Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-17
THE HITTITE CIPHER.
A Young German Has Discovered the
Key to the Nations History.
1T RIVALED EGYPT AND AssYRIA,
For Thousand Years Its Soldiers Held Its
Neighbors at Bay.
RECORDS CARVED IN STONE BLOCKS

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DISPATCH
BALTIMORE, July 16.-News has just
reached the Johns Hopkins University
through private sources that the hitherto
unfound key to the Hittite inscriptions has
been discovered by clever young scholar
in Germany, whose name is desired to be
withheld for the present. Similar achieve
ments of not less importance have been
made before this by persons no moe con-
spicuous-as for example the unfolding of
the lecret of the Assyrian hieroglyphs BY a
schoolmaster ut Hamburg named Grote-
fend, who accomplished the task on a wag er
which had reference to his skill in working
out ciphers.
This-if the information quoted is cor
rect-is the third great riddle Of this sort
that has been solved during the presen t
century. The successes obtained in de-
ciphering the Egyptian inscriptions and
the cuneiforms of Babylon have already
thrown bright light upon third mighty
empire of the past, which now bids fair to
leap into historical view from out of the
darkness in which its memory has been
shrouded. az. ..--
Inc d1tt1teB w ere OnCo Great.
Respecting the empire Of the Hittites.
about whom so much is said in the Bible,
practically nothing was known until within
few years The Egyptian and Assyrian
inscriptions, however, when they came to
be read, were found to be filed with refer
ences TO them and accounts of their doings,
together with many portraits of them, both
painted and sculptured. From these data
it has been learned that they were great
military power, nation of warriors, whose
country exten ded from the Euphrates river
to the Egean sea So strong were they that
the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt at the time
of the Exodus was obliged to treat with
them on equal terms and to respect them as
an equal
They were of light complexion and shaved
their heads partly, wearing pigtails and
having long, thin mustaches like the
Chinese. Their eyes were slightly slanted
and their facial angle was oblique. They
and boots with exaggerated points that
curled upward toward the knees. Curiously
enough, precisely such boots and gloves are
worn to this day by the people in parts of
the region which they inhabited.
Abraham Bought Lot of Them.
The first purchase of land mentioned in
history was made by Abraham, who, ac-
cording to the Bible, bought bit of ground
for a cemetery at Hebron from the "sons of
Heth"-i. G., the Hittites 1t is interesting
to know that at so remote period silver
was employed as currency-the cash equiva-
lent given being 400 shekels of that metal
and that it was weighed out in balance.
A notion of the geographical extent of the
country occupied BY this nation, which was
for long time ahead Of its Assyrian and
Egyptian nsighbors In the arts of war
and peace, is obtained from the. fact that in |
made of not less than 300 Hittite geographic |
cal names.
Yet this great empire ofthe past has been |
ignored until lately, and it is |
only since 1870 that scholars have attempted |
to decipher the strange hieroglyphs left |
behind as its only surviving memorials. In |
these Investigations Americans have been |
the actual beginning having
been made by j. Augustus johnson, of the
United States Consular service, and the |
Rev. S. Jessup, missionary.
The Mohammedans Block ed Invesfig tfion.
These two gentlemen, in 1870, came
across some very extraordinary Hittite in
scriptions at Hannah, in Syria, which at
once aroused the attention of arch1ologists
everywhere. Some of them were carved on
stones that were built into the walls of
dwelling houses Repeated efforts were
made to secure them, or to get copies in the
shape of "squeezes," but the superstitious
regarding them as sacred,
Tould not permit this. Scholars who made
he attempts were mobbed by angry
crowds and their lives were even threatened.
Finally, with the assistaDcs of II Turkish
official of unusual Intelligence and honesty,
he stones were obtained by purchase aud
.arried away, one of them being so large
hat fifty men and four oxen were required
o drag it mile in a day. Two sets of
'squeezes" were male from the inscrip-
ions, one of which is at present deposited
n the British Museum. Many attempts
AVE been made to decipher them. Prof
,ayce, OF Oxford, the Rev. Dr. William |
Wright, and Major Claude Gender, OF the
Royal Engineers, have all claimed more or
ized as established.
A War That Lasted 500 Years.
According to DR.. Wright, to whom the
ritter is chiefly indebted for the following
the early Egyptian records,
Inscribed on, their monuments and on papy-
us scrolls, refer to the Utilities, as heredi-
ary foes on the northeast frontier. For
entury after century wars with them were
arried on with varying success. In the
ear 1850 B. c., Thothmes l. ascended the