china—oldest existing civilization—but records much later than those of egypt and chald?a—language and traditions accadian—communication how effected.
elam—very early civilization—susa, an old city in first chald?an records—conquered chald?a in 2280 b.c.—conquered by assyrians 645 b.c.—statue of nana—cyrus an elamite king—his cylinder—teaches untrustworthiness of legendary history.
ph?nicia—great influence on western civilization—but date comparatively late—traditions of origin—first distinct mention in egyptian monuments 1600 b.c.—great movements of maritime nations—invasions of egypt by sea and land, under menepthah, 1330 b.c., and ramses iii., 1250 b.c.—lists of nations—show advanced civilization and intercourse—but nothing beyond 2000 or 2500 b.c.
hittites—great empire in asia minor and syria—turanian race—origin cappadocia—great wars with egypt—battle of kadesh—treaty with ramses ii.—power rapidly declined—but only finally destroyed 717 b.c. by sargon ii.—capital carchemish—great commercial emporium—hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions and monuments—only recently and partially deciphered—results.
arabia—recent discoveries—inscriptions—sab?a—min?ans—thirty-two kings known—ancient commerce and trade-routes—incense and spices—literature—old traditions—oannes—punt—seat of semites—arabian alphabet—older than ph?nician—- bearing on old testament histories.
troy and mycen?—dr. schliemann's excavations—hissarlik—buried fortifications, palaces, and treasures of ancient troy—mycen? and tiryns—proof of civilization and commerce—tombs—absence of inscriptions and religious symbols—date of mycen?an civilization—school of art—pictures on vases—type of race.
china.
the first country to which we might naturally look for independent annals approaching in antiquity those of 67 egypt and chald?a is china. chinese civilization is in one respect the oldest in the world; that is, it is the one which has come down to the present day from a remote antiquity with the fewest changes. what china is to-day it was more than 4000 years ago; a populous empire with a peaceful and industrial population devoted to agriculture and skilled in the arts of irrigation; a literary people acquainted with reading and writing; orderly and obedient, organized under an emperor and official hierarchy; paying divine honours to ancestors, and a religious veneration to the moral and ceremonial precepts of sages and philosophers. addicted to childish superstitions, and yet eminently prosaic, practical, and utilitarian. unlike other nations they have no traditions attributing the origin of arts and sciences to foreign importation, as in the chald?an legend of oannes, or, as in egypt, to native gods; that is, to development on the soil from an unknown antiquity. the chinese annals begin with human emperors, who are only divine in the sense of being wise and virtuous ancestors, and who are represented as uttering long discourses on the whole duty of man, in a high moral and philosophical tone.
but these annals do not profess to go back further than to about 2500 b.c., or to a period at least 2000 and probably 3000 years later than the commencement of historical annals, confirmed by monuments in egypt and chald?a, and any traditions prior to this period are of the vaguest and most shadowy descriptions. we only know with certainty that prior to chinese civilization there was an aboriginal, semi-savage race, the miou-tse, remnants of whom are still to be found in the mountainous western provinces; and it had been conjectured 68 from the form of the hieroglyphics to which the chinese written characters can be traced back, that they were invented by a pastoral people who roamed with flocks and herds over the steppes of central asia. thus the sheep plays a very prominent part, the idea of "beauty" being conveyed by an ideogram meaning "a large sheep"; that of "right" or "property" by one which means "my sheep," and so on in many other instances.
there is a tradition also of a clan of 100 families who came down from the west and descended the valley of the yang-tse-kiang, expelling the aboriginal miou-tse. but for any real information as to chinese origins we are indebted to recent discoveries of accadian records. it has been proved by lacouperie, bell, and other experts in the oldest forms of the chinese and accadian languages, that they are not only closely allied, as both forming part of the ugrian or turkish branch of the turanian family, but almost identical. thus, by following the well-known philological law by which an initial 'g' is often softened in course of time into a 'y,' it was found that by writing 'g' for 'y' in many chinese words beginning with the latter letter, pure accadian words were obtained. thus "to speak" is in accadian gu, in the mandarin chinese yu, and in the old form of chinese spoken in japan go; night is ye in chinese, ge in accadian. the very close connection between accadian and chinese civilization is still more conclusively shown by the identity in many matters which could not have been invented independently. thus the prehistoric period of chald?a before the deluge is divided, according to berosus and the tablets, into ten periods of ten kings, whose reigns lasted for 120 sari or 432,000 years, a myth which is purely astronomical. 69 the early chinese writers had a myth of precisely the same number of ten kings and the same period of 432,000 years for their united reigns. chinese astronomy also, said by their annals to have been invented by the emperor yao about 2000 b.c., was an almost exact counterpart of that of the earliest accadian records. they recognized the same planets, and gave them names with the same meanings; they divided the year into the chald?an period of twelve months of thirty days each, making the new year begin, as in chald?a, in the third month after the winter solstice; and counting the calendar for the surplus days by the same cycle of intercalary days. the oldest chinese dictionaries give names of the months, which had become obsolete, since the usage of mentioning the months by their numbers, as second, third, and fourth months, had become general, and the meaning of which had been lost. it turns out that several of these names correspond with those of the accadian calendar.
