The Hittites
The Story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

Slabs with Hittite Sculpture at Keller near Aintab. Frontispiece.

Chapter I. The Hittites of the Bible.

[11] 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 compared in power with the king of Judah, the real and near ally, who is not named at all . . . nor is there a single mark of acquaintance with the contemporaneous history.'

Recent discoveries have retorted the critic's objections upon himself. It is not the Biblical writer but the modern author who is now proved to have been unacquainted with the contemporaneous history of the time. The Hittites were a very real power. Not very many centuries before the age of Elisha they had contested the empire of Western Asia with the Egyptians, and though their power had waned in the days of [12] Jehoram they were still formidable enemies and useful allies. They were still worthy of comparison with the divided kingdom of Egypt, and infinitely more powerful than that of Judah.

But we hear no more about them in the subsequent records of the Old Testament. The age of Hittite supremacy belongs to an earlier date than the rise of the monarchy in Israel; earlier, we may even say, than the Israelitish conquest of Canaan. The references to them in the later historical books of the Old Testament Canon are rare and scanty. The traitor who handed over Beth-el to the house of Joseph fled 'into the land of the Hittites' (Judg. i. 26), and there built a city which he called Luz. Mr. Tomkins thinks he has found it in the town of Latsa, captured by the Egyptian king Ramses II., which he identifies with Qalb Luzeh, in Northern Syria. However this may be, an emended reading of the text, based upon the Septuagint, transforms the unintelligible Tahtim-hodshi of 2 Sam. xxiv. 6 into 'the Hittites of Kadesh' a city which long continued to be their chief stronghold in the valley of the Orontes. It was as far as this city, which lay at 'the entering in of Hamath,' on the northern frontier of the Israelitish kingdom, that the officers of David made their way when they were sent to number Israel. Lastly, in the reign of Solomon the Hittites are again mentioned (1 Kings x. 28, 29) in a passage where the authorised translation has obscured the sense. It runs in the Revised Version: 'And the horses which Solomon had were brought out of Egypt; and the king's merchants received them in droves, each drove at a price. And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for an [13] hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring them out by their means.' The Hebrew merchants, in fact, were the mediatories between Egypt and the north, and exported the horses of Egypt not only for the king of Israel but for the kings of the Hittites as well.

The Hittites whose cities and princes are thus referred to in the later historical books of the Old Testament belonged to the north, Hamath and Kadesh on the Orontes being their most southernly points. But the Book of Genesis introduces us to other Hittites—the 'children of Heth,' as they are termed—whose seats were in the extreme south of Palestine. It was from 'Ephron the Hittite' that Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah at Hebron (Gen. xxiii.), and Esau 'took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite' (Gen. xxvi. 34), or, as it is given elsewhere, 'Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite' (Gen. xxxvi. 2). It must be to these Hittites of the south that the ethnographical table in the tenth chapter of Genesis refers when it is said that 'Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth' (ver. 15), and in no other way can we explain the statement of Ezekiel (xvi. 3, 45) that 'the father' of Jerusalem 'was an Amorite' and its 'mother a Hittite.' 'Uriah the Hittite,' too, the trusty officer of David, must have come from the neighbourhood of Hebron, where David had reigned for seven years, rather than from among the distant Hittites of the north. Besides the latter there was thus a Hittite population which clustered round Hebron, and to whom the origin of Jerusalem was partly due.

[14] Now it will be noticed that the prophet ascribes the foundation of Jerusalem to the Amorite as well as the Hittite. The Jebusites, accordingly, from whose hands the city was wrested by David, must have belonged to one or other of these two great races; perhaps, indeed, to both. At all events, we find elsewhere that the Hittites and Amorites are closely interlocked together. It was so at Hebron, where in the time of Abraham not only Ephron the Hittite dwelt, but also the three sons of the Amorite Mamre (Gen. xiv. 13). The Egyptian monuments show that the two nations were similarly confederated together at Kadesh on the Orontes. Kadesh was a Hittite stronghold; nevertheless it is described as being 'in the land of the Amaur' or Amorites, and its king is depicted with the physical characteristics of the Amorite, and not of the Hittite. Further north, in the country which the Hittites had made peculiarly their own, cities existed which bore names, it would seem, compounded with that of the Amorite, and the common Assyrian title of the district in which Damascus stood, Gar-emeris, is best explained as 'the Gar of the Amorites.' Shechem was taken by Jacob 'out of the hand of the Amorite' (Gen. xlviii. 22), and the Amorite kingdom of Og and Sihon included large tracts on the eastern side of the Jordan. South of Palestine the block of mountains in which the sanctuary of Kadesh-barnea stood was an Amorite possession (Gen. xiv. 7, Deut i. 19, 20); and we learn from Numb. xiii. 29, that while the Amalekites dwelt 'in the land of the south' and the Canaanites by the sea and in the valley of the Jordan, the Hittites and Jebusites and Amorites lived together in the mountains of the interior. Among the five kings of the Amorites [15] against whom Joshua fought (Josh. x. 5) were the king of Jerusalem and the king of Hebron.

The Hittites and Amorites were therefore mingled together in the mountains of Palestine like the two races which ethnologists tell us go to form the modern Kelt. But the Egyptian monuments teach us that they were of very different origin and character. 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. If the Egyptians have made the Hittites ugly, it was because they were so in reality. 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. Mr. Petrie points out their resemblance to the Dardanians of Asia Minor, who form an intermediate link between the white-skinned tribes of the Greek seas and the fair-complexioned Libyans of Northern Africa. The latter are still found in large numbers in the mountainous regions which stretch eastward from Morocco, and are usually known among the French under the name of Kabyles. The traveller who first meets with them in Algeria cannot fail to be struck by their likeness to a certain part of the population in the British Isles. Their clear-white freckled skins, their blue eyes, their golden-red hair and tall stature, remind him of the fair Kelts of an Irish village; and when we find that their skulls, which are of the so-called dolichocephalic or 'long-headed' type, are the same as the skulls discovered in the [16] prehistoric cromlechs of the country they still inhabit, we may conclude that they represent the modern descendants of the white-skinned Libyans of the Egyptian monuments.

In Palestine also we still come across representatives of a fair-complexioned blue-eyed race, in whom we may see the descendants of the ancient Amorites, just as we see in the Kabyles the descendants of the ancient Libyans. We know that the Amorite type continued to exist in Judah long after the Israelitish conquest of Canaan. The captives taken from the southern cities of Judah by Shishak in the time of Rehoboam, and depicted by him upon the walls of the great temple of Karnak, are people of Amorite origin. Their 'regular profile of sub-aquiline cast,' as Mr. Tomkins describes it, their high cheek-bones and martial expression, are the features of the Amorites, and not of the Jews.

Tallness of stature has always been a distinguishing characteristic of the white race. Hence it was that the Anakim, the Amorite inhabitants of Hebron, seemed to the Hebrew spies to be as giants, while they themselves were but 'as grasshoppers' by the side of them (Numb. xiii. 33). After the Israelitish invasion remnants of the Anakim were left in Gaza and Gath and Ashkelon (Josh. xi. 22), and in the time of David Goliath of Gath and his gigantic family were objects of dread to their neighbours (2 Sam. xxi. 15-22).

It is clear, then, that the Amorites of Canaan belonged to the same white race as the Libyans of Northern Africa, and like them preferred the mountains to the hot plains and valleys below. The Libyans themselves belonged to a race which can be traced through the peninsula of Spain and the western side of France into [17] the British Isles. Now it is curious that wherever this particular branch of the white race has extended it has been accompanied by a particular form of cromlech, or sepulchral chamber built of large uncut stones. The stones are placed upright in the ground and covered over with other large slabs, the whole chamber being subsequently concealed under a tumulus of small stones or earth. Not unfrequently the entrance to the cromlech is approached by a sort of corridor. These cromlechs are found in Britain, in France, in Spain, in Northern Africa, and in Palestine, more especially on the eastern side of the Jordan, and the skulls that have been exhumed from them are the skulls of men of the dolichocephalic or long-headed type.

It has been necessary to enter at this length into what has been discovered concerning the Amorites by recent research, in order to show how carefully they should be distinguished from the Hittites with whom they afterwards intermingled. They must have been in possession of Palestine long before the Hittites arrived there. They extended over a much wider area, since there are no traces of the Hittites at Shechem or on the eastern side of the Jordan, where the Amorites established two powerful kingdoms; while the earliest mention of the Amorites in the Bible (Gen. xiv. 7) describes them as dwelling at Hazezon-tamar, or En-gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, where no Hittites are ever known to have settled. The Hittite colony in Palestine, moreover, was confined to a small district in the mountains of Judah: their strength lay far away in the north, where the Amorites were comparatively weak. It is true that Kadesh on the Orontes was in the hands of the Hittites; but it is also true that it was 'in the land [18] of the Amorites,' and this implies that they were its original occupants. We must regard the Amorites as the earlier population, among a part of whom the Hittites in later days settled and intermarried. At what epoch that event took place we are still unable to say.

The Hittites
The Story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

Chapter II. The Hittites on the Monuments of Egypt and Assyria.

[19] 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 son of Zohar, that Abraham had purchased the cave of Machpelah at Hebron; and one of the wives of Esau was of Hittite descent. In later times Uriah the Hittite was one of the chief officers of David, and his wife Bath-sheba was not only the mother of Solomon, but also the distant ancestress of Christ. For us, therefore, these Hittites of Judaea have a very special and peculiar interest.

