Breasted, op cit. iii. 71). In the reign of Rameses ii. Kadesh on the Orontes was in their hands. Rameses fought a great battle with them there, and afterwards made a treaty of peace with them (Breasted, op. cit. iii. 125 ff., 165 ff.). Meren-Ptah and Rameses iii. had skirmishes with them, the latter as late as b.c. 1200. From the similarity of his name to the names of Hittite kings, Moore has conjectured (JAOS [Note: AOS Journ. of the Amer. Oriental Society.] xix. 159, 160) that Sisera (Jdg 5:1-31) was a Hittite. If so, in the time of Deborah (about b.c. 1150) a Hittite dynasty invaded northern Palestine.
About b.c. 1100 Tiglath-pileser i. of Assyria fought with Hittites (KIB [Note: IB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek.] i. 23). In Davids reign individual Hittites such as Ahimelech and Uriah were in Israel (1Sa 26:6, 2Sa 11:3 etc.). Kings of the Hittites are said to have been contemporary with Solomon (1Ki 10:29; 1Ki 11:1), also a century later contemporary with Joram of Israel (2Ki 7:6). In the 9th cent. the Assyrian kings Ashurnazir-pal (KIB [Note: IB Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek.] i. 105) and Shalmaneser ii. (ib. p. 139) fought with Hittites, as did Tiglath-pileser iii. (ib. ii. 29), in the next century, while Sargon ii. in 717 (ib. ii. 43; Isa 10:9) destroyed the kingdom of Carchemish, the last of the Hittite kingdoms of which we have definite record. The researches of recent years, especially those of Jensen and Breasted, make it probable that the Cilicians were a Hittite people, and that Syennesis, king of Cilicia, mentioned in Xenopbons Anabasis as a vassal king of Persia about b.c. 400, was a Hittite. Possibly the people of Lycaonia, whose language Paul and Barnabas did not understand (Act 14:11), spoke a dialect of Hittite.
The Hittites accordingly played an important part in history from b.c. 1500 to b.c. 700, and lingered on in many quarters much longer. It is probable that a Hittite kingdom in Sardis preceded the Lydian kingdom there (cf. Herod, i. 7). The Lydian Cyhele and Artemis of Ephesus were probably originally Hittite divinities.
Jensen, who has made a little progress in deciphering the Hittite inscriptions, believes them to be an Aryan people, the ancestors of the Armenians (cf. his Hittiter und Armenier), but this is very doubtful.
Politically the Hittites were not, so far as we know, united. They seem to have formed small city-kingdoms.
The religion of the Hittites seems to have had some features in common with Semitic religion (cf. Barton, Semitic Origins, pp. 311316).
George A. Barton.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Hittites
hitts ( , bene heth, , hittm; , Chettaoi): One of the seven nations conquered by Israel in Palestine.
I.Old Testament Notices
1.Enumeration of Races
2.Individuals
3.Later Mention
II.History
1.Sources
2.Chronology
3.Egyptian Invasions: 18th Dynasty
4.The Great King
5.Egyptian Invasions: 19th Dynasty
6.Declension of Power: Aryan Invasion
7.Second Aryan Invasion
8.Assyrian Invasions
9.Invasion by Assur-nasir-pal
10.Invasions by Shalmaneser II and Rimmonnirari III
11.Revolts and Invasions
12.Break-up of Hittite Power
13.Mongols in Syria
III.Language
1.Mongol Race
2.Hittire and Egyptian Monuments
3.Hair and Beard
4.Hittite Dress
5.Hittite Names
6.Vocabulary of Pterium Epistles
7.Tell el-Amarna Tablet
IV.Religion
1.Polytheism: Names of Deities
2.Religious Symbolism
V.Script
1.Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic
2.Description of Signs
3.Interpretation of Monuments
Literature
I. Old Testament Notices
1. Enumeration of Races
The sons of Heth are noticed 12 times and the Hittites 48 times in the Old Testament. In 21 cases the name Occurs in the enumeration of races, in Syria and Canaan, which are said (Gen 10:6 f) to have been akin to the early inhabitants of Chaldea and Babylon. From at least 2000 bc this population is known, from monumental records, to have been partly Semitic and partly Mongolic; and the same mixed race is represented by the Hittite records recently discovered in Cappadocia and Pontus. Thus, while the Canaanites (lowlanders), Amorites (probably highlanders), Hivites (tribesmen) and Perizzites (rustics) bear Semitic titles, the Hittites, Jebusites and Girgashites appear to have non-Sem names. Ezekiel (Eze 16:3, Eze 16:15) speaks of the Jebusites as a mixed Hittite-Amorite people.
2. Individuals
The names of Hittites noticed in the Old Testament include several that are Semitic (Ahimelech, Judith, Bashemath, etc.), but others like Uriah and Beeri (Gen 26:34) which are probably non-Sem. Uriah appears to have married a Hebrew wife (Bathsheba), and Esau in like manner married Hittite women (Gen 26:34; Gen 36:2). In the time of Abraham we read of Hittites as far South as Hebron (Gen 23:3; Gen 27:46), but there is no historic improbability in this at a time when the same race appears (see ZOAN) to have ruled in the Nile Delta (but see Gray in The Expositor, May, 1898, 340 f).
