Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-05-06
The Hitdtes.

recent progress in geographical explora
ton, n fore the New York Geographica
Society \was that touching the importan
discoyeryAf the seat of empire of tn,
ancient HitA ties. Judge DAILY said:
The readen of the Bible will remem
Der the frequeA mention that is made o
the Hittites, q people occupying Canaan
who are described in the biblical nara
tive as being comm ercial and military
and in whose county Abraham bough
piece of land for bis Sburial place
The scattered accounts in, the Bibl,
simply indicate an oriinArN Tribe of peo
pie, with whom the Israefites bad inter.
course, but information derived from the
researches made in Egypt and Assyfis
show that the Hittites, whom the Egyp-
tians called the Kheta and the Assyrians
the Khatti, were powerful confederacy
occupying the country which was the
highway between Babylonia or Assyria
and Egypt-a people actively engaged in
commerce, their principal city being q
place to which merchants from all parts
congregated, and who were at the same
time warlike people, who for a long
period kept the Assyrians in check, and
who proved the most formidable antag-
onists the Egyptians ever encountered.
They were not only commercial and war
like, but had evidently at q remote period
made great advances in civilization and
in the fine arts and early Greek art, as
found in the discoveries of DIR. Schlie-
mann at Mycena; and the early art
found in Cyprus by our associate, Mr.. Di
Cesnola, is supposed to have been largely
derived from them.
They occupied the whole country
of Southern Syria, from the Mediter-
ranean to the desert, dwelling chiefly
in the fertile valleys of the Orentes.
river rising to the east of Baalbec
and flowing into the Mediterranean,
and had two principal cities-Kad-
esh, or the Holy City, and great
commercial emporium, which was their
capital and the center of their power,
called Carchemish. They were finally
overthrown by the Assyrians, b. c. 718;
and had so completely disappeared that
they are scarcely ever referred to by
Greek writers. Great interest was felt
to discover the site of their commercial
capital, Carchemish, and many conject-
ures have been made, none of which,
however, could be verified. A few years
ago Mr.. Skene, the British Consul at
Aleppo, discovered huge mound of
earth covering large area on the west
ern shore of the lower Euphrates, near q
ford of that river on the route still trav-
ersed by caravans. This great mound
was surrounded by ruined walls and
broken towers, while the mound itself
was but a mass of earth, fragments Of
masonry and debris. 1t had frequently
been seen by previous travellers, but they
identified it with other lost places. Mr..
Skene called the attention of the late
George Smith, the eminent archeologist
who brought so much to light from the
ruins of Nineveh, to this mound, and
Mr.. Smith found here the long-lost cap
ital of the Hittites. The present British
Consul, Mr.. Henderson, has been during
the last two years engaged in the ex-
ploration of the mound, and has al
ready sent important remains with
inscriptions to the British Museum.
A few years ago q stone which had
formed part of the wall of house at
Klamath had an inscription upon it which
excited great curiosity, because it was
neither Assyrian nor Egyptian, but some
thing between both lanSuapes. IL NAV
be remembered that / called attention in
covery of this stone and one or two
were then called the Klamath inscrip-
tions, with the suggestion that this might
probably be the language of the Hittites,
which is now proved to be the fact. The
inscriptions found by Mr.. Henderson in
the exploration of Carchemish are not
only of the same character, but the same
L. IL r.
pressed upon seals discovered by him in
the ruins of the record chamber of
Sennacherib's palace, and which greatly
excited his curiosity, as the writing was
unlike any ever noticed before. Another
inscription was. afterward discovered at
Aleppo, by Mr.. Davis, a missionary; and
it also turns out that the famous figures
sculptured above the roads from Ephesus
to Phocea, and from Smyrna to Sardis,
which are mentioned by Herodotus, and
were supposed by him to represent the
Egyptian King Rameses H., the Sesostris
of the Greeks, had inscriptions in the
same character as that recently found in
Carchemish, showing that these figures
also are Hittite monuments. 1t is sup
posed that this language was the source
of what is known as the Cypriote sylla-
barry, found in Cyprus, and which was
probably the language in use among
commercial people throughout Asia
Minor until it was superseded by the
simpler and more practical Phenician
alphabet. This discovery is exceeding
ly interesting, as the Hittites belong
to the same race Of people who perfected,
by the invention of the alphabet that
greatest of human inventions, written
language. We have now, in the discov-
cry of Mr.. Smith, the memorials of lost
people, in neighboring proximity to the
of whom also we know so
little-a people who had an important
part in the early progress of ancient civ
ilization, with respect to which an emil
nent Egyptian scholar expresses his con-
viction that future discoveries in the
course of this exploration will afford con-
vincing proofs that this civilization,
which was of the highest antiquity, was
of an importance which we can only
guess at.
A writer in the London Times has said,
in respect to these discoveries, that they
have opened up to us an extinct civfliza-
ton that existed before Rome or Athens