such coincidences as these cannot be accidental, and it is obvious that one nation must have derived its civilization from the other, or both from a common source. there can be little doubt in this case that chald?a taught china, for its astronomy, knowledge of the arts, and general culture are proved by its records to have existed at least 4000, and probably 5000 years b.c., and then to be attributed to mythical gods and to a fabulous antiquity; while in china they are said to have been taught ready-made by human emperors, at a date from 2000 to 3000 years later. the inference is irresistible that somehow the elements of accadian civilization must have been imported into china from chald?a, at what is a comparatively modern date in the 70 history of the latter country. the only approach to a clue to this date is that the great chinese historian szema-tsien says that the first of their emperors was nai-kwangti, who built an observatory, and by the aid of astronomy "ruled the varied year." the name is singularly like that of kuder-na-hangti, who was the elamite king who conquered babylonia about 2280 b.c. it is difficult to see how such an intercourse between chald?a and china could have been established across such an enormous intervening distance of mountains and deserts, or by such a long sea-voyage; but it is still more difficult to conceive how not only language, physical characteristics, and civilization should have been so similar, but myths and calendars should have been almost verbatim the same in the two countries, unless a communication really existed between them. nor will the theory of a common origin apply, for it is impossible to suppose that any common ancestors of the chinese and accadians could have attained to such a knowledge of astronomy, and of the industrial arts and agriculture, while wandering as nomad shepherds over the steppes of central asia.
we must remember also the fact that caravans actually do travel, and have travelled for time immemorial, over enormous distances, across the steppes of central and northern asia, and that within quite recent historical times, a whole nation of calmucks migrated under every conceivable difficulty from hostile tribes, pursuing armies, and the extremes of winter cold and summer heat, first from china to the volga, and then back again from the volga to china. nor must we overlook the fact that ur and eridhu were great sea-ports at a very remote period, and that the facilities for 71 pushing their commerce far to the east were great, owing to the regular monsoons, and the configuration of the coast.
we must be content, therefore, to take the facts as we find them, and admit that china gives us no aid in carrying back authentic history for anything like the time for which we have satisfactory evidence from the monuments and records of egypt and chald?a.
elam.
as regards other nations of antiquity, their own historical records are either altogether wanting or comparatively recent, and our only authentic information respecting them in very early times is derived from egyptian or babylonian monuments. the most important of them is elam, which was evidently a civilized kingdom at a very remote period, contemporary probably with the earliest accadian civilization, and which continued to play a leading part in history down to the recent date of cyrus. elam was a small district between the zagros mountains and the tigris, extending to the south along the eastern shore of the persian gulf to the arabian sea. its capital was shushan or susa, an ancient and renowned city, the name of which survives in the persian province of shusistan, as that of persia proper does in the mountainous district next to the east of elam, known as farsistan. the original population was turanian, speaking an agglutinative language, akin to though not identical with accadian, and its religion and civilization were apparently the same, or closely similar. as in chald?a and assyria, a semitic element seems to have intruded on the turanian at an early date, and to have become the ruling race, 72 while much later the aryan persians to some extent superseded the semites. the name "elam" is said to have the same significance as "accad," both meaning "highland," and indicating that both races must have had a common origin in the mountains and steppes of central asia. the native name was anshad, and susa was "the city of anshad." elam was always considered an ancient land and susa an ancient city, by the accadians, and there is every reason to believe that elamite civilization must have been at least as old as accadian. this much is certain, that as far back as 2280 b.c., elam was a sufficiently organized and powerful state to conquer the larger and more populous country of mesopotamia, and found an elamite dynasty which lasted for nearly 300 years, and carried on campaigns in districts as far distant as southern syria and the dead sea.