3. Later Mention
In later times the land of the Hittites (Jos 1:4; Jdg 1:26) was in Syria and near the Euphrates (see TAHTIM-HODSHI); though Uriah (2 Sam 11) lived in Jerusalem, and Ahimelech (1Sa 26:6) followed David. In the time of Solomon (1Ki 10:29), the kings of the Hittites are mentioned with the kings of Syria, and were still powerful a century later (2Ki 7:6). Solomon himself married Hittite wives (1Ki 11:1), and a few Hittites seem still to have been left in the South (2Ch 8:7), even in his time, if not after the captivity (Ezr 9:1; Neh 9:8).
II. History
1. Sources
The Hittites were known to the Assyrians as Hatti, and to the Egyptians as Kheta, and their history has been very fully recovered from the records of the 18th and 19th Egyptian Dynasties, from the Tell el-Amarna Letters, from Assyrian annals and, quite recently, from copies of letters addressed to Babylonian rulers by the Hittite kings, discovered by Dr. H. Winckler in the ruins of Boghaz-keui (the town of the pass), the ancient Pterium in Pontus, East of the river Halys. The earliest known notice (King, Egypt and West Asia, 250) is in the reign of Saamsu-ditana, the last king of the first Babylonian Dynasty, about 2000 bc, when the Hittites marched on the land of Akkad, or highlands North of Mesopotamia.
2. Chronology
The chronology of the Hittites has been made clear by the notices of contemporary rulers in Babylonia, Matiene, Syria and Egypt, found by Winckler in the Hittite correspondence above noticed, and is of great importance to Bible history, because, taken in conjunction with the Tell el-Amarna Letters, with the Kassite monuments of Nippur, with the Babylonian chronicles and contemporary chronicles of Babylon and Assyria, it serves to fix the dates of the Egyptian kings of the 18th and 19th Dynasties which were previously uncertain by nearly a century, but which may now be regarded as settled within a few years. From the Tell el-Amarna Letters it is known that Thothmes IV was contemporary with the father of Adad-nirari of Assyria (Berlin number 30), and Amenophis IV with Burna-burias of Babylon (Brit. Mss. number 2); while a letter from Chattu-sil, the Hittite contemporary of Rameses II, was addressed to Kadashman-Turgu of Babylon on the occasion of his accession. These notices serve to show that the approximate dates given by Brugsch for the Pharaohs are more correct than those proposed by Mahler; and the following table will be useful for the understanding of the history – Thothmes III being known to have reigned 54 years, Amenophis III at least 36 years, and Rameses II, 66 years or more. The approximate dates appear to be thus fixed.
3. Egyptian Invasions: 18th Dynasty
The Hyksos race having been expelled from the Delta by Aahmes, the founder of the 18th (Theban) Dynasty, after 1700 bc, the great trade route through Palestine Syria was later conquered by Thothmes I, who set up a monument on the West bank of the Euphrates. The conquests of Aahmes were maintained by his successors Amenophis I and Thothmes I and II; but when Thothmes III attained his majority (about 1580 bc), a great league of Syrian tribes and of Canaanites, from Sharuhen near Gaza and from the water of Egypt, as far as the land of Naharain (Aram-naharaim), opposed this Pharaoh in his 22nd year, being led by the king of Kadesh – probably Kadesh on the Orontes (now Qedes, North of Riblah) – but they were defeated near Megiddo in Central Palestine; and in successive campaigns down to his 31st year, Thothmes III reconquered the Palestine plains, and all Syria to Carchemish on the Euphrates. In his 29th year, after the conquest of Tuneb (now Tennnib, West of Arpad), he mentions the tribute of the Hittites including 304 lbs in 8 rings of silver, a great piece of white precious stone, and zagu wood. They were, however, still powerful, and further wars in Syria were waged by Amenophis II, while Thothmes IV also speaks of his first campaign against the land of the Kheta. Adad-nirari I wrote to Egypt to say that Thothmes IV had established his father (Bel-tiglat-Assur) as ruler of the land of Marchasse (probably Mer’ash in the extreme North of Syria), and to ask aid against the king of the land of the Hittites. Against the increasing power of this race Thothmes IV and his son Amenophis III strengthened themselves by marriage alliances with the Kassite kings of Babylon, and with the cognate rulers of Matiene, East of the Hittite lands of Syria, and Cappadocia. Dusratta of Matiene, whose sister Gilukhepa was married by Amenophis III in his 10th year, wrote subsequently to this Pharaoh to announce his own accession (Am Tab, Brit. Mus. number 9) and his defeat of the Hittites, sending a two-horse chariot and a young man and young woman as spoils of the land of the Hittites.