The decipherment of the inscriptions of Egypt and Assyria has thrown a new light upon their origin and history, and shown that the race to which they belonged once played a leading part in the history of the civilised East. On the Egyptian monuments they are called Kheta (or better Khata), on those of Assyria Khatta or Khate, both words being exact equivalents of the Hebrew Kheth and Khitti.

The Kheta or Hittites first appear upon the scene [20] in the time of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The foreign rule of the Hyksos or Shepherd princes had been overthrown, Egypt had recovered its independence, and its kings determined to retaliate upon Asia the sufferings brought upon their own country by the Asiatic invader. The war, which commenced with driving the Asiatic out of the Delta, ended by attacking him in his own lands of Palestine and Syria. Thothmes I. (about B.C. 1600) marched to the banks of the Euphrates and set up 'the boundary of the empire ' in the country of Naharina. Naharina was the Biblical Aram Naharaim or 'Syria of the two rivers,' better known, perhaps, as Mesopotamia, and its situation has been ascertained by recent discoveries. It was the district called Mitanni by the Assyrians, who describe it as being 'in front of the land of the Hittites,' on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, between Carchemish and the mouth of the river Balikh. In the age of Thothmes I., it was the leading state in Western Asia. The Hittites had not as yet made themselves formidable, and the most dangerous enemy the Egyptian monarch was called upon to face were the people over whom Chushan-risha-thaim was king in later days (Judg. iii. 8). It is not until the reign of his son, Thothmes III., that the Hittites come to the front. They are distinguished as 'Great' and 'Little' the latter name perhaps denoting the Hittites of the south of Judah. However this may be, Thothmes received tribute from 'the king of the great land of the Kheta' which consisted of gold, negro-slaves, men-servants and maid-servants, oxen and servants. Whether the Hittites were as yet in possession of Kadesh we do not know. If they were, they would have taken part in the struggle against the Egyptians [21] which took place around the walls of Megiddo, and was decided in favour of Thothmes only after a long series of campaigns.

Before Thothmes died, he had made Egypt mistress of Palestine and Syria as far as the banks of the Euphrates and the land of Naharina. One of the bravest of his captains tells us on the walls of his tomb how he had captured prisoners in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and had waded through the waters of the Euphrates when his master assaulted the mighty Hittite fortress of Carchemish. Kadesh on the Orontes had already fallen, and for a time all Western Asia did homage to the Egyptian monarch, even the king of Assyria sending him presents and courting, as it would seem, his alliance. The Egyptian empire touched the land of Naharina on the east and the 'great land of the Hittites' on the north.

But neighbours so powerful could not remain long at peace. A fragmentary inscription records that the first campaign of Thothmes IV., the grandson of Thothmes III., was directed against the Hittites, and Amenophis III., the son and successor of Thothmes IV., found it necessary to support himself by entering into matrimonial alliance with the king of Naharina. The marriage had strange consequences for Egypt. The new queen brought with her not only a foreign name and foreign customs, but a foreign faith as well. She refused to worship Amun of Thebes and the other gods of Egypt, and clung to the religion of her fathers, whose supreme object of adoration was the solar disk. The Hittite monuments themselves bear witness to the prevalence of this worship in Northern Syria. The winged solar disk appears above the figure of a king which has been [22] brought from Birejik on the Euphrates to the British Museum; and even at Boghaz Keui, far away in Northern Asia Minor, the winged solar disk has been carved by Hittite sculptors upon the rock.

Amenophis IV., the son of Amenophis III., was edu- cated in the faith of his mother, and after his accession to the throne endeavoured to impose the new creed upon his unwilling subjects. The powerful priesthood of Thebes withstood him for a while, but at last he assumed the name of Khu-n-Aten. 'the refulgence of the solar disk' and quitting Thebes and its ancient temples he built himself a new capital dedicated to the new divinity. It stood on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of Assiout, and its long line of ruins is now known to the natives under the name of Tel el-Amarna. The city was filled with the adherents of the new creed, and their tombs are yet to be found in the cliffs that enclose the desert on the east. Its existence, however, was of no long duration. After the death of Khu-n- Aten, 'the heretic king' his throne was occupied by one or two princes who had embraced his faith; but their reigns were brief, and they were succeeded by a monarch who returned once more to the religion of his forefathers. The capital of Khu-n-Aten was deserted, and the objects found upon its site show that it was never again inhabited.

Among its ruins a discovery has recently been made which casts an unexpected light upon the history of the Oriental world in the century before the Exodus. A large collection of clay tablets has been found, similar to those disinterred from the mounds of Nineveh and Babylonia, and like the latter inscribed in cuneiform characters and in the Assyro-Babylonian language. [23] They consist for the most part of letters and despatches sent to Khu-n-Aten and his father, Amenophis III., by the governors and rulers of Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia, and they prove that at that time Babylonian was the international language, and the complicated cuneiform system of writing the common means of intercourse, of the educated world. Many of them were transferred by Khu-n-Aten from the royal archives of Thebes to his new city at Tel el-Amarna; the rest were received and stored up after the new city had been built. We learn from them that the Hittites were already pressing southward, and were causing serious alarm to the governors and allies of the Egyptian king. One of the tablets is a despatch from Northern Syria, praying the Egyptian monarch to send assistance against them as soon as possible.

The 'heresy' of Khu-n-Aten brought trouble and disunion into Egypt, and his immediate successors seem to have been forced to retire from Syria. So far from being able to aid their allies, the Egyptian generals found themselves no match for the Hittite armies. Ramses I., the founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty, was compelled to conclude a treaty, defensive and offensive, with the Hittite king Saplel, and thus to recognise that Hittite power was on an equality with that of Egypt.

From this time forward it becomes possible to speak of a Hittite empire. Kadesh was once more in Hittite hands, and the influence formerly enjoyed by Egypt in Palestine and Syria was now enjoyed by its rival. The rude mountaineers of the Taurus had descended into the fertile plains of the south, interrupting the intercourse between Babylonia and Canaan, and superseding the cuneiform characters of Chaldaea by their [24] own hieroglyphic writing. From henceforth the Babylonian language ceased to be the language of diplomacy and education.

With Seti I., the son and successor of Ramses, the power of Egypt again revived. He drove the Beduin and other marauders across the frontiers of the desert and pushed the war into Syria itself. The cities of the Philistines again received Egyptian garrisons; Seti marched his armies as far as the Orontes, fell suddenly upon Kadesh and took it by storm. The war was now begun between Egypt and the Hittites, which lasted for the next half-century. It left Egypt utterly exhausted, and, in spite of the vainglorious boasts of its scribes and poets, glad to make a peace which virtually handed over to her rivals the possession of Asia Minor.

But at first success waited on the arms of Seti. He led his armies once more to the Euphrates and the borders of Naharina, and compelled Mautal, the Hittite monarch, to sue for peace. The natives of the Lebanon received him with acclamations, and cut down their cedars for his ships on the Nile.

When Seti died, however, the Hittites were again in possession of Kadesh, and war had broken out between them and his son Ramses II. The long reign of Ramses II. was a ceaseless struggle against his formidable foes. The war was waged with varying success. Sometimes victory inclined to the Egyptians, sometimes to their Hittite enemies. Its chief result was to bring ruin and disaster upon the cities of the Canaanites. Their land was devastated by the hostile armies which traversed it; their towns were sacked, now by the Hittite invaders from the north, now by the soldiers of Ramses from the south. It was little wonder that [25] their inhabitants fled to island fastnesses, like Tyre, deserting the city on the mainland, which an Egyptian traveller of the age of Ramses tells us had been burnt not long before. We can understand now why they offered so slight a resistance to the invading Israelites. The Exodus took place shortly after the death of Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression; and when Joshua entered Palestine he found there a disunited people and a country exhausted by the long and terrible wars of the preceding century. The way had been prepared by the Hittites for the Israelitish conquest of Canaan.

Pentaur, a sort of Egyptian poet laureate, has left us an epic which records the heroic deeds of Ramses in his first campaign against the Hittites. The actual event which gave occasion to it was an act of bravery performed by the Egyptian monarch before the walls of Kadesh; but the poet has transformed him into a hero capable of superhuman deeds, and has thus produced an epic poem which reminds us of the Greek Iliad. Its details, however, afford a welcome insight into the history of the time, and show to what a height of power the Hittite empire had advanced. Its king could summon to his aid vassal-allies not only from Syria, but from the distant regions of Asia Minor as well. The merchants of Carchemish, the islanders of Arvad, acknowledged his supremacy along with the Dardanians of the Troad and the Maeonians of Lydia. The Hittite empire was already a reality, extending from the banks of the Euphrates to the shores of the Aegean, and including both the cultured Semites of Syria and the rude barbarians of the Greek seas.

It was in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses (B.C. 1383) [26] that the event occurred which was celebrated by the Egyptian Homer. The Egyptian armies had advanced to the Orontes and the neighbourhood of Kadesh. There two Beduin spies were captured, who averred that the Hittite king was far away in the north with his forces, encamped at Aleppo. But the intelligence was false. The Hittites and their allies, multitudinous as the sand on the sea-shore, were really lying in ambush hard by. In their train were the soldiers of Naharina, of the Dardanians and of Mysia, along with numberless other peoples who now owned the Hittite sway. The Hittite monarch 'had left no people on his road without bringing them with him. Their number was endless; nothing like it had ever been before. They covered mountains and valleys like grasshoppers for their number. He had not left silver or gold with his people; he had taken away all their goods and possessions to give it to the people who accompanied him to the war.'