the dynasty was subverted and the elamites driven back within their own frontiers, but there they retained their independence, and took a leading part in all the wars waged by chald?a and other surrounding nations against the rising power of the warlike assyrian kings of nineveh. the statue of the goddess nana, which had been taken by the elamite conquerors from erech in 2280 b.c., remained in the temple at susa for 1635 years, until the city was at length taken by one of the latest assyrian kings, asshurbanipal, in the year 645 b.c.
we have already pointed out the great historical importance of the elamite conquest of mesopotamia in 2280 b.c. as inaugurating the era of great wars between civilized states, and probably giving the impulse to western asia, which hurled the hyksos on egypt, and by its reaction first brought the egyptians to nineveh, and then the assyrians to memphis. a still more 73 important movement at the very close of what may be called ancient history, originated from elam. to the surprise of all students of history, it has been proved that the account we have received from herodotus and other greek sources, of the great cyrus, is to a great extent fabulous. a cylinder and tablet of cyrus himself were quite recently discovered by mr. rassam and brought to the british museum, in which he commemorates his conquest of babylon. he describes himself as "cyrus the great king, the king of babylon, the king of sumir and accad, the king of the four zones, the son of kambyses the great king, the king of elam; the grandson of cyrus the great king, the king of elam; the great-grandson of teispes the great king, the king of elam; of the ancient seed-royal, whose rule has been beloved by bel and nebo"; and he goes on to say how by the favour of "merodach the great lord, the god who raises the dead to life, who benefits all men in difficulty and prayer," he had conquered the men of kurdistan and all the barbarians, and also the black-headed race (the accadians), and finally entered babylon in peace and ruled there righteously, favoured by gods and men, and receiving homage and tribute from all the kings who dwelt in the high places of all regions from the upper to the lower sea, including ph?nicia." and he concludes with an invocation to all the gods whom he had restored to their proper temples from which they had been taken by nabonidus, "to intercede before bel and nebo to grant me length of days; may they bless my projects with prosperity; and may they say to merodach my lord, that cyrus the king, thy worshipper, and kambyses his son deserve his favour." this is confirmed by a cylinder of a few years earlier 74 date, of nabonidus the last king of babylon, who relates how "cyrus the king of elam, the young servant of merodach," overthrew the medes, there called "mandan" or barbarians, captured their king astyages, and carried the spoil of the royal city ecbatana to the land of elam.
how many of our apparently most firmly established historical dates are annihilated by these little clay cylinders! it appears that cyrus was not a persian at all, or an adventurer who raised himself to power by a successful revolt, but the legitimate king of elam, descended from its ancient royal race through an unbroken succession of several generations. he was in fact a later and greater kudur-na-hangti, like the early conqueror of that name who founded the first elamite empire some 1800 years earlier. it may be doubtful whether he was even an aryan. at any rate this much is certain, that his religion was babylonian, and that we must dismiss all jewish myths of him as a zoroastrian monotheist, the servant of the most high god, who favoured the chosen race from sympathy with their religion. on his own showing he was as devoted a worshipper of merodach, bel, and nebo, and the whole pantheon of local gods, as nebuchadnezzar or tiglath-pileser.[2]
75 what a lesson does this teach us as to the untrustworthy nature of the scraps of ancient history which have come down to us from verbal traditions, and are not confirmed by contemporary monuments! herodotus wrote within a few generations of cyrus, and the relations of greece to the persian empire had been close and uninterrupted. his account of its founder cyrus is not in itself improbable, and is full of details which have every appearance of being historical. it is confirmed to a considerable extent by the old testament, and by the universal belief of early classical writers, and yet it is shown to be in essential respects legendary and fabulous, by the testimony of cyrus himself.
ph?nicia.