4. The Great King
About this time (1480 bc) arose a great Hittite ruler bearing the strange name Subbiliuliuma, similar to that of Sapalulmi, chief the Hattinai, in North Syria, mentioned by Shalmaneser II in the 9th century bc. He seems to have ruled at Pterium, and calls himself the great king, the noble king of the Hatti. He allied himself against Dusratta with Artatama, king of the Harri or North Syrians. The Syrian Hittites in Marchassi, North of the land of the Amorites, were led shortly after by Edugamma of Kinza (probably Kittiz, North of Arpad) in alliance with Aziru the Amorite, on a great raid into Phoenicia and to Bashan, South of Damascus. Thus it appears that the Amorites had only reached this region shortly before the Hebrew conquest of Bashan. Amenophis III repelled them in Phoenicia, and Subbiliuliuma descended on Kinza, having made a treaty with Egypt, and captured Edugamma and his father Suttatarra. He also conquered the land of Ikata which apparently lay East of the Euphrates and South of Carehemish. Some 30 years later, in the reign of Amenophis IV, Dusratta of Matiene was murdered, and his kingdom was attacked by the Assyrians; but Subbiliuliuma, though not a friend of Dusratta with whom he disputed the suzerainty of North Syria, sent aid to Dusratta’s son Mattipiza, whom he set on his throne, giving him his own daughter as a wife. A little later (about 1440 bc) Aziru the Amorite, who had been subject to Amenophis III, submitted to this same great Hittite ruler, and was soon able to conquer the whole of Phoenicia down to Tyre. All the Egyptian conquests were thus lost in the latter part of the reign of Amenophis III, and in that of Amenophis IV. Only Gaza seems to have been retained, and Burna-burias of Babylon, writing to Amenophis IV, speaks of the Canaanite rebellion as beginning in the time of his father Kuri-galzu I (Am Tab, British Museum number 2), and of subsequent risings in his own time (Berlin number 7) which interrupted communication with Egypt. Assur-yuballidh of Assyria (Berlin number 9), writing to the same Pharaoh, states also that the relations with Assyria, which dated back even to the time of Assur-nadin-akhi (about 1550 bc), had ceased. About this earlier period Thothmes III records that he received presents from Assyria. The ruin of Egypt thus left the Hittites independent, in North Syria, about the time when – according to Old Testament chronology – Palestine was conquered by Joshua. They probably acknowledged Arandas, the successor of Subbiliuliuma, as their suzerain.
5. Egyptian Invasions: 19th Dynasty
The 18th Dynasty was succeeded, about 1400 bc, or a little later, by the 19th, and Rameses I appears to have been the Pharaoh who made the treaty which Mursilis, brother of Arandas, contracted with Egypt. But on the accession of Seti I, son of Rameses I, the Syrian tribes prepared to make a stand in the country of the Harri against the Egyptian resolution to recover the suzerainty of their country. Seti I claims to have conquered Kadesh (on the Orontes) in the Land of the Amorites, and it is known that Mutallis, the eldest son of Mursilis, fought against Egypt. According to his younger brother Hattusil, he was tyrant, who was finally driven out by his subjects and died before the accession of Kadashman-Turgu (about 1355 bc) in Babylon. Hattusil, the contemporary of Rameses II, then seized the throne as great king of the Hittites and king of Kus (Cush, Gen 2:3), a term which in the Akkadian language meant the West. In his 2nd year Rameses II advanced, after the capture of Ashkelon, as far as Beirt, and in his 5th year he advanced on Kadesh where he was opposed by a league of the natives of the land of the Kheta, the land of Naharain, and of all the Kati (or inhabitants of Cilicia), among which confederates the prince of Aleppo is specially noticed. The famous poem of Pentaur gives an exaggerated account of the victory won by Rameses II at Kadesh, over the allies, who included the people of Carchemish and of many other unknown places; for it admits that the Egyptian advance was not continued, and that peace was concluded. A second war occurred later (when the sons of Rameses II were old enough to take part), and a battle was then fought at Tuneb (Tennib) far North of Kadesh, probably about 1316 bc. The celebrated treaty between Rameses II and Chattusil was then made, in the 21st year of the first named. It was engraved on a silver tablet having on the back the image of Set (or Sutekh), the Hittite god of heaven, and was brought to Egypt by Tar-Tessubas, the Hittite envoy. The two great kings treated together as equals, and formed a defensive and offensive alliance, with extradition clauses which show the advanced civilization of the age. In the 34th year of his reign, Rameses II (who was then over 50 years of age) married a daughter of Chattusil, who wrote to a son of Kadashman-Turgu (probably Kadashman-burias) to inform this Kassite ruler of Babylon of the event. He states in another letter that he was allied by marriage to the father of Kadashman-Turgu, but the relations between the Kassite rulers and the Hittites were not very cordial, and complaints were made on both sides. Chattusil died before Rameses II, who ruled to extreme old age; for the latter (and his queen) wrote letters to Pudukhipa, the widow of this successful Hittite overlord. He was succeeded by Dudhalia, who calls himself the great king and the son of Pudukhipa the great queen, queen of the land of the city of the Hatti.
6. Declension of Power: Aryan Invasion
The Hittite power began now, however, to decline, in consequence of attacks from the West by hostile Aryan invaders. In the 5th year of Seti Merenptah II, son of Rameses II, these fair peoples of the North raided the Syrian coasts, and advanced even to Belbeis and Heliopolis in Egypt, in alliance with the Libyans West of the Delta. They were defeated, and Merenptah appears to have pursued them even to Pa-Kan’-ana near Tyre. A text of his 5th year (found by Dr. Flinders Petrie in 1896) speaks of this campaign, and says that while Israel is spoiled the Hittites are quieted: for Merenptah appears to have been on good terms with them, and allowed corn to be sent in ships to preserve the life of this people of the Hatti. Dudchalia was succeeded by his son Arnuanta the great king, of whom a bilingual seal has been found by Dr. Winckler, in Hittite and cuneiform characters; but the confederacy of Hittite tribes which had so long resisted Egypt seems to have been broken up by these disasters and by the increasing power of Assyria.