The whole host was concealed in ambush on the north-west side of Kadesh. Suddenly they arose and fell upon the terrified Egyptians by the waters of the Lake of the Amorites, the modern Lake of Horns. The chariots and horses charged 'the legion of Ra-Hormakhis,' and 'foot and horse gave way before them.' The news was carried to the Pharaoh. 'He arose like his father Month, he grasped his weapons, and put on his armour like Baal.' His steed 'Victory in Thebes' bore him in his chariot into the midst of the foe. Then he looked behind him, and behold he was alone. The bravest heroes of the Hittite host beset his retreat, and 2500 hostile chariots were around him. He was abandoned in the midst of the enemy: not a prince, [27] not a captain was with him. Then in his extreme need the Pharaoh called upon his god Amun. 'Where art thou, my father Amun? If this means that the father has forgotten his son, have I done anything without thy knowledge, or have I not gone and followed the precepts of thy mouth? Never were the precepts of thy mouth transgressed, nor have I broken thy com- mandments in any respect. Sovran lord of Egypt, who makest the peoples that withstand thee to bow down, what are these people of Asia to thy heart? Amun brings them low who know not God. . . . Behold now, Amun, I am in the midst of many unknown peoples in great number. All have united themselves, and I am all alone: no other is with me; my warriors and my charioteers have deserted me. I called to them, and not one of them heard my voice.'

The petition of Ramses was heard. Amun 'reached out his hand,' and declared that he was come to help the Pharaoh against his foes. Then Ramses was inspired with supernatural strength. 'I hurled,' he is made to say, 'the dart with my right hand, I fought with my left hand. I was like Baal in his hour before their sight. I had found 2500 chariots; I was in the midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my horses.' The ground was covered with the slain, and the Hittite king fled in terror. His princes again gathered round the Pharaoh, and again Ramses scattered them in a moment. Six times did he charge the Hittite host, and six times they broke and were slaughtered. The strength of Baal was 'in all the limbs' of the Egyptian king.

Now at last his servants came to his aid. But the victory had already been won, and all that remained [28] was for the Pharaoh to upbraid his army for their cowardice and sloth. 'Have I not given what is good to each of you' he exclaims, 'that ye have left me, so that I was alone in the midst of hostile hosts? Forsaken by you, my life was in peril, and you breathed tranquilly, and I was alone. Could you not have said in your hearts that I was a rampart of iron to you? ' It was the horses of the royal chariot and not the troops who deserved reward, and who would obtain it when the king arrived safely home. So Ramses 'returned in victory and strength; he had smitten hundreds of thousands all together in one place with his arm.'

At daybreak the following morning he desired to renew the conflict. The serpent that glowed on the front of his diadem 'spat fire' in the face of his enemies. They were overawed by the deeds of valour he had accomplished single-handed the day before, and feared to resume the fight. 'They remained afar off, and threw themselves down on the earth, to entreat the king in the sight [of his army]. And the king had power over them and slew them without their being able to escape. As bodies tumbled before his horses, so they lay there stretched out all together in their blood. Then the king of the hostile people of the Hittites sent a messenger to pray piteously to the great name of the king, speaking thus: "Thou art Ra-Hormakhis. Thy terror is upon the land of the Hittites, for thou hast broken the neck of the Hittites for ever and ever."'

The army of Ramses seconded the prayer of the herald that the Egyptians and Hittites should hence-forward be 'brothers together.' A treaty was accordingly made; but it was soon broken, and it was not [29] until sixteen years later that peace was finally established between the two rival powers.

The act of personal prowess upon which the heroic poem of Pentaur was built may have covered what had really been a check to the Egyptian arms. At all events, it is significant that no attempt was made to capture Kadesh, and that even the poet acknowledges how ready the Egyptian soldiers were to come to terms with their enemies. Equally significant is the fact that the war against the Hittites still went on; in the eighth year of the Pharaoh's reign Palestine was overrun and certain cities captured, including Dapur or Tabor 'in the land of the Amorites' while other campaigns were directed against Ashkelon, in the south, and the city of Tunep or Tennib, in the north. When a lasting treaty of peace was at last concluded in the twenty-first year of Ramses, its conditions show that 'the great king of the Hittites' treated on equal terms with the great king of Egypt, and that even Ramses himself, whom later legend magnified into the Sesostris of the Greeks, was fain to acknowledge the power of his Hittite adversaries. The treaty was sealed by the marriage of the Pharaoh with the daughter of the Hittite king.

The treaty, of which we possess the Egyptian text in full, was a very remarkable one, not only because it is the first treaty of the kind of which we know, but also on account of its contents. It ran as follows [This translation is the one given by Brugsch in the second edition of the English translation of his History of Egypt]:

'In the year twenty-one, in the month Tybi, on the 21st day of the month, in the reign of King Ramessu Miamun, the dispenser of life eternally and for ever, the worshipper of the divinities Amon-Ra (of Thebes), [30] Hormakhu (of Heliopolis), Ptah (of Memphis), Mut the lady of the Asher-lake (near Karnak), and Khonsu, the peace-loving, there took place a public sitting on the throne of Horus among the living, resembling his father Hormakhu in eternity, in eternity, evermore.

'On that day the king was in the city of Ramses, presenting his peace-offerings to his father Amon-Ra, and to the gods Hormakhu-Tum, to Ptah of Ramessu- Miamun, and to Sutekh, the strong, the son of the goddess of heaven Nut, that they might grant to him many thirty years' jubilee feasts, and innumerable happy years, and the subjection of all peoples under his feet for ever.

'Then came forward the ambassador of the king, and the Adon [of his house, by name . . . . , and presented the ambassadors] of the great king of Kheta, Kheta-sira, who were sent to Pharaoh to propose friendship with the king Ramessu Miamun, the dispenser of life eternally and for ever, just as his father the Sun-god [dispenses it] each day.

'This is the copy of the contents of the silver tablet, which the great king of Kheta, Kheta-sira, had caused to be made, and which was presented to the Pharaoh by the hand of his ambassador Tartisebu and his ambassador Ra-mes, to propose friendship with the king Ramessu Miamun, the bull among the princes, who places his boundary-marks where it pleases him in all lands.

'The treaty which had been proposed by the great king of Kheta, Kheta-sira, the powerful, the son of Maur-sira, the powerful, the son of the son of Sapalil, the great king of Kheta, the powerful, on the silver tablet, to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, the powerful, the son of Meneptah Seti, the great prince [31] of Egypt, the powerful, the son's son of Ramessu I., the great king of Egypt, the powerful, —this was a good treaty for friendship and concord, which assured peace [and established concord] for a longer period than was previously the case, since a long time. For it was the agreement of the great prince of Egypt in common with the great king of Kheta, that the god should not allow enmity to exist between them, on the basis of a treaty.

'To wit, in the times of Mautal, the great king of Kheta, my brother, he was at war with [Meneptah Seti] the great prince of Egypt.

'But now, from this very day forward, Kheta-sira, the great king of Kheta, shall look upon this treaty, so that the agreement may remain, which the god Ra has made, which the god Sutekh has made, for the people of Egypt and for the people of Kheta, that there should be no more enmity between them for evermore.'

And these are the contents : —

'Kheta-sira, the great king of Kheta, is in covenant with Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, from this very day forward, that there may subsist a good friendship and a good understanding between them for evermore.

'He shall be my ally; he shall be my friend: I will be his ally; I will be his friend: for ever.

'To wit, in the time of Mautal, the great king of Kheta, his brother, after his murder Kheta-sira placed himself on the throne of his father as the great king of Kheta. I strove for friendship with Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, and it is [my wish] that the friendship and the concord may be better than the friendship and the concord which before existed, and which was broken.

'I declare: I, the great king of Kheta, will hold [32] together with [Ramessu Miamun], the great prince of Egypt, in good friendship and in good concord. The sons of the sons of the great king of Kheta will hold together and be friends with the sons of the sons of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt.

'In virtue of our treaty for concord, and in virtue of our agreement [for friendship, let the people] of Egypt [be united in friendship] with the people of Kheta. Let a like friendship and a like concord subsist in such manner for ever.

'Never let enmity rise between them. Never let the great king of Kheta invade the land of Egypt, if anything shall have been plundered from it. Never let Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, over-step the boundary of the land [of Kheta, if anything shall have been plundered] from it.

'The just treaty, which existed in the times of Sapalil, the great king of Kheta, likewise the just treaty which existed in the times of Mautal, the great king of Kheta, my brother, that will I keep.

'Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, declares that he will keep it. [We have come to an understanding about it] with one another at the same time from this day forward, and we will fulfil it, and will act in a righteous manner.

'If another shall come as an enemy to the lands of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, then let him send an embassy to the great king of Kheta to this effect: "Come! and make me stronger than him." Then shall the great king of Kheta [assemble his warriors], and the king of Kheta [shall come] to smite his enemies. But if it should not be the wish of the great king of Kheta to march out in person, then he shall [33] send his warriors and his chariots, that they may smite his enemies. Otherwise [he would incur] the wrath of Ramessu Miamun, [the great prince of Egypt. And if Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, should banish] for a crime subjects from his country, and they should commit another crime against him, then shall he (the king of Kheta) come forward to kill them. The great king of Kheta shall act in common with [the great prince of Egypt.

'If another should come as an enemy to the lands of the great king of Kheta, then shall he send an embassy to the great prince of Egypt with the request that] he would come in great power to kill his enemies; and if it be the intention of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, to come (himself), he shall [smite the enemies of the great king of Kheta. If it is not the intention of the great prince of Egypt to march out in person, then he shall send his warriors and his two-] horse chariots, while he sends back the answer to the people of Kheta.