ph?nicia is another country which exercised a great influence on the civilization and commerce of the ancient world, though its history does not go back to the extreme antiquity of the early dynasties of egypt and of chald?a. the ph?nicians spoke a language which was almost identical with that of the hebrews and canaanites, and closely resembled that of assyria and babylonia, after the semite language had superseded that of the ancient accadians. according to their own tradition, they came from the persian gulf, and the island of tyros, now bahrein, in that gulf, is quoted 76 as a proof that it was the original seat of the people who founded tyre. there is no certain date for the period when they migrated from the east, and settled in the narrow strip of land along the coast of the mediterranean between the mountain range of lebanon and the sea, stretching from the promontory of carmel on the south to the gulf of antioch on the north. this little strip of about 150 miles in length, and ten to fifteen in breadth, afforded many advantages for a maritime people, owing to the number of islands close to the coast and small indented bays, which afforded excellent harbours and protection from enemies, which was further secured by the precipitous range of the lebanon sending down steep spurs into the mediterranean, and thus isolating ph?nicia from the military route of the great valley of c?lo-syria, between the parallel ranges of the lebanon and anti-lebanon, which was taken by armies in the wars between egypt and asia. here the ph?nicians founded nine cities, of which byblos or gebal was reputed to be the most ancient, and first sidon and then tyre became the most important. they became fishermen, manufacturers of purple from the dye procured from the shell-fish on their shores, and above all mariners and merchants. before the growth of other naval powers in the mediterranean they had established factories along the coasts of asia minor, greece, and italy, and in all the islands of the eg?an and the cyclades. they had founded colonies in cyprus, crete, sicily, and on the mainland of greece at b?otian thebes. they had mined extensively wherever metals were to be found, and, as herodotus states, had overturned a whole mountain at thasos by tunnelling it for gold. they had even 77 extended their settlements into the black sea, along the northern coast of africa, and somewhat later to spain, passed the straits of gibraltar, and finally reached the british isles in pursuit of tin.
there can be no question that this ph?nician commerce was a principal element in introducing not only their alphabet, but many of the early arts of civilization, among the comparatively rude races of greece, italy, spain, and britain. the date however of this earliest ph?nician commerce is very uncertain. all we can discern is that, after having enjoyed an undisputed supremacy, the progress of civilization among the mediterranean races enabled them to develop a maritime power of their own, superior to that of ph?nicia, and to drive the ph?nicians from most of their settlements on the mainland and islands, confining them to a few trading posts and factories, and directing their more important enterprises towards the western mediterranean, where they encountered less formidable rivals.
but although ph?nicia contributed thus largely to the civilization of the ancient world, its antiquity cannot be compared to that of egypt and chald?a. the first reference to the country is found in the cylinder of sargon i., b.c. 3800, who marched to the coast of the mediterranean, and crossed over to cyprus, where a cylinder of his son dungi has been found, but there is nothing to show that the district was then occupied by the ph?nicians of later times. kopt, or the land of palms, of which ph?nicia is the greek translation, is first mentioned in the egyptian annals of the middle empire, and during the rule of the hyksos the mouth of the nile had become so thickly populated by ph?nician emigrants as to be known as kopt-ur, 78 caphtor, or greater ph?nicia. the priests of the temple of baal melcart, the patron deity of tyre, told herodotus that it had been founded 2300 years before his time, or about 2750 b.c., and old tyre which stood on the mainland was reputed to be more ancient than the city of new tyre which stood on an island. but this date is negatived by the fact that in an egyptian papyrus in which an envoy from ramses ii. or menepthah to the court of babylon about 1320 b.c. records his journey, he mentions byblos, beryta, and sidon as important cities, while tyre is only an insignificant fishing town.
the first distinct mention of ph?nician cities in egyptian annals is in the enumeration of towns captured by thotmes iii., b.c. 1600, in his victorious campaigns in syria, among which are to be found the names of beyrut and acco, and two centuries later seti i., the father of ramses ii., records the capture of zor or tyre, probably the old city on the mainland.
the first authentic information, however, as to the movements of the mediterranean maritime races is afforded by the egyptian annals, which describe two formidable invasions by combined land armies and fleets, which were with difficulty repulsed. the first took place in the reign of menepthah, son of the great ramses ii. of the eighteenth dynasty, about 1330 b.c.; the second under ramses iii. of the nineteenth dynasty, about 1250 b.c. the first invasion came from the west, and was headed by the king of the lybians, a white race, who have been identified with the numidians and modern kabyles, but were reinforced to a confederacy of nearly all the mediterranean races who sent auxiliary contingents both of sea and land forces. among these 79 appear, along with dardanians, teucri and lycians of asia minor, who were already known as allies of the hittites in their wars against ramses ii., a new class of auxiliaries from greece, italy, and the islands, whose names have been identified by some egyptologists as ach?ans, tuscans, sicilians, and sardinians.
sea-fight in the time of ramses iii. (from temple of ammon at medinet-abou.)