7. Second Aryan Invasion
A second invasion by the Aryans occurred in the reign of Rameses III (about 1200 bc) when agitation seized the peoples of the North, and no people stood before their arms, beginning with the people of the Hatti, of the Kati, of Carchemish and Aradus. The invaders, including Danai (or early Greeks), came by land and sea to Egypt, but were again defeated, and Rameses III – the last of the great Pharaohs – pursued them far north, and is even supposed by Brugsch to have conquered Cyprus. Among the cities which he took he names Carchemish, and among his captives were the miserable king of the Hatti, a living prisoner, and the miserable king of the Amorites.
8. Assyrian Invasions
Half a century later (1150 bc) the Assyrians began to invade Syria, and Assur-ris-isi reached Beirt; for even as early as about 1270 bc Tukulti-Ninip of Assyria had conquered the Kassites, and had set a Semitic prince on their throne in Babylon. Early in his reign (about 1130 bc) Tiglath- pileser I claims to have subdued 42 kings, marching to the fords of the Euphrates, the land of the Hatti, and the upper sea of the setting sun – or Mediterranean. Soldiers of the Hatti had seized the cities of Sumasti (probably Samosata), but the Assyrian conqueror made his soldiers swim the Euphrates on skin bags, and so attacked Carchemish of the land of the Hittites. The Moschians in Cappadocia were apparently of Hittite race, and were ruled by 5 kings: for 50 years they had exacted tribute in Commagene (Northeastern Syria), and they were defeated, though placing 20,000 men in the field against Tiglath-pileser I. He advanced to Kumani (probably Comana in Cappadocia), and to Arini which was apparently the Hittite capital called Arinas (now Iranes), West of Caesarea in the same region.
9. Invasion by Assur-Nasir-Pal
The power of the Hittites was thus broken by Assyria, yet they continued the struggle for more than 4 centuries afterward. After the defeat of Tiglath-pileser I by Marduk-nadin-akhi of Babylon (1128-1111 bc), there is a gap in Assyrian records, and we next hear of the Hittites in the reign of Assur-nasir-pal (883-858 bc); he entered Commagene, and took tribute from the son of Bachian of the land of the Hatti, and from Sangara of Carchemish in the land of the Hatti, so that it appears that the Hittites no longer acknowledged a single great king. They were, however, still rich, judging from the spoil taken at Carchemish, which included 20 talents of silver, beads, chains, and sword scabbards of gold, 100 talents of copper, 250 talents of iron, and bronze objects from the palace representing sacred bulls, bowls, cups and censers, couches, seats, thrones, dishes, instruments of ivory and 200 slave girls, besides embroidered robes of linen and of black and purple stuffs, gems, elephants’ tusks, chariots and horses. The Assyrian advance continued to ‘Azzaz in North Syria, and to the Afrin river, in the country of the Hattinai who were no doubt Hittites, where similar spoils are noticed, with 1,000 oxen and 10,000 sheep: the pagutu, or maces which the Syrian kings used as scepters, and which are often represented on Hittite monuments, are specially mentioned in this record. Assur-nasir-pal reached the Mediterranean at Arvad, and received tribute from kings of the sea coast including those of Gebal, Sidon and Tyre. He reaped the corn of the Hittites, and from Mt. Amanus in North Syria he took logs of cedar, pine, box and cypress.
10. Invasions by Shalmaneser II and Rimmonnirari III
His son Shalmaneser II (858-823 bc) also invaded Syria in his 1st year, and again mentions Sangara of Carchemish, with Sapalulmi of the Hattinai. In Commagene the chief of the Gamgums bore the old Hittite name Mutallis. In 856 bc Shalmaneser II attacked Mer’-ash and advanced by Dabigu (now Toipuk) to ‘Azzaz. He took from the Hattinai 3 talents of gold, 100 of silver, 300 of copper, 1,000 bronze vases and 1,000 embroidered robes. He also accepted as wives a daughter of Mutallis and another Syrian princess. Two years later 120,000 Assyrians raided the same region, but the southward advance was barred by the great Syrian league which came to the aid of Irchulena, king of Hamath, who was not subdued till about 840 bc. In 836 bc the people of Tubal, and the Kati of Cappadocia and Cilicia, were again attacked. In 831 bc Qubarna, the vassal king of the Hattinai in Syria, was murdered by his subjects, and an Assyrian tartanu or general was sent to restore order. The rebels under Sapalulmi had been confederated with Sangara of Carchemish. Adad-nirari III, grandson of Shalmaneser II, was the next Assyrian conqueror: in 805 bc he attacked ‘Azzaz and Arpad, but the resistance of the Syrians was feeble, and presents were sent from Tyre, Sidon, Damascus and Edom. This conqueror states that he subdued the land of the Hittites, the land of the Amorites, to the limits of the land of Sidon, as well as Damascus, Edom and Philistia.
11. Revolts and Invasions
But the Hittites were not as yet thoroughly subdued, and often revolted. In 738 bc Tiglath-pileser II mentions among his tributaries a chief of the Gamgums bearing the Hittite name Tarku-lara, with Pisiris of Carchemish. In 702 bc Sennacherib passed peacefully through the land of the Hatti on his way to Sidon: for in 717 bc Sargon had destroyed Carchemish, and had taken many of the Hittites prisoners, sending them away far east and replacing them by Babylonians. Two years later he in the same way took the Hamathites as captives to Assyria. Some of the Hittites may have fled to the South, for in 709 bc Sargon states that the king of Ashdod was deposed by people of the Hatti plotting rebellion who despised his rule, and who set up Azuri instead.