'If any subjects of the great king of Kheta have offended him, then Ramessu Miamun, [the great prince of Egypt, shall not receive them in his land, but shall advance to kill them] .... the oath, with the wish to say: I will go ... . until .... Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, living for ever .... that he may be given for them (?) to the lord, and that Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, may speak according to his agreement evermore. . . .

The Hittites
The Story of a Forgotten Empire

by A. H. Sayce

Chapter II. The Hittites on the Monuments of Egypt and Assyria (continued).

'[If servants shall flee away] out of the territories of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, to betake themselves to the great king of Kheta, the great king of Kheta shall not receive them, but the great king of Kheta [34] shall give them up to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, [that they may receive their punishment.

'If servants of Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, leave his country], and betake themselves to the land of Kheta, to make themselves servants of another, they shall not remain in the land of Kheta; [they shall be given up] to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt.

'If, on the other hand, there should flee away [servants of the great king of Kheta, in order to betake themselves to] Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, [in order to stay in Egypt], then those who have come from the land of Kheta in order to betake themselves to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, shall not be [received by] Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, [but] the great prince of Egypt, Ramessu Miamun, [shall deliver them up to the great kingof Kheta].

'[And if there shall leave the land of Kheta persons] of skilful mind, so that they come to the land of Egypt to make themselves servants of another, then Ramessu Miamun will not allow them to settle, he will deliver them up to the great king of Kheta.

'When this [treaty] shall be known [by the inhabitants of the land of Egypt and of the land of Kheta, then shall they not offend against it, for all that stands written on] the silver tablet, these are words which will have been approved by the company of the gods among the male gods and among the female gods, among those namely of the land of Egypt. They are witnesses for me [to the validity] of these words, [which they have allowed.

'This is the catalogue of the gods of the land of Kheta:—

[35]

(1) 'Sutekh of the city] of Tunep [Note: now Tennib in Northern Syria],
(2) 'Sutekh of the land of Kheta,
(3) 'Sutekh of the city of Arnema,
(4) 'Sutekh of the city of Zaranda,
(5) 'Sutekh of the city of Pilqa,
(6) 'Sutekh of the city of Khisasap,
(7) 'Sutekh of the city of Sarsu,
(8) 'Sutekh of the city of Khilip (Aleppo),
(9) 'Sutekh of the city of . . . .,
(10) 'Sutekh of the city of Sarpina,
(11) 'Astarta [Note: Also read Antarata] of the land of Kheta,
(12) 'The god of the land of Zaiath-khirri,
(13) 'The god of the land of Ka . . .,
(14) 'The god of the land of Kher . . .,
(15) 'The goddess of the city of Akh . . .,
(16) '[The goddess of the city of . . .] and of the land of A . . ua,
(17) 'The goddess of the land of Zaina,
(18) 'The god of the land of . . nath . . er.

'[I have invoked these male and these] female [gods of the land of Kheta, these are the gods] of the land, [as witnesses to] my oath. [With them have been associated the male and the female gods] of the mountains and of the rivers of the land of Kheta, the gods of the land of Qazauadana, Amon, Ra, Sutekh, and the male and female gods of the land of Egypt, of the earth, of the sea, of the winds, and of the storms.

'With regard to the commandment which the silver tablet contains for the people of Kheta and for the people of Egypt, he who shall not observe it shall be given over [to the vengeance] of the company of the [36] gods of Kheta, and shall be given over [to the vengeance] of the gods of Egypt, [he] and his house and his servants.

'But he who shall observe these commandments which the silver tablet contains, whether he be of the people of Kheta or [of the people of Egypt], because he has not neglected them, the company of the gods of the land of Kheta and the company of the gods of the land of Egypt shall secure his reward and preserve life [for him] and his servants and those who are with him and who are with his servants.

'If there flee away of the inhabitants [one from the land of Egypt], or two or three, and they betake themselves to the great king of Kheta [the great king of Kheta shall not] allow them [to remain, but he shall] deliver them up, and send them back to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt.

'Now with respect to the [inhabitant of the land of Egypt], who is delivered up to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, his fault shall not be avenged upon him, his [house] shall not be taken away, nor his [wife] nor his [children]. There shall not be [put to death his mother, neither shall he be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor on the soles of his feet], so that thus no crime shall be brought forward against him.

'In the same way shall it be done if inhabitants of the land of Kheta take to flight, be it one alone, or two, or three, to betake themselves to Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt. Ramessu Miamun, the great prince of Egypt, shall cause them to be seized, and they shall be delivered up to the great king of Kheta.

'[With regard to] him who [is delivered up, his crime [37] shall not be brought forward against him]. His [house] shall not be taken away, nor his wives, nor his children, nor his people; his mother shall not be put to death; he shall not be punished in his eyes, nor on his mouth, nor on the soles of his feet, nor shall any accusation be brought forward against him.

'That which is in the middle of this silver tablet and on its front side is a likeness of the god Sutekh .... surrounded by an inscription to this effect: "This is the [picture] of the god Sutekh, the king of heaven and [earth]." At the time (?) of the treaty which Kheta-sira, the great king of the Kheta, made . . .'

This compact of offensive and defensive alliance proves more forcibly than any description the position to which the Hittite empire had attained. It ranked side by side with the Egypt of Ramses, the last great Pharaoh who ever ruled over the land of the Nile. With Egypt it had contested the sovereignty of Western Asia, and had compelled the Egyptian monarch to consent to peace. Egypt and the Hittites were now the two lead- ing powers of the world.

The treaty was ratified by the visit of the Hittite prince Kheta-sira to Egypt in his national costume, and the marriage of his daughter to Ramses in the thirty-fourth year of the Pharaoh's reign (B.C. 1354). She took the Egyptian name of Ur-maa Noferu-Ra, and her beauty was celebrated by the scribes of the court. Syria was handed over to the Hittites as their legitimate possession; Egypt never again attempted to wrest it from them, and if the Hittite yoke was to be shaken off it must be through the efforts of the Syrians themselves. For a while, however, 'the great king of the Hittites' preserved his power intact; his [38] supremacy was acknowledged from the Euphrates in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west, from Kappadokia in the north to the tribes of Canaan in the south. Even Naharina, once the antagonist of the Egyptian Pharaohs, acknowledged his sovereignty, and Pethor, the home of Balaam, at the junction of the Euphrates and the Sajur, became a Hittite town. The cities of Philistia, indeed, still sent tribute to the Egyptian ruler, but northwards the Hittite sway seems to have been omnipotent. The Amorites of the mountains allied themselves with 'the children of Heth,' and the Canaanites in the lowlands looked to them for protection. The Israelites had not as yet thrust themselves between the two great powers of the Oriental world: it was still possible for a Hittite sovereign to visit Egypt, and for an Egyptian traveller to explore the cities of Canaan.

After sixty-six years of vainglorious splendour the long reign of Ramses II. came to an end (B.C. 1322). The Israelites had toiled for him in building Pithom and Raamses, and on the accession of his son and successor, Meneptah, they demanded permission to depart from Egypt. The history of the Exodus is too well known to be recounted here; it marks the close of the period of conquest and prosperity which Egypt had enjoyed under the kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. Early in his reign Meneptah had sent corn by sea to the Hittites at a time when there was a famine in Syria, showing that the peaceful relations established during the reign of his father were still in force. Despatches dated in his third year also exist, which speak of letters and messengers passing to and fro between Egypt and Phoenicia, and make it clear that Gaza was still garrisoned by Egyptian troops. But in the fifth [39] year of his reign Egypt was invaded by a confederacy of white-skinned tribes from Libya and the shores of Asia Minor, who overran the Delta and threatened the very existence of the Egyptian monarchy. Egypt, however, was saved by a battle in which the invading host was almost annihilated, but not before it had itself been half drained of its resources, and weakened correspondingly.

Not many years afterwards the dynasty of Ramses the Oppressor descended to its grave in bloodshed and disaster. Civil war broke out, followed by foreign invasion, and the crown was seized by 'Arisu the Phoenician.' But happier times again arrived. Once more the Egyptians obeyed a native prince, and the Twentieth Dynasty was founded. Its one great king was Ramses III., who rescued his country from two invasions more formidable even than that which had been beaten back by Meneptah. Like the latter, they were conducted by the Libyans and the nations of the Greek seas, and the invaders were defeated partly on the land, partly on the water. The maritime confederacy included the Teukrians of the Troad, the Lykians and the Philistines, perhaps also the natives of Sardinia and Sicily. They had flung themselves in the first instance on the coasts of Phoenicia, and spread inland as far as Carchemish. Laden with spoil, they fixed their camp 'in the land of the Amorites' and then descended upon Egypt. The Hittites of Carchemish and the people of Matenau of Naharina came in their train, and a long and terrible battle took place on the sea-shore between Raphia and Pelusium. The Egyptians were victorious; the ships of the enemy were sunk, and their soldiers slain or captured. Egypt was once more filled with captives, [40] and the flame of its former glory flickered again for a moment before finally going out.