the second and more formidable attack came from the east, and was made by a combined fleet and land army, the latter composed of hittites and philistines, with the same auxiliaries from asia minor, and the fleet of the same confederation of maritime states as in the first invasion, except that the ach?ans have disappeared as leaders of the greek powers, and their place is taken by the danaoi, confirming the greek tradition of the substitution of the dynasty of danaus for that of inachus, on the throne of argos and mycen?. the ph?nicians alone of the maritime states do not seem to have taken any part in these invasions, and, on the contrary, to have lived on terms of friendly vassalage and close commercial relations with egypt ever since the expulsion 80 of the hyksos, and the great conquests of ahmes and thotmes iii. in syria and asia. it is probably during this period that the early commerce and navigation of jebail and sidon took such a wide extension.
the details of these two great invasions, which are fully given in the egyptian monuments, together with a picture of the naval combat, in which the invading fleet was finally defeated by ramses iii., after having forced an entrance into the eastern branch of the nile, are extremely interesting. they show an advanced state of civilization already prevailing among nations whose very names were unknown or legendary. more than 300 years before the siege of troy it appears that asia minor and the greek mainland and islands were already inhabited by nations sufficiently advanced in civilization to fit out fleets which commanded the seas, and to form political confederations, to undertake distant expeditions, and to wage war on equal terms with the predominant powers of asia and of egypt. but though ancient as regards classical history, these beginnings of greek civilization are comparatively modern, and cannot be carried back further than about 1500 b.c., while there is no evidence to carry the preceding period of ph?nician supremacy and commerce in the eastern mediterranean, with the existence of the great trading cities of its earliest period, byblos and sidon, beyond 2000, or, at the very outside, 2500 b.c.
hittites.
the history of another great empire has been partially brought to light, which was destroyed in 717 b.c. by the progress of assyrian conquest, after having lasted 81 more than 1000 years, and long exercised a predominant influence over western asia, viz. that of the hittites. the first mention of them in the old testament appears in the time of abraham, when we find them in southern syria, mixed with tribes of the canaanites and amorites, and grouped principally about hebron. they are represented as on friendly terms with abraham, selling him a piece of land for a sepulchre, and intermarrying with his family—rebecca's soul being vexed by the contumacious behaviour of her daughters-in-law, "the daughters of heth." this, however, was only an outlying branch of the nation, whose capital cities, when they appear clearly in history, were further north at kadesh on the orontes, and carchemish on the upper euphrates, commanding the fords on that river on the great commercial route between babylonia and the mediterranean. they were a turanian race, whose original seat was in cappadocia, and the high plateaux and mountainous region extending from the taurus range to the black 82 sea. they are easily recognized on the egyptian monuments by their yellow colour, peculiar features which are of ugro-turkish type, and their dress, which is that of highlanders inhabiting a snowy district, with close-fitting tunics, mittens, and boots resembling snowshoes with turned-up toes. they have also the mongolian characters of beardless faces, and coarse black hair, which is sometimes trained into a pigtail.
king of the hittites. (from photograph by flinders petrie, from egyptian temple at luxor.)
the earliest mention of them is found in the tablets which were compiled for the library of sargon i. of accad, in which reference is made to the khatti, which probably means hittites, showing that at this remote period, about 3800 b.c., they had already moved down from their northern home into the valley of the euphrates and upper syria.
their affinity with the accadians of chald?a is clearly proved by their language, which the recent discovery of papyri at tell-el-amara, containing despatches from the tributary king of the hittites to amenophus iv., written in cuneiform characters, has proved to be almost identical with accadian. it seems probable that part of the army which fought in defence of troy may have been hittite, and there are many indications that the etruscans, who were generally believed to have come from lydia, were of the same race and spoke the same language.
it is in egyptian records, however, that we meet with the first definite historical data respecting this ancient hittite empire. in these they are referred to as "kheta," and probably formed part of the great hyksos invasion; but the first certain mention of them occurs in the reign of thotmes i., about 1600 b.c., and they appear as a leading nation in the time of 83 thotmes iii., who defeated a combined army of canaanites and hittites under the hittite king of kadesh, at megiddo, and in fourteen victorious campaigns carried the egyptian arms to the euphrates and tigris.
for several subsequent reigns we find the hittites enumerated as one of the nations paying tribute to egypt, whose extensive empire then reckoned mesopotamia, assyria, ph?nicia, palestine, cyprus, and the soudan among its tributary states. gradually the power of egypt declined, and in the troubled times which followed the attempt of the heretic king ku-en-aten to supersede the old religion of egypt by the worship of the solar disc, the conquered nations threw off the yoke, and the frontiers of egypt receded to the old limits. as egypt declined, the power of the hittites evidently increased, for when we next meet with them it is contending on equal terms in palestine with the revival of the military power of egypt under ramses i., the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, and his son seti i.