12. Breakup of Hittite Power
The power of the Hittites was thus entirely broken before Sennacherib’s time, but they were not entirely exterminated, for, in 673 bc, Esar-haddon speaks of twenty-two kings of the Hatti and near the sea. Hittite names occur in 712 bc (Tarchu-nazi of Meletene) and in 711 bc (Mutallis of Commagene), but after this they disappear. Yet, even in a recently found text of Nebuchadnezzar (after 600 bc), we read that chiefs of the land of the Hattim, bordering on the Euphrates to the West, where by command of Nergal my lord I had destroyed their rule, were made to bring strong beams from the mountain of Lebanon to my city Babylon. A Hittite population seems to have survived even in Roman times in Cilicia and Cappadocia, for (as Dr. Mordtman observed) a king and his son in this region both bore the name Tarkon-dimotos in the time of Augustus, according to Dio Cassius and Tacitus; and this name recalls that of Tarku-timme, the king of Erine in Cappadocia, occurring on a monument which shows him as brought captive before an Assyrian king, while the same name also occurs on the bilingual silver boss which was the head of his scepter, inscribed in Hittite and cuneiform characters.
13. Mongols in Syria
The power of the Mongolic race decayed gradually as that of the Semitic Assyrians increased; but even now in Syria the two races remain mingled, and Turkoman nomads still camp even as far South as the site of Kadesh on the Orontes, while a few tribes of the same stock (which entered Syria in the Middle Ages) still inhabit the plains of Sharon and Esdraelon, just as the southern Hittites dwelt among the Amorites at Jerusalem and Hebron in the days of Abraham, before they were driven north by Thothmes III.
III. Language
1. Mongol Race
The questions of race and language in early times, before the early stocks were mixed or decayed, cannot be dissociated, and we have abundant evidence of the racial type and characteristic dress of the Hittites. The late Dr. Birch of the British Museum pointed out the Mongol character of the Hittite type, and his opinion has been very generally adopted. In 1888 Dr. Sayce (The Hittites, 15, 101) calls them Mongoloid, and says, They had in fact, according to craniologists, the characteristics of a Mongoloid race. This was also the opinion of Sir W. Flower; and, if the Hittites were Mongols, it would appear probable that they spoke a Mongol dialect. It is also apparent that, in this case, they would be related to the old Mongol population of Chaldea (the people of Akkad and Sumir or of the highlands and river valley) from whom the Semitic Babylonians derived their earliest civilization.
2. Hittite and Egyptian Monuments
The Hittite type is represented, not only on their own monuments, but on those of the 18th and 19th Egyptian Dynasties, including a colored picture of the time of Rameses III. The type represented has a short head and receding forehead, a prominent and sometimes rather curved nose, a strong jaw and a hairless face. The complexion is yellow, the eyes slightly slanting, the hair of the head black, and gathered into a long pigtail behind. The physiognomy is like that of the Sumerians represented on a bas-relief at Tel-loh (Zirgul) in Chaldea, and very like that of some of the Kirghiz Mongols of the present time, and of some of the more purely Mongolic Turks. The head of Gudea at Zirgul in like manner shows (about 2800 bc) the broad cheek bones and hairless face of the Turkish type; and the language of his texts, in both grammar and vocabulary, is closely similar to pure Turkish speech.
3. Hair and Beard
Among Mongolic peoples the beard grows only late in life, and among the Akkadians it is rarely represented – excepting in the case of gods and ancient kings. The great bas-relief found by Koldewey at Babylon, and representing a Hittite thunder-god with a long pigtail and (at the back) a Hittite inscription, is bearded, but the pigtailed heads on other Hittite monuments are usually hairless. At Iasili-Kaia – the rock shrine near Pterium – only the supreme god is bearded, and all the other male figures are beardless. At Ibreez, in Lycaonia, the gigantic god who holds corn and grapes in his hands is bearded, and the worshipper who approaches him also has a beard, and his hair is arranged in the distinctive fashion of the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians. This type may represent Semitic mixture, for M. Chantre discovered at Kara-eyak, in Cappadocia, tablets in Semitic Babylonian representing traders’ letters perhaps as old as 2000 bc. The type of the Ibreez figures has been said to resemble that of the Armenian peasantry of today; but, although the Armenians are Aryans of the old Phrygian stock, and their language almost purely Aryan, they have mixed with the Turkish and Semitic races, and have been said even to resemble the Jews. Little reliance can be placed, therefore, on comparison with modern mixed types. The Hittite pigtail is very distinctive of a Mongolic race. It was imposed on the Chinese by the Manchus in the 17th century, but it is unknown among Aryan or Semitic peoples, though it seems to be represented on some Akkadian seals, and on a bas-relief picturing the Mongolic Susians in the 7th century bc.