The list of prisoners shows that the Hittite tribes had taken part in the struggle, Carchemish, Aleppo, and Pethor being specially named as having sent contingents to the war. They had probably marched by land, while their allies from Asia Minor and the islands of the Mediterranean had attacked the Egyptian coast in ships. So far as we can gather, the Hittite populations no longer acknowledged the suzerainty of an imperial sovereign, but were divided into independent states. It would seem, too, that they had lost their hold upon Mysia and the far west. The Tsekkri and the Leku, the Shardaina and the Shakalsha are said to have attacked their cities before proceeding on their southward march. If we can trust the statement, we must conclude that the Hittite empire had already broken up. The tribes of Asia Minor it had conquered were in revolt, and had carried the war into the homes of their former masters. However this may be, it is certain that from this time forward the power of the Hittites in Syria began to wane. Little by little the Aramaean population pushed them back into their northern fastnesses, and throughout the period of the Israelitish judges we never hear even of their name. The Hittite chieftains advance no longer to the south of Kadesh; and though Israel was once oppressed by a king who had come from the north, he was king of Aram-Naharaim, the Naharina of the Egyptian texts, and not a Hittite prince.

Where the Egyptian monuments desert us, those of Assyria come to our help. The earliest notices of the Hittites found in the cuneiform texts are contained in a great work on astronomy and astrology, originally [41] compiled for an early king of Babylonia. The references to 'the king of the Hittites,' however, which meet us in it, cannot be ascribed to a remote date. One of the chief objects aimed at by the author (or authors) of the work was to foretell the future, it being supposed that a particular event which had followed a certain celestial phenomenon would be repeated when the phenomenon happened again. Consequently it was the fashion to introduce into the work from time to time fresh notices of events; and some of these glosses, as we may term them, are probably not older than the seventh century B.C. It is, therefore, impossible to determine the exact date to which the allusions to the Hittite king belong, but there are indications that it is comparatively late. The first clear account that the Assyrian inscriptions give us concerning the Hittites, to which we can attach a date, is met with in the annals of Tiglath-pileser I.

Tiglath-pileser I. was the most famous monarch of the first Assyrian empire, and he reigned about 1110 B.C. He carried his arms northward and westward, penetrating into the bleak and trackless mountains of Armenia, and forcing his way as far as Malatiyeh in Kappadokia. His annals present us with a very full and interesting picture of the geography of these regions at the time of his reign. Kummukh or Komagene, which at that epoch extended southward from Malatiyeh in the direction of Carchemish, was one of the first objects of his attack. 'At the beginning of my reign,' he says, '20,000 Moschians (or men of Meshech) and their five kings, who for fifty years had taken possession of the countries of Alzi and Purukuzzi, which had formerly paid tribute and taxes to Assur my lord—no king (before me) had opposed them in battle—trusted [42] to their strength, and came down and seized the land of Kummukh.' The Assyrian king, however, marched against them, and defeated them in a pitched battle with great slaughter, and then proceeded to carry fire and sword through the cities of Kummukh. Its ruler Kili-anteru, the son of Kali-anteru, was captured along with his wives and family; and Tiglath-pileser next proceeded to besiege the stronghold of Urrakhinas. Its prince Sadi-anteru, the son of Khattukhi, 'the Hittite,' threw himself at the conqueror's feet; his life was spared, and 'the wide-spreading land of Kummukh' became tributary to Assyria, objects of bronze being the chief articles it had to offer. About the same time, 4000 troops belonging to the Kaska or Kolkhians and the people of Uruma, both of whom are described as 'soldiers of the Hittites' and as having occupied the northern cities of Mesopotamia, submitted voluntarily to the Assyrian monarch, and were transported to Assyria along with their chariots and their property. Uruma was the Urima of classical geography, which lay on the Euphrates a little to the north of Birejik, so that we know the exact locality to which these 'Hittite soldiers 'belonged. In fact, 'Hittite 'must have been a general name given to the inhabitants of all this district; the modern Merash, for instance, lies within the limits of the ancient Kummukh; and, as we shall see, it is from Merash that a long Hittite inscription has come.

Tiglath-pileser attacked Kummukh a second time, and on this occasion penetrated still further into the mountain fastnesses of the Hittite country. In a third campaign his armies came in sight of Malatiyeh itself, but the king contented himself with exacting a small yearly tribute from the city, 'having had pity upon it, [43] as he tells us, though more probably the truth was that he found himself unable to take it by storm. But he never succeeded in forcing his way across the fords of the Euphrates, which were commanded by the great fortress of Carchemish. Once he harried the land of Mitanni or Naharina, slaying and spoiling 'in one day' from Carchemish southwards to a point that faced the deserts of the nomad Sukhi, the Shuhites of the Book of Job. It was on this occasion that he killed ten elephants in the neighbourhood of Harran and on the banks of the Khabour, besides four wild bulls which he hunted with arrows and spears 'in the land of Mitanni and in the city of Araziqi' (1) [Note: Called Eragiza in classical geography and in the Talmud.], which lies opposite to the land of the Hittites'

Towards the end of the twelfth century before our era, therefore, the Hittites were still strong enough to keep one of the mightiest of the Assyrian kings in check. It is true that they no longer obeyed a single head; it is also true that that portion of them which was settled in the land of Kummukh was overrun by the Assyrian armies, and forced to pay tribute to the Assyrian invader. But Carchemish compelled the respect of Tiglath-pileser; he never ventured to approach its walls or to cross the river which it was intended to defend. His way was barred to the west, and he never succeeded in traversing the high road which led to Phoenicia and Palestine.

After the death of Tiglath-pileser I. the Assyrian inscriptions fail us. His successors allowed the empire to fall into decay, and more than two hundred years elapsed before the curtain is lifted again. These two hundred years had witnessed the rise and fall of the [44] kingdom of David and Solomon as well as the growth of a new power, that of the Syrians of Damascus.

Damascus rose on the ruins of the empire of Solomon. But its rise also shows plainly that the power of the Hittites in Syria was beginning to wane. Hadad-ezer, king of Zobah, the antagonist of David, had been able to send for aid to the Arameans of Naharina, on the eastern side of the Euphrates (2 Sam. x. 16), and with them he had marched to Helam, in which it is possible to see the name of Aleppo (1) [Note: Called Khalman in the Assyrian texts. Josephus changes Helam into the proper name Khalaman.]. It is clear that the Hittites were no longer able to keep the Aramean population in subjection, or to prevent an Aramean prince of Zobah from expelling them from the territory they had once made their own. Indeed, it may be that in one passage of the Old Testament allusion is made to an attack which Hadad-ezer was preparing against them. When it is stated that he was overthrown by David, 'as he was going to turn his hand against the river Euphrates '(2 Sam. viii. 3), it may be that it was against the Hittites of Carchemish that his armies were about to be directed. At any rate, support for this view is found in a further statement of the sacred historian. 'When Toi king of Hamath,' we learn, 'heard that David had smitten all the host of Hadad-ezer, then Toi sent Joram his son unto king David, to salute him, and to bless him, because he had fought against Hadad-ezer and smitten him; for Hadad-ezer had wars with Toi' (2 Sam. viii. 9, 10). Now we know from the monuments that have been discovered on the spot that Hamath was once a Hittite city, and there is no reason for not believing that it was still in the possession of the Hittites in the [45] age of David. Its Syrian enemies would in that case have been the same as the enemies of David, and a common danger would thus have united it with Israel in an alliance which ended only in its overthrow by the Assyrians.

As late as the time of Uzziah, we are told by the Assyrian inscriptions, the Jewish king was in league with Hamath, and the last independent ruler of Hamath was Yahu-bihdi, a name in which we recognise that of the God of Israel. Indeed, the very fact that the Syrians imagined that 'the kings of the Hittites' were coming to the rescue of Samaria, when besieged by the forces of Damascus, goes to show that Israel and the Hittites were regarded as natural friends, whose natural adversaries were the Arameans of Syria. As the power and growth of Israel had been built up on the conquest and subjugation of the Semitic populations of Palestine, so too the power of the Hittites had been gained at the expense of their Semitic neighbours. The triumph of Syria was a blow alike to the Hittites of Carchemish and to the Hebrews of Samaria and Jerusalem.

With Assur-natsir-pal, whose reign extended from B.C. 885 to 860, contemporaneous Assyrian history begins afresh. His campaigns and conquests rivalled those of Tiglath-pileser I., and indeed exceeded them both in extent and in brutality. Like his predecessor, he ex- acted tribute from Kummukh as well as from the kings of the country in which Malatiyeh was situated; but with better fortune than Tiglath-pileser he succeeded in passing the Euphrates, and obliging Sangara of Carchemish to pay him homage. It is clear that Carchemish was no longer as strong as it had been two centuries before, and that the power of its defenders was gradually [46] vanishing away. There was still, however, a small Hittite population on the eastern bank of the Euphrates; at all events, Assur-natsir-pal describes the tribe of Bakhian on that side of the river as Hittite, and it was only after receiving tribute from them that he crossed the stream in boats and approached the land of Gargamis or Carchemish. But his threatened assault upon the Hittite stronghold was bought off with rich and numerous presents. Twenty talents of silver—the favourite metal of the Hittite princes—'cups of gold, chains of gold, blades of gold, 100 talents of copper, 250 talents of iron, gods of copper in the form of wild bulls, bowls of copper, libation cups of copper, a ring of copper, the multitudinous furniture of the royal palace, of which the like was never received, couches and thrones of rare woods and ivory, 200 slave-girls, garments of variegated cloth and linen, masses of black crystal and blue crystal, precious stones, the tusks of elephants, a white chariot, small images of gold,' as well as ordinary chariots and war-horses,—such were the treasures poured into the lap of the Assyrian monarch by the wealthy but unwarlike king of Carchemish. They give us an idea of the wealth to which the city had attained through its favourable position on the high-road of commerce that ran from the east to the west. The uninterrupted prosperity of several centuries had filled it with merchants and riches; in later days we find the Assyrian inscriptions speaking of 'the maneh of Carchemish' as one of the recognised standards of value. Carchemish had become a city of merchants, and no longer felt itself able to oppose by arms the trained warriors of the Assyrian king.