the contest continued for more than a century with occasional treaties of peace and various vicissitudes of fortune, and at last culminated in the great battle of kadesh, commemorated by the egyptian epic poem of pentaur, and followed by the celebrated treaty of peace between ramses ii. and kheta-sira, "the great king of the hittites," the hittite text of which was engraved on a silver tablet in the characters of carchemish, and the egyptian copy of it was engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls of the temples of ramses, of which we fortunately possess the entire text. the alliance was on equal terms, defining the frontier, and providing for the mutual extradition of refugees, and it was ratified by 84 the marriage of ramses with the daughter of the hittite king.
the peace lasted for some time; but in the reign of ramses iii. of the twentieth dynasty, we find the hittites again heading the great confederacy of the nations of asia minor and of the islands of the mediterranean, who attacked egypt by sea and land. the hittites formed the greater part of the land army, which was defeated with great slaughter after an obstinate battle at pelusium, about 1200 b.c. from this time forward the power both of the hittites and of egypt seems to have steadily declined. we hear no more of them as a leading power in palestine and syria, where the kingdoms of judah, israel, and damascus superseded them, until all were swallowed up by the assyrian conquests of the warrior-kings of nineveh, and finally the hittites disappear altogether from history with the capture of their capital carchemish by sargon ii. in 717 b.c.
the wide extent, however, of the hittite empire when at its height is proved by the fact that at the battle of kadesh the hittite army was reinforced by vassals or allies from nearly the whole of western asia. the dardanians from the troad, the mysians from their cities of ilion, the colchians from the caucasus, the syrians from the orontes, and the ph?nicians from arvad are enumerated as sending contingents; and in the invasion of egypt in the reign of ramses iii., the hittites headed the great confederacy of hittites, teucrians, lycians, philistines, and other asiatic nations who attacked egypt by land, in concert with the great maritime confederacy of greeks, pelasgians, tuscans, sicilians, and sardinians who attacked it by sea.
85 the mere fact of carrying on such campaigns and forming such political alliances is sufficient to show that the hittites must have attained to an advanced state of civilization. but there is abundant proof that this was the case from other sources. they were a commercial people, and their capital, carchemish, was for many centuries the great emporium of the caravan trade between the east and west. the products of the east, probably as far as bactria and india, reached it from babylon and nineveh, and were forwarded by two great commercial routes, one to the south-west to syria and ph?nicia, the other to the north-west through the pass of karakol, to sardis and the mediterranean. the commercial importance of carchemish is attested by the fact that its silver mina became the standard of value at babylon, and throughout the whole of western asia. the hittites were also great miners, working the silver mines of the taurus on an extensive scale, and having a plentiful supply of bronze and other metals, as is shown by the large number of chariots attached to their armies from the earliest times. they were also a literary people, and had invented a system of hieroglyphic writing of their own, distinct alike from that of egypt and from the cuneiform characters of the accadians. inscriptions in these peculiar characters, associated with sculptures in a style of art different from that of either egypt or chald?a, but representing figures identical in dress and features with those of hittites in the egyptian monuments, have been found over a wide extent of asia minor, at hamath and aleppo; boghaz-keni and eyuk in cappadocia; at the pass of karakol near sardis, and at various other places. several of those attributed by the greeks to sesostris 86 or to fabulous passages of their own mythology, have been proved to be hittite, as, for instance, the figure carved on the rocks of mount sipylos, near ephesus, and said to be that of niobe, is proved to be a sitting figure of the great goddess of carchemish.
for a long time these inscriptions were an enigma to philologists, but the researches of professor sayce and other scholars have quite recently thrown much light on the subject, and enabled us partially to decipher some of them, and the recent discovery of papyri at tel-el-amara written partly in the hittite language in cuneiform characters, removes all doubt as to its nature and affinities.