4. Hittite Dress
The costume of the Hittites on monuments seems also to indicate Mongolic origin. Kings and priests wear long robes, but warriors (and the gods at Ibreez and Babylon) wear short jerkins, and the Turkish shoe or slipper with a curled-up toe, which, however, is also worn by the Hebrew tribute bearers from Jehu on the black obelisk (about 840 bc) of Shalmaneser II. Hittite gods and warriors are shown as wearing a high, conical head-dress, just like that which (with addition of the Moslem turban) characterized the Turks at least as late as the 18th century. The short jerkin also appears on Akkadian seals and bas-reliefs, and, generally speaking, the Hittites (who were enemies of the Lycians, Danai and other Aryans to their west) may be held to be very clearly Mongolic in physical type and costume, while the art of their monuments is closely similar to that of the most archaic Akkadian and Babylonian sculptures of Mesopotamia. It is natural to suppose that they were a branch of the same remarkable race which civilized Chaldea, but which seems to have had its earliest home in Akkad, or the highlands near Ararat and Media, long before the appearance of Aryan tribes either in this region or in Ionia. The conclusion also agrees with the Old Testament statement that the Hittites were akin to the descendants of Ham in Babylonia, and not to the fair tribes (Japheth), including Medes, Ionians and other Aryan peoples.
5. Hittite Names
As early as 1866 Chabas remarked that the Hittite names (of which so many have been mentioned above) were clearly not Semitic, and this has been generally allowed. Those of the Amorites, on the other hand, are Semitic, and the type represented, with brown skin, dark eyes and hair, aqui-line features and beards, agrees (as is generally allowed) in indicating a Semitic race. There are now some 60 of these Hittite names known, and they do not suggest any Aryan etymology. They are quite unlike those of the Aryan Medes (such as Baga-datta, etc.) mentioned by the Assyrians, or those of the Vannic kings whose language (as shown by recently published bilinguals in Vannic and Assyrian) seems very clearly to have been Iranian – or similar to Persian and Sanskrit – but which only occurs in the later Assyrian age. Comparisons with Armenian and Georgian (derived from the Phrygian and Scythian) also fail to show any similarity of vocabulary or of syntax, while on the other hand comparisons with the Akkadian, the Kassite and modern Turkish at once suggest a linguistic connection which fully agrees with what has been said above of the racial type. The common element Tarku, or Tarkhan, in Hittite names suggests the Mongol dargo and the Turkish tarkhan, meaning a tribal chief. Sil again is an Akkadian word for a ruler, and nazi is an element in both Hittite and Kassite names.
6. Vocabulary of Pterium Epistles
It has also been remarked that the vocabulary of the Hittite letters discovered by Chantre at Pterium recalls that of the letter written by Dusratta of Matiene to Amenophis III (Am Tab number 27, Berlin), and that Dusratta adored the Hittite god Tessupas. A careful study of the language of this letter shows that, in syntax and vocabulary alike, it must be regarded as Mongolic and as a dialect of the Akkadian group. The cases of the noun, for instance, are the same as in Akkadian and in modern Turkish. No less than 50 words and terminations are common to the language of this letter and of those discovered by M. Chantre and attributed to the Hittites whose territory immediately adjoined that of Matiene. The majority of these words occur also in Akkadian.
7. Tell El-Amarna Tablet
But in addition to these indications we have a letter in the Tell el-Amarna Letters (Berlin number 10) written by a Hittite prince, in his own tongue and in the cuneiform script. It is from (and not to, as has been wrongly supposed by Knudtzon) a chief named Tarchun-dara, and is addressed to Amenophis III, whose name stands first. In all the other letters the name of the sender always follows that of the recipient. The general meaning of this letter is clear from the known meanings of the ideograms used for many words; and it is also clear that the language is agglutinative like the Akkadian. The suffixed possessive pronouns follow the plural termination of the noun as in Akkadian, and prepositions are not used as they are in Semitic and Aryan speech; the precative form of the verb has also been recognized to be the same as used in Akkadian. The pronouns mi, my, and ti, thy, are to be found in many living Mongolic dialects (e.g. the Zyrianian me and te); in Akkadian also they occur as mi and zi. The letter opens with the usual salutation: Letter to Amenophis III the great king, king of the land of Egypt (Mizzari-na), from Tarchun-dara (Tarchundara-da), king of the land of Arzapi (or Arzaa), thus. To me is prosperity. To my nobles, my hosts, my cavalry, to all that is mine in all my lands, may there be prosperity; (moreover?) may there be prosperity: to thy house, thy wives, thy sons, thy nobles, thy hosts, thy cavalry, to all that is thine in thy lands may there be prosperity. The letter continues to speak of a daughter of the Pharaoh, and of a sum of gold which is being sent in charge of an envoy named Irsappa. It concludes (as in many other instances) with a list of presents, these being sent by the Hittite prince (Nu Chattu) from the land Igait (perhaps the same as Ikata), and including, besides the gold, various robes, and ten chairs of ebony inlaid with ivory. As far as it can at present be understood, the language of this letter, which bears no indications of either Semitic or Aryan speech, whether in vocabulary or in syntax, strongly favors the conclusion that the native Hittite language was a dialect of that spoken by the Akkadians, the Kassites and the Minyans of Matiene, in the same age.
IV. Religion
1. Polytheism: Names of Deities
The Hittites like their neighbors adored many gods. Besides Set (or Sutekh), the great ruler of heaven, and Ishtar (Ashtoreth), we also find mentioned (in Chattusil’s treaty) gods and goddesses of the hills and rivers of the land of the Hatti, the great sea, the winds and the clouds. Tessupas was known to the Babylonians as a name of Rimmon, the god of thunder and rain. On a bilingual seal (in Hittite and cuneiform characters), now in the Ashmolean Museum, we find noticed the goddess Ischara, whose name, among the Kassites, was equivalent to Istar. The Hittite gods are represented – like those of the Assyrians – standing erect on lions. One of them (at Samala in Syria) is lion-headed like Nergal. They also believed in demons, like the Akkadians and others.