Quitting Carchemish, Assur-natsir-pal pursued his [47] march westwards, and after passing the land of Akhanu on his left, fell upon the town of Azaz near Aleppo, which belonged to the king of the Patinians. The latter people were of Hittite descent, and occupied the country between the river Afrin and the shores of the Gulf of Antioch. The Assyrian armies crossed the Afrin and appeared before the walls of the Patinian capital. Large bribes, however, induced them to turn away southward, and to advance along the Orontes in the direction of the Lebanon. Here Assur-natsir-pal received the tribute of the Phoenician cities.

Shalmaneser II., the son and successor of Assur-natsir- pal, continued the warlike policy of his father (B.C. 860- 825). The Hittite princes were again a special object of attack. Year after year Shalmaneser led his armies against them, and year after year did he return home laden with spoil. The aim of his policy is not difficult to discover. He sought to break the power of the Hittite race in Syria, to possess himself of the fords across the Euphrates and the high-road which brought the merchandise of Phoenicia to the traders of Nineveh, and eventually to divert the commerce of the Mediterranean to his own country. By the overthrow of the Patinians he made himself master of the cedar forests of Amanus, and his palaces were erected with the help of their wood. Sangara of Carchemish, it is true, perceived his danger, and a league of the Hittite princes was formed to resist the common foe. Contingents came not only from Kummukh and from the Patinians, but from Cilicia and the mountain ranges of Asia Minor. It was, however, of no avail. The Hittite forces were driven from the field, and their leaders were compelled to purchase peace by the payment of tribute. Once [48] more Carchemish gave up its gold and silver, its bronze and copper, its purple vestures and curiously-adorned thrones, and the daughter of Sangara himself was carried away to the harem of the Assyrian king. Pethor, the city of Balaam, was turned into an Assyrian colony, its very name being changed to an Assyrian one. The way into Hamath and Phoenicia at last lay open to the Assyrian host. At Aleppo Shalmaneser offered sacrifices to the native god Hadad, and then descended upon the cities of Hamath. At Karkar he was met by a great confederacy formed by the kings of Hamath and Damascus, to which Ahab of Israel had contributed 2000 chariots and 10,000 men. But nothing could withstand the onslaught of the Assyrian veterans. The enemy were scattered like chaff, and the river Orontes was reddened with their blood. The battle of Karkar (in B.C. 854) brought the Assyrians into contact with Damascus, and caused Jehu on a later occasion to send tribute to the Assyrian king.

The subsequent history of Shalmaneser concerns us but little. The power of the Hittites south of the Taurus had been broken for ever. The Semite had avenged himself for the conquest of his country by the northern mountaineers centuries before. They no longer formed a barrier which cut off the east from the west, and prevented the Semites of Assyria and Babylon from meeting the Semites of Phoenicia and Palestine. The intercourse which had been interrupted in the age of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt could now be again resumed. Carchemish ceased to command the fords of the Euphrates, and was forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the Assyrian invader. In fact, the Hittites of Syria had become little more than tributaries of the [49] Assyrian monarch. When an insurrection broke out among the Patinians, in consequence of which the rightful king was killed and his throne seized by an usurper, Shalmaneser claimed and exercised the right to interfere. A new sovereign was appointed by him, and he set up an image of himself in the capital city of the Patinian people.

The change that had come over the relations between the Assyrians and the Hittite population is marked by a curious fact. From the time of Shalmaneser onwards, the name of Hittite is no longer used by the Assyrian writers in a correct sense. It is extended so as to embrace all the inhabitants of Northern Syria on the western side of the Euphrates, and subsequently came to include the inhabitants of Palestine as well. Khatta or 'Hittite' became synonymous with Syrian. How this happened is not difficult to explain. The first populations of Syria with whom the Assyrians had come into contact were of Hittite origin. When their power was broken, and the Assyrian armies had forced their way past the barrier they had so long presented to the invader, it was natural that the states next traversed by the Assyrian generals should be supposed also to belong to them. Moreover, many of these states were actually dependent on the Hittite princes, though inhabited by an Aramean people. The Hittites had imposed their yoke upon an alien race of Aramean descent, and accordingly in Northern Syria Hittite and Aramean cities and tribes were intermingled together. 'I took,' says Shalmaneser, 'what the men of the land of the Hittites had called the city of Pethor (Pitru)' which is upon the river Sajur (Sagura), on the further side of the Euphrates, and the city of Mudkinu, on the [50] eastern side of the Euphrates, which Tiglath-pileser (I.), the royal forefather who went before me, had united to my country, and Assur-rab-buri king of Assyria and the king of the Arameans had taken (from it) by a treaty.' At a later date Shalmaneser marched from Pethor to Aleppo, and there offered sacrifices to 'the god of the city,' Hadad-Rimmon, whose name betrays the Semitic character of its population. The Hittites, in short, had never been more than a conquering upper class in Syria, like the Normans in Sicily; and as time went on the subject population gained more and more upon them. Like all similar aristocracies, they tended to die out or to be absorbed into the native population of the country.

They still held possession of Carchemish, however, and the decadence of the first Assyrian empire gave them an unexpected respite. But the revolution which placed Tiglath-pileser III. on the throne of Assyria, in B.C. 725, brought with it the final doom of Hittite supremacy. Assyria entered upon a new career of conquest, and under its new rulers established an empire which extended over the whole of Western Asia. In B.C. 717 Carchemish finally fell before the armies of Sargon, and its last king Pisiris became the captive of the Assyrian king. Its trade and wealth passed into Assyrian hands, it was colonised by Assyrians and placed under an Assyrian satrap. The great Hittite stronghold on the Euphrates, which had been for so many centuries the visible sign of their power and southern conquests, became once more the possession of a Semitic people. The long struggle that had been carried on between the Hittites and the Semites was at an end; the Semite had triumphed, and the Hittite [51] was driven back into the mountains from whence he had come.

But he did not yield without a struggle. The year following the capture of Carchemish saw Sargon confronted by a great league of the northern peoples, Meshech, Tubal, Melitene and others, under the leadership of the king of Ararat. The league, however, was shattered in a decisive battle, the king of Ararat committed suicide, and in less than three years Komagene was annexed to the Assyrian empire. The Semite of Nineveh was supreme in the Eastern world.

Ararat was the name given by the Assyrians to the district in the immediate neighbourhood of Lake Van, as well as to the country to the south of it. It was not until post-Biblical days that the name was extended to the north, so that the modern Mount Ararat obtained a title which originally belonged to the Kurdish range in the south. But Ararat was not the native name of the country. This was Biainas or Bianas, a name which still survives in that of Lake Van. Numerous inscriptions are scattered over the country, written in cuneiform characters borrowed from Nineveh in the time of Assur-natsir-pal or his son Shalmaneser, but in a language which bears no resemblance to that of Assyria. They record the building of temples and palaces, the offerings made to the gods, and the campaigns of the Vannic kings. Among the latter mention is made of campaigns against the Khate or Hittites.

The first of these campaigns was conducted by a king called Menuas, who reigned in the ninth century before our era. He overran the land of Alzi, and then found himself in the land of the Hittites. Here he plundered the cities of Surisilis and Tarkhi-gamas [52] belonging to the Hittite prince Sada-halis, and captured a number of soldiers, whom he dedicated to the service of his god Khaldis. On another occasion he marched as far as the city of Malatiyeh, and after passing through the country of the Hittites, caused an inscription commemorating his conquests to be engraved on the cliffs of Palu. Palu is situated on the northern bank of the Euphrates, about midway between Malatiyeh and Van, and as it lies to the east of the ancient district of Alzi, we can form some idea of the exact geographical position to which the Hittites of Menuas must be assigned. His son and successor, Argistis I, again made war upon them, and we gather from one of his inscriptions that the city of Malatiyeh was itself included among their fortresses. The 'land of the Hittites' according to the statements of the Vannic kings, stretched along the banks of the Euphrates from Palu on the east as far as Malatiyeh on the west.

The Hittites of the Assyrian monuments lived to the south-west of this region, spreading through Komagene to Carchemish and Aleppo. The Egyptian records bring them yet further south to Kadesh on the Orontes, while the Old Testament carries the name into the extreme south of Palestine. It is evident, therefore, that we must see in the Hittite tribes fragments of a race whose original seat was in the ranges of the Taurus, but who had pushed their way into the warm plains and valleys of Syria and Palestine. They belonged originally to Asia Minor, not to Syria, and it was conquest only which gave them a right to the name of Syrians. 'Hittite' was their true title, and whether the tribes to which it belonged lived in Judah or on the Orontes, at Carchemish or in the neighbourhood of [53] Palu, this was the title under which they were known. We must regard it as a national name, which clung to them in all their conquests and migrations, and marked them out as a peculiar people, distinct from the other races of the Eastern world. It is now time to see what their own monuments have to tell us regarding them, and the influence they exercised upon the history of mankind.

The Philistines were among the Sea Peoples, probably of Aegean origin, who first appeared in the E Mediterranean at the end of the 13th century B.C. These peoples were displaced from their original homelands as part of the extensive population movements characteristic of the end of the LB Age. During this period, the Egyptians and the Hittites ruled in the Levant, but both powers were in a general state of decline. The Sea Peoples exploited this power vacuum by invading areas previously subject to Egyptian and Hittite control, launching land and sea attacks on Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, to which various Egyptian sources attest.