it may be sufficient to state the result, that the hittite language was turanian or agglutinative, closely allied, and indeed almost identical, with accadian on the one hand, and on the other so similar to the ancient lydian and etruscan, as to leave it doubtful whether these nations were themselves hittites, or only very close cousins descended from a common stock. for instance, the well-known etruscan names of tarquin and lar occur as parts of many names of hittite kings, and in the same, or a slightly modified form, in accadian, and survive to the present day in various turkic and mongolian dialects. this much appears to be clear, that this hittite empire, which vanished so completely from history more than 2500 years ago, had for nearly 1000 years previously exercised a paramount influence in western asia, and was one of the principal channels through which asiatic mythology and art reached greece in early times, and through the etruscans formed an important element in the civilization of ancient rome. it was itself probably an offshoot 87 from the still older civilization of accadia, though after a time semitic and egyptian influences were introduced, as appears from the fact that sutek, set or seth, was the supreme god of the hittites, as is shown by the text of the treaty of peace between their great king khota-sira and ramses ii.
as regards chronology, therefore, hittite history only carries us back about half-way to the earliest dates of egypt and chald?a, and only confirm these dates incidentally, by showing that other powerful and civilized states already existed in asia at a remote period.
arabia.
the best chance of finding records which may vie in antiquity with those of egypt and chald?a, has come to us quite recently from an unexpected quarter. arabia has been from time immemorial one of the least known and least accessible regions of the earth. especially of recent years moslem fanaticism has made it a closed country to christian research, and it is only quite lately that a few scientific travellers, taking their lives in their hands, have succeeded in penetrating into the interior, discovering the sites of ruined cities, and copying numerous inscriptions. dr. glaser especially has three times explored southern arabia, and brought home no less than 1031 inscriptions, many of them of the highest historical interest.
by the aid of these and other inscriptions we are able to reduce to some sort of certainty the vague traditions that had come down to us of ancient nations and an advanced state of civilization and commerce, existing in arabia in very ancient times. in the words of professor sayce, "the dark past of the arabian 88 peninsula has been suddenly lighted up, and we find that long before the days of mohammed it was a land of culture and literature, a seat of powerful kingdoms and wealthy commerce, which cannot fail to have exercised an influence upon the general history of the world."[3]
the visit of the queen of sheba to solomon affords one of the first glimpses into this past history. it is evident that she either was, or was supposed to be by the compiler of the book of kings not many centuries later, the queen of a well-known, civilized, and powerful country, which, from the description of her offerings, could hardly be other than arabia felix, the spice country of southern arabia, the sab?a or saba of the ancient world, though her kingdom, or commercial relations, may have extended over the opposite coast of abyssinia and somali-land, and probably far down the east coast of africa. assyrian inscriptions show that saba was a great kingdom in the eighth century b.c., when its frontiers extended so far to the north as to bring it in contact with those of the empire of nineveh under tiglath-pileser and sargon ii. it was then an ancient kingdom, and, as the inscriptions show, had long since undergone the same transformation as egypt and chald?a, from the rule of priest-kings of independent cities into an unified empire. these priest-kings were called "makarib," or high-priests of saba, showing that the original state must have been a theocracy, and the name saba like assur that of a god.
but the inscriptions reveal this unexpected fact, that 89 old as the kingdom of saba may be, it was not the oldest in this district, but rose to power on the decay of a still older nation, whose name of ma'in has come down to us in dim traditions under the classical form of min?ans.
we are already acquainted with the names of thirty-two min?an kings, and as comparatively few inscriptions have as yet been discovered, many more will doubtless be found. among those known, however, are some which show that the authority of the min?an kings was not confined to their original seat in the south, but extended over all arabia and up to the frontiers of syria and of egypt. three names of these kings have been found at teima, the tema of the old testament, on the road to damascus and sinai; and a votive tablet from southern arabia is inscribed by its authors, "in gratitude to athtar (istar or astarte), for their rescue in the war between the ruler of the south and the ruler of the north, and in the conflict between madhi and egypt, and for their safe return to their own city of quarnu." the authors of this inscription describe themselves as being under the min?an king "abi-yadá yathi," and being "governors of tsar and ashur and the further bank of the river."
tsar is often mentioned in the egyptian monuments as a frontier fortress on the arabian side of what is now the suez canal, while another inscription mentions gaza, and shows that the authority of the min?an rulers extended to edom, and came into close contact with palestine and the surrounding tribes. doubtless the protection of trade-routes was a main cause of this extension of fortified posts and wealthy cities, over such a wide extent of territory. from the most ancient 90 times there has always been a stream of traffic between east and west, flowing partly by the red sea and persian gulf, and from the ends of these eastern seas to the mediterranean, and partly by caravan routes across asia. the possession of one of these routes by solomon in alliance with tyre, led to the ephemeral prosperity of the jewish kingdom at a much later period; and the wars waged between egyptians, assyrians, and hittites were doubtless influenced to a considerable extent by the desire to command these great lines of commerce.