2. Religious Symbolism
Their pantheon was thus also Mongolic, and the suggestion (by Dr. Winckler) that they adored Indian gods (Indra, Varuna), and the Persian Mithra, not only seems improbable, but is also hardly supported by the quotations from Semitic texts on which this idea is based. The sphinx is found as a Hittite emblem at Eyuk, North of Pterium, with the double-headed eagle which again, at Iasili-kaia, supports a pair of deities. It also occurs at Tel-loh as an Akkadian emblem, and was adopted by the Seljuk Turks about 1000 ad. At Eyuk we have a representation of a procession bringing goats and rams to an altar. At Iflatun-bunar the winged sun is an emblem as in Babylonia. At Mer’-ash, in Syria, the mother goddess carries her child, while an eagle perches on a harp beside her. At Carchemish the naked Ishtar is represented with wings. The religious symbolism, like the names of deities, thus suggests a close connection with the emblems and beliefs of the Kassites and Akkadians.
V Script
1. Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic
In the 16th century bc, and down to the 13th century, the Hittites used the cuneiform characters and the Babylonian language for correspondence abroad. On seals and and mace-heads they used their own hieroglyphics, together with the cuneiform. These emblems, which occur on archaic monuments at Hamath, Carchemish and Aleppo in Syria, as well as very frequently in Cappadocia and Pontus, and less frequently as far West as Ionia, and on the East at Babylon, are now proved to be of Hittite origin, since the discovery of the seal of Arnuanta already noticed. The suggestion that they were Hittite was first made by the late Dr. W. Wright (British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1874). About 100 such monuments are now known, including seals from Nineveh and Cappadocia, and Hittite gold ornaments in the Ashmolean Museum; and there can be little doubt that, in cases where the texts accompany figures of the gods, they are of a votive character.
2. Description of Signs
The script is quite distinctive, though many of the emblems are similar to those used by the Akkadians. There are some 170 signs in all, arranged one below another in the line – as among Akkadians. The lines read alternately from right to left and from left to right, the profile emblems always facing the beginning of each line.
The interpretation of these texts is still a controversial question, but the most valuable suggestion toward their understanding is that made by the late Canon Isaac Taylor (see ALPHABET, THE, 1883). A syllabary which was afterward used by the Greeks in Cyprus, and which is found extensively spread in Asia Minor, Egypt, Palestine, Crete, and even on later coins in Spain, was recognized by Dr. Taylor as being derived from the Hittite signs. It was deciphered by George Smith from a Cypriote-Phoenician bilingual, and appears to give the sounds applying to some 60 signs.
3. Interpretation of Monuments
These sounds are confirmed by the short bilinguals as yet known, and they appear in some cases at least to be very clearly the monosyllabic words which apply in Akkadian to similar emblems. We have thus the bases of a comparative study, by aid of a known language and script – a method similar to that which enabled Sir H. Rawlinson to recover scientifically the lost cuneiform, or Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. See also ARCHAEOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR; RECENT EXPLORATION.
Literature
The Egyptian notices will be found in Brugsch’s A History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, 1879, and the Assyrian in Schrader’s Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, English Translation, 1885. The discoveries of Chantre are published in his Mission en Cappadoce, 1898, and those of Dr. H. Winckler in the Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, number 35, December, 1907. The researches of Humann and Puchstein, Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien, 1890, are also valuable for this question; as is also Dr. Robert Koldewey’s discovery of a Hittite monument at Babylon (Die hettische Inschrift, 1900). The recent discovery of sculpture at a site North of Samala by Professor Garstang is published in the Annals of Archaeology, I, number 4, 1908, by the University of Liverpool. These sculptures are supposed to date about 800 bc, but no accompanying inscriptions have as yet been found. The views of the present writer are detailed in his Tell Amarna Tablets, 2nd edition, 1894, and in The Hittites and Their Languages, 1898. Dr. Sayce has given an account of his researches in a small volume, The Hittites, 1888, but many discoveries by Sir C. Wilson, Mr. D.G. Hogarth, Sir W. Ramsay, and other explorers have since been published, and are scattered in various periodicals not easily accessible. The suggestions of Drs. Jensen, Hommel, and Peiser, in Germany, of comparison with Armenian, Georgian and Turkish, have not as yet produced any agreement; nor have those of Dr. Sayce, who looks to Vannic or to Gr; and further light on Hittite decipherment is still awaited. See, further, Professor Garstang’s Land of the Hittites, 1910.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Hittites
Hittites or children of Heth, one of the tribes of Canaanites which occupied Palestine before the Israelites (Gen 15:20; Exo 3:8; Exo 23:23). They lived in and about Hebron; and Abraham, when he abode in that neighborhood, was treated by them with respect and consideration (Gen 23:3-7; Gen 23:11-12). This intimacy led to Esau’s marriage with two women of this nation, to the grief and annoyance of his parents (Gen 26:34-35; Gen 36:2). The Hittites are described in Num 13:29, along with the Amorites, as ‘dwelling in the mountains,’ that is, in what were afterwards called ‘the mountains of Judah,’ of which Hebron was the chief town. Uriah, who had the high honor of being one of David’s thirty ‘worthies,’ is called a Hittite (2Sa 11:3; 2Sa 11:6; 1Ki 9:20). He was, doubtless, a proselyte, and probably descended from several generations of proselytes; but the fact shows that Canaanitish blood was in itself no bar to advancement in the court and army of David. Solomon subjected the remaining Hittites to the same tribute of bond-service as the other remnants of the Canaanite nations (1Ki 9:20). Of all these the Hittites appear to have been the most important, and to have been under a king of their own: for ‘the kings of the Hittites’ are, in 1Ki 10:29, coupled with the kings of Syria as purchasers of the chariots which Solomon imported from Egypt. The Hittites were still present in Palestine as a distinct people after the Exile, and are named among the alien tribes with whom the returned Israelites contracted those marriages which Ezra urged, and Nehemiah compelled, them to dissolve (Ezr 9:1, etc.; comp. Neh 13:23-28). After this we hear no more of the Hittites, who probably lost their national identity by intermixture with the neighboring tribes or nations.
Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature
Hittites
[Hit’tites]
The descendants of Heth, a son of Canaan, and hence descendants of Ham: a numerous race who inhabited Palestine. In God’s covenant with Abraham their territory was to be possessed by his descendants. Gen 15:20. On the death of Sarah, Abraham bought the field and cave of Machpelah from the Hittites. His intercourse and contract with them show that they were a civilised race, used to commercial transactions. Gen 23:3-20. This was near or at Hebron in the south of Palestine, whereas other passages speak of them in the north, between the Lebanon and the Euphrates, which was probably where they originally settled, Jos 1:4; and there are intimations that they continued a powerful and warlike race after Palestine was possessed by Israel. 1Ki 10:29; 2Ki 7:6. Ahimelech and Uriah, eminent men in the time of David, were Hittites. 1Sa 26:6; 2Sa 23:39.
In various parts of Palestine and Syria monuments have been found of the Hittites, and in Egypt there are records of a long defensive treaty that was made between the Egyptians and the Hittites, showing that the latter were an important race. The Tell Amarna tablets show that they seized upon Damascus then held by Egypt. Letter after letter urged Egypt to come to the rescue. Their features even are now well understood on the monuments, being described as a people with yellow skins and ‘mongoloid ‘ features, receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Hittites
A tribe of Canaanites.
Children of Heth
Gen 10:15; Gen 23:10
Sell a burial ground to Abraham
Gen 23
Esau intermarries with
Gen 26:34; Gen 36:2
Dwelling place of
Gen 23:17-20; Num 13:29; Jos 1:4; Jdg 1:26
Their land given to the Israelites
Exo 3:8; Deu 7:1; Jos 1:4
Conquered by Joshua
Jos 9:1-2; Joh 10; Jos 24:11
Intermarry with Israelites
Jdg 3:5-7; Ezr 9:1
Solomon intermarries with
1Ki 11:1; 2Ch 8:7-8
Pay tribute to Solomon
1Ki 9:20-21
Retain their own kings
1Ki 10:29; 2Ki 7:6; 2Ch 1:17
Officers from, in David’s army
1Sa 26:6; 2Sa 11:3; 2Sa 23:39
Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible
Hittites
Hittites (ht’ttes), The tribe or nation descended from Heth, the son of Canaan. Gen 10:15; 1Ch 1:13. They were inhabitants of Canaan in the time of Abraham. Gen 15:20. They then occupied the southern part of the land, as Hebron, Gen 23:3-18, extending towards Beersheba; since Esau married Hittite wives, and Isaac and Rebekah feared that Jacob might follow his example. Gen 26:34; Gen 27:46; Gen 28:9. Hittites evidently, therefore, were in the neighborhood: they were subsequently in the mountainous region near the Amorites and Jebusites, Num 13:29; Jos 11:3; and were perhaps some of the original inhabitants of Jerusalem, Eze 16:3; Eze 16:45, as well as in the neighborhood of Bethel. Jdg 1:22-26. Indeed, they had spread so extensively, that Canaan, or at least the northern part of it, was called the “land of the Hittites.” Jos 1:4. Some suppose them to have been a commercial people. Gen 23:16. In subsequent times we find two of David’s warriors Hittites, Abimelech, 1Sa 26:6, and Uriah, 2Sa 11:3. Solomon rendered those that yet remained in Palestine tributary, 1Ki 9:20; and they are mentioned after the captivity. Ezr 9:1. But there are some remarkable notices of Hittites, Jdg 1:26; 1Ki 10:29; 2Ki 7:6; 2Ch 1:17, which point to a people, a branch of the great family, or the descendants of those expelled from Palestine, who were settled independently beyond Lebanon, and it may be on the southeastern frontier towards Arabia. And Egyptian annals speak of a war with Hittites; and Egyptian pictures axe believed to represent Hittites. These representations may be taken not unfairly to figure the old Hittites of Canaan. We are learning much of the Hittites from recent explorations, but their inscriptions lately discovered have not been certainly deciphered nor their records indisputably determined.
Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible
HITTITES
descendants of Heth
Num 13:29; Deu 7:1; Jos 24:11; Jdg 3:5; 1Ki 10:29; 1Ki 11:1
2Ki7:6; 2Ch 8:7; Ezr 9:1
Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible
Hittites
the descendants of Heth, Gen 15:20.