The various translations of the name Philistine in the different versions of the Bible reveal that even in early times translators and exegetes were unsure of their identity. In the LXX, for example, the name is usually translated as allopsyloi ("strangers"), but it occurs also as phylistieim in the Pentateuch and Joshua. In the Hebrew Bible, the Philistines are called Pelishtim, a term defining them as the inhabitants ofPeleshet, i.e., the coastal plain of S Palestine. Assyrian sources call them
both Pilisti and Palastu. The Philistines appear as prst in Egyptian sources.

Encountering the descendants of the Philistines on the coast of S Palestine, the historian Herodotus, along with sailors and travelers from the Persian period onward called them palastinoi and their countrypalastium. The use of these names in the works of Josephus, where they are common translations
forPhilistines and Philistia and, in some cases, for the entire land of Palestine, indicates the extent to which the names had gained acceptance by Roman times. The emperor Hadrian officially designated the province of Judaea Provincia Palaestine, and by the 4th century C.E., the shortened name Palaestinahad become the general term for the whole of Palestine.

The biblical references to Philistine origins are few and enigmatic. The first appears in the "Table of Nations" in Gen 10:14. The probable meaning of this verse, insofar as it relates to the Philistines, is ". . . and the Caphtorim, out of whom came the Philistines." The homeland of the Philistines, Caphtor (cf. Amos 9:7, Jer 47:4, Deut 2:23), is generally recognized by scholars as Crete, although some believe Caphtor to be located in Cilicia in Asia Minor. In other biblical references, the Philistines are synonymous with the Cherethites, that is Cretans (cf. Zeph 2:5, Ezek 25:16). Various biblical traditions, then, suggest that the Caphtorim are to be identified with the Cherethites, thus linking the Philistines with a Cretan homeland. The evidence supplied by the architectural remains, material culture and pottery from archaeological sites in Israel, strongly suggests that the Philistines originated in the Aegean.

Several key references to the Sea Peoples have been identified in Egyptian sources. According to inscriptions of Pharaoh Merneptah (ca. 1236-1223 B.C.), the Sea Peoples attempted to invade Egypt from the direction of Libya. The attack was led by

Libyans joined by "foreigners from the Sea" - the Sherden, Sheklesh, Lukka, Tursha (Teresh), and Akawasha. This list of Sea Peoples does not, however, include references to the Philistines and Tjekker, who are first mentioned as invaders during the reign of Rameses III (ca. 1198-1166 B.C.). The reliefs and inscriptions at his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in Thebes describe fierce naval and land battles with the Sea Peoples. An inscription under the land battle scene indicates that the Egyptian army fought the Sea Peoples in the "land of Djahi," i.e., the Phoenician coast and hinterland down to Palestine.

This information is supplemented by the Harris Papyrus I, in which Rameses' decisive defeat of the Sea Peoples, including the Philistines, is described. Subsequently, Rameses gave the Philistines permission to settle on the S coastal plain of Palestine. There they vied with the disunited Canaanite city-states and the newly arrived Israelites for cultural and political domination of the country.

The Onomasticon of Amenope, which dates from the end of the 12th or beginning of the 11th century, mentions the areas settled by the Sea Peoples in Palestine, as part of the sphere of Egyptian influence. It records a number of peoples, lands, and cities. Three ethnic groups, the Sherden (srhn), the Tjekker(tkr), and the Philistines (prst) are listed, together with Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Gaza, cities situated in the territory controlled by the Philistines.

Philistia, "The land of the Philistines," consisted of five major cities - Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron - which were united in a confederation. In addition to the Pentapolis, several smaller Philistine cities, called "villages" or banot ("daughters"), are mentioned in the Bible. These include Ziklag, Timna, and Jabneh. The role of these smaller cities was as secondary, nearly autonomous centers under the control of the capitals of the city-states.

The territory of the Philistines as defined in Josh 13:2-3 designates the Brook of Egypt (Wadi el-Arish) and the Sihor as the S border, the N boundary as defined by the region N of Ekron, Judah as the E border, and the Mediterranean Sea as the W boundary. This region, as corroborated by archaeological evidence, was occupied by the Philistines for several generations after their arrival in Palestine and before their expansion in the 11th century. Major excavations have established a clear stratigraphic sequence by which the initial appearance, then the flourishing, and subsequently the assimilation of the Philistines can be traced, a process spanning most of the Iron I period (c. 1200-1000 B.C.E.). The discovery of archaeological remains of unmistakably Philistine character at sites quite distant from this area has raised the question of how Philistine culture spread beyond the confines of Philistia—through military conquest, through the establishment of military outposts, or through peaceful trade and commerce.

Four of the cities of the Philistine Pentapolis have been positively identified—Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. The location of the fifth, Gath, remains an open question. At Gaza, the ancient tel lies beneath the modern city and as a result, large- scale excavations have not been undertaken. Excavations at Ashkelon have revealed that the last Canaanite stratum was destroyed, followed by a Philistine settlement. The most extensive evidence of Philistine settlement and expansion is provided by excavations at Ashdod, Ekron, and Tell Qasile on the N border of Philistia. These sites provide complementary data on the nature of Philistine urban settlement, facets of their material culture, and cultic structures and practices.

Philistine occupation at Ashdod began in the early 12th century B.C.E. The first indication of the arrival of a new population was the partial destruction of the Egyptian-Canaanite fortress over which was built an open-air cultic installation. Adjacent to this installation was a potter's workshop in which was found a rich assemblage of locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery, Aegean in style and a precursor of the earliest Philistine bichrome pottery. In the following occupational phases, Ashdod was a well-planned, fortified city. Two building complexes were uncovered, one of which included an apsidal structure with adjacent rooms and a courtyard. The last phase of Philistine settlement (ca. 1050 B.C.E.) at Ashdod was the largest and most prosperous. At that time, the lower city outside the acropolis area was occupied for the first time and massive mudbrick walls and a gate were built to protect the enlarged city. While the Philistine population had grown and flourished, the pottery and material culture reflect assimilation of local tradition and new Phoenician influences.

A clear understanding of the ceramic repertoire within the stratigraphic sequence is one of the keys to defining the settlement pattern of the Philistines, both within the borders of Philistia and beyond. The initial phase of Philistine settlement has been recognized at Ashdod and Ekron by virtue of the appearance of locally made Mycenaean IIIC:1b pottery (see Fig. PHI.01), while the second phase of Philistine settlement and expansion is associated with the Philistine bichrome wares. The shapes and decorative motifs of Philistine pottery were a blend of four distinct ceramic styles: Mycenaean, Cypriot, Egyptian, and local Canaanite. The dominant traits in shape and almost all the decorative elements were derived from the Mycenaean repertoire and point to the Aegean background of Philistine pottery. Philistine shapes of Mycenaean origin include bell-shaped bowls, large kraters with elaborate decoration, stirrup jars for oils and unquents, and strainer-spout "beer jugs." A few of many decorative motifs are stylized birds, spiral loops, concentric half-circles, and scale patterns. Although Philistine vessels were richly decorated with motifs taken from the Mycenaean repertoire, these motifs were rearranged and integrated with other influences to create the distinctive "signature" known as Philistine.

Excavations at Ekron (Tel Miqne) have revealed a LB Canaanite city-state which was transformed by the Philistines in the 12th century B.C.E. into a large, well-planned, fortified city which included industrial and elite quarters. A monumental building, possibly a palace with shrines, was discovered at the heart of the city in the elite quarter. See Fig. PHI.02. This building, probably part of a larger complex, included rooms which contained mudbrick altars and a number of bronze and iron artifacts of cultic significance. These rooms opened onto a hall in which was constructed a circular hearth flanked by two pillar bases. Hearths are an important feature in the Aegean and Cyprus where they are the central architectural element in the plan of the megaron. Mudbrick altars, a continuation of local Canaanite tradition, are also well- known in Cyprus and the Aegean at such sites as Enkomi, Kition, Phylakopi, and Mycenae.

The city at Tell Qasile was founded by the Philistines in the first half of the 12th century B.C.E. on the N bank of the Yarkon River. The site was obviously chosen because it was a perfect inland port site. Established on virgin soil, Tell Qasile was undoubtedly part of the Philistine expansion which followed their initial phase of settlement. In addition to industrial and residential structures found in other quarters of the city, three superimposed temples dating from the end of the 12th to the beginning of the 10th centuryB.C.E. were uncovered in the sacred precinct. These structures in their various phases included raised mudbrick platforms, mudbrick benches, pillars, and small chambers at the back of the temples interpreted variously as holy-of-holies or treasuries. A related building adjacent to the earliest temple (12th centuryB.C.E.) contained a hearth and two pillars, similar in plan and conception to the hearth and pillars found at Ekron.

There is both agreement and discrepancy between the Bible and the archaeological record with respect to Philistine religious organization and beliefs. The Aegean background of Philistine religion, which is not disclosed in the Bible, is evident through cultic architectural features such as the hearth mentioned above, as well as through small finds such as the "Ashdoda," a ceramic figurine found at Ashdod. See Fig. PHI.03. The Ashdoda is most likely a schematic representation of a female deity and throne, and is evidently a variant of the Mycenaean female figure seated on a throne, sometimes holding a child. These figurines are usually associated with the worship of the "Great Mother" or "Great Goddess." Several figurine fragments of the "Ashdoda" type have also been discovered at Ekron and Tell Qasile. At Ekron, head fragments with spreading headdress and birdlike features resemble the Ashdoda, while at Qasile the torso of a flat figurine of the Ashdoda type was found.

Archaeological evidence has revealed that in the Aegean, female, not male deities were primarily worshipped. Apparently by the 11th century this predominantly female pantheon was replaced by a male Canaanite pantheon reflecting the Philistines' more

recent cultural milieu. The head of the Philistine pantheon appears to have been the Canaanite god, Dagon (1 Chr 10:10), to whom the temples of Gaza and Ashdod, and possibly also at Beth-shan, were dedicated. Another god, Baal-zebub (Baal-zebul), has his oracular temple in Ekron. The goddess Ashtoreth apparently also had a temple at Beth-shan (1 Sam 31:8-13). Philistine priests appear only once in the Bible, when the Ark was captured and taken to Ashdod (1 Samuel 5). The Bible also refers to the Philistine custom of carrying idols into battle (2 Sam 5:21) and to "Houses of Images," apparently a reference to temples in which images of the gods were kept. Among the few specifically Philistine religious beliefs that appear in the Bible are the golden images of mice and boils that were sent as a guilt (asham) offering to God (1 Sam 6:4-16).

Philistine cult vessels also provide insights into Philistine rituals and beliefs.
The kernos, reflecting Aegean influences, is a hollow ceramic ring on which objects such as birds, bulls' or rams' heads, or pomegranates are set. See Fig. PHI.04. It was apparently used for the pouring of libations in some religious ritual. Examples
of kernoi decorated in Philistine style are known from Ashdod, Ekron, Gezer, and Megiddo.

A distinctive Philistine cult vessel is the one-handled lion-headed rhyton, a ritual or drinking cup. Similar rhyta have been found at Tell Jerishe, Tell Zeror, Megiddo, Tell es-Safi, Tell Qasile, and Ekron. The Philistine rhyton is a ceramic adaptation of animal-headed rhyta in metal and stone of Mycenaean-Minoan tradition.

Three high cylindrical cult stands from Tell Qasile were found in the Philistine temple. Each had a bowl topped with a bird's head. Another cult stand found at Ashdod features five musicians around its base. Each of the five figures plays a musical instrument: cymbals, double pipe, frame drum, and stringed instrument that is probably a lyre. These musicians represented on the stand were probably part of a Philistine cult, their role similar to that of the "Levites who were singers" in the temple of Jerusalem (2 Chr 5:12-13).

Other facets of Philistine life, such as mourning customs and burial practices, may be understood through several interesting types of finds. For example, terra-cotta female mourning figurines from Philistine burials at Tell 'Aitun and Azor show women with both hands on their heads, or with one hand on their heads and one on their breasts. Similar mourning figures are closely associated with the burial customs and the cult of the dead found in the Aegean world at the end of the Mycenaean period.

Burial customs are generally a sensitive indicator of cultural affinities, and Philistine burial customs reflect the same fusion of Aegean background with Egyptian and local Canaanite elements that distinguishes every other aspect of their culture. The use of

anthropoid clay coffins (an Egyptian custom) and interment in rock-cut chamber tombs (of Mycenaean affinities) are two such indicators.

Anthropoid coffins are built roughly in the outline of a body. The lids are ineptly modeled with faces in what has been termed the "grotesque" style, with only a schematic outlining of facial features and arms. Five such coffins dating from the 12th-11th centuries B.C.E. were discovered at Beth-shan. The distinctive feature of the Beth-shan "grotesque" lids is the applique headdress. However, one lid portrays a headdress crowned by vertical fluting, identical to the "feathered" cap worn by the Peleset (Philistines), Tjekker, and Denyen on the Medinet Habu reliefs of Rameses III. This headgear provides decisive evidence that the bodies buried in these coffins were Sea Peoples, quite possibly Philistines.

Several stamp seals found in 12th-century strata at Ashdod may provide the only extant examples of Philistine language and writing. Used to imprint a lump of clay affixed to a letter, the text is apparently related to the Linear A and B scripts and the Cypro-Minoan syllabary utilized in the Aegean during the LB Age. Philistine words and personal names as they are preserved in the Bible are another possible key to the enigma of the origins of the Philistines and their language. The word seren, the head of each Philistine city-state, seems to be linguistically related to the

Greek tyrannos ("tyrant"), likely a proto-Greek Illyrian or Lydian word that later entered the Greek language. The name Achish, Agchous in the LXX and Homer, which closely resembles the name Ikusu, king of Ekron in the Essarhadon annals, is sometimes compared with Agchiseus (Homer, Il. 2.189). Agchises, in Greek tradition, was related to the Dardanians, one of the Illyrian tribes that later migrated to Asia Minor and Greece. Scholarly opinion is divided on Goliath, which is sometimes compared to the Lydian Alyatteus.

Archaeological finds illuminating Philistine material culture are not limited to the ceramic medium. Though it is the latter that appears in greater quantities at excavations, no less significant is the Philistine contribution in the area of metallurgy. A key biblical reference in 1 Sam 13:19 reads: "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philistines said, 'Lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears.'" Here it is clear that a worker in metal, without specifying whether the material was bronze or iron or both, is intended. Material evidence for bronze-working has been found at numerous sites associated with the Philistines, including Ekron, Tel Mor (harbor of Ashdod), and Tell Qasile. Significant small finds in bronze from the city of Ekron include wheels of a cultic stand similar to the type found at Cypriot sites of the same period, and a double-headed peg with suspension hole which may have parallels in Crete.

The discovery of various iron artifacts, including several bimetallic knives from 12th century strata at Philistine sites, raises the question of the role of the Philistines in the introduction of iron-working technology to Israel. Though it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that it was they who introduced this new technology, it is very likely that these new settlers brought with them a knowledge of iron-working which acted as a stimulus to local industry.

A superior knowledge of metal-working, whether in bronze or iron, may have given the Philistines a military advantage in their early conflicts with the Israelites. The well-known biblical account in 1 Samuel 17 of the duel between David and Goliath provides a detailed description of Philistine armaments. Unlike the Philistines in the Medinet Habu reliefs, which depict an earlier period, Goliath of Gath wears a bronze helmet rather than a "feathered" headdress. Nevertheless, Goliath's spear, helmet, coat of mail, and bronze greaves, as well as the duel itself, are all features of Aegean arms and warfare. The Bible compares Goliath's spear to a "weaver's beam" because this type of weapon was new to Canaan and had no Hebrew name. Mycenaean warriors are depicted very similarly equipped on the 12th century Warriors' Vase from Mycenae.

Philistine material culture is a syncretistic blend of Aegean, Egyptian, and Canaanite elements. The dominant element is Aegean, as demonstrated by decorative motifs on pottery, cult practices, burial customs and funerary rites, and architectural styles. The same period which witnessed the collapse of empires in the Levant with the resulting cessation or reduction of trade (13th century B.C.E.), also produced migrations of populations, among them the Sea Peoples. When they settled, as they did on the coastal plain of Israel, these peoples introduced by means of material culture, cultic practices, and architecture a new ethnic element which reflected their origins in the Aegean. This period, from the beginning of the 12th century to the end of the 11th century B.C.E. was the Philistines' most flourishing era, both historically and culturally. From the early 10th century on, the Philistines gradually lost their cultural distinctiveness and assimilated into the Canaanite population, steadily declining in importance until they played no more than a minor role in the history of Palestine.

Bibliography

Dothan, M. 1972. The Relation Between Cyprus and the Philistine Coast in the Late Bronze Age (Tel Mor, Ashdod). Praktika 1: 51-56. Dothan, M., and Freedman, D. N. 1967. Ashdod 1. >Atiqot. Jerusalem.
Dothan, M., et al. 1971. Ashdod II-III. >Atiqot 9-10. Jerusalem.
Dothan, M., and Porath, Y. 1982. Ashdod IV. >Atiqot 15. Jerusalem.

Dothan, T. 1973. Philistine Material Culture and its Mycenaean Affinities. Pp. 187-88 and 376 in Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium: The Mycenaeans in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nicosia.

—. 1982. The Philistines and Their Material Culture. Jerusalem.
—. 1983. Some Aspects of the Appearance of the Sea Peoples and Philistines in Canaan. Pp. 99-120 in Griechenland, die gis, und die

Levante whrend der "Dark Ages," ed. S. Deger-Jalkotzy. Vienna.
—. 1989. The Arrival of the Sea Peoples: Cultural Diversity in Early Iron Age Canaan. Pp. 1-14 in Recent Excavations in Israel, ed. S. Gitin and

W. G. Dever. AASOR 49. Winona Lake, IN.
—. 1990. Part I: Where They Came From, How They Settled Down and the Place They Worshiped In. BARev 16/1: 26-36. Dothan, T., and Gitin, S. 1990. Ekron of the Philistines. BARev 16/1: 20-25.
Gitin, S. 1990. Part II: Olive-Oil Suppliers to the World. BARev 16/2: 33-42, 59.
Gunneweg, J.; Perlman, I.; Dothan, T.; and Gitin, S. 1986. On the Origin of Pottery from Tel Miqne-Ekron. BASOR 264: 17-27. Mazar, A. 1980. Excavations at Tell Qasile, 1. Qedem 12. Jerusalem.
—. 1985a. Excavations at Tell Qasile, 2. Qedem 20. Jerusalem.
—. 1985b. The Emergence of the Philistine Material Culture. IEJ 35: 95-107.
Sandars, N. K. 1978. The Sea Peoples. London.