arabia stood in a position of great advantage as regards this international commerce, being a half-way house between east and west, protected from enemies by impassable deserts, and with inland and sheltered seas in every direction. its southern provinces also had the advantage of being the great, and in some cases the sole, producers of commodities of great value and in constant request. frankincense and other spices were indispensable in temples where bloody sacrifices formed part of the religion. the atmosphere of solomon's temple must have been that of a sickening slaughterhouse, and the fumes of incense could alone enable the priests and worshippers to support it. this would apply to thousands of other temples through asia, and doubtless the palaces of kings and nobles suffered from uncleanliness and insanitary arrangements, and required an antidote to evil smells to make them endurable. the consumption of incense must therefore have been immense in the ancient world, and it is not easy to see where it could have been derived from except from the regions which exhaled.
"sab?an odours from the shores of araby the blest."
91 the next interesting result, however, of these arabian discoveries is, that they disclose not only a civilized and commercial kingdom at a remote antiquity, but that they show us a literary people, who had their own alphabet and system of writing at a date comparable to that of egyptian hieroglyphics and chald?an cuneiforms, and long prior to the oldest known inscription in ph?nician characters. the first arabian inscriptions were discovered and copied by seetzen in 1810, and were classed together as himyaritic, from himyar, the country of the classical homerites. it was soon discovered that the language was semitic, and that the alphabet resembled that of the ethiopic or gheez, and was a modification of the ph?nician written vertically instead of horizontally. further discoveries and researches have led to the result, which is principally due to dr. glaser, that the so-called himyaritic inscriptions fell into two groups, one of which is distinctly older than the other, containing fuller and more primitive grammatical forms. these are min?an, while the inscriptions in the later dialect are sab?an. it is apparent, therefore, that the min?an rule and literature must have preceded those of sab?a by a time sufficiently long to have allowed for considerable changes both in words and grammar to have grown up, not by foreign conquest, but by evolution among the tribes of the same race within arabia itself. now the sab?an kingdom can be traced back with considerable certainty to the time of solomon, 1000 years b.c., and had in all probability existed many centuries before; while we have already a list of thirty-three min?an kings, which number will doubtless be enlarged by further discoveries; and the oldest inscriptions point, as in egypt, to an antecedent 92 state of commerce and civilization. it is evident therefore that arabia must be classed with egypt and chald?a as one of the countries which point to the existence of highly civilized communities in an extreme antiquity; and that it is by no means impossible that the records of southern arabia may ultimately be carried back as far as those of sargon i., or even of menes.
this is the more probable as several ancient traditions point to southern arabia, and possibly to the adjoining coast of north-eastern africa, as the source of the earliest civilizations. thus oannes is said to have come up from the persian gulf and taught the chald?ans the first arts of civilization. the ph?nicians traced their origin to the bahrein islands in the same gulf. the egyptians looked with reverence and respect to punt, which is generally believed to have meant arabia felix and somali-land; and they placed the origin of their letters and civilization, not in upper or lower, but in middle egypt, at abydos where thoth and osiris were said to have reigned, where the nile is only separated from the red sea by a narrow land pass which was long one of the principal commercial routes between arabia and egypt.
the close connection between egypt and punt in early times is confirmed by the terms of respect in which punt is spoken of in egyptian inscriptions, contrasting with the epithets of "barbarian" and "vile," which are applied to other surrounding nations such as the hittites, libyans, and negroes. and the celebrated equipment of a fleet by the great queen hatasu of the nineteenth dynasty, to make a commercial voyage to punt, and its return with a rich freight, and the king 93 and queen of the country with offerings, on a visit to the pharaoh, reminding one of the visit of the queen of sheba to solomon, shows that the two nations were on friendly terms, and that the red sea and opposite coast of africa had been navigated from a very early period. the physical type also of the chiefs of punt as depicted on the egyptian monuments is very like that of the aristocratic type of the earliest known egyptian portraits.
chief of punt and two men.
one point seems sufficiently clear; that wherever may have been the original seat of the aryans, that of the semites must be placed in arabia. everywhere else we can trace them as an immigrating or invading people, who found prior populations of different race, 94 but in arabia they seem to have been aboriginal. thus in chald?a and assyria, the semites are represented in the earliest history and traditions as coming from the south, partly by the persian gulf and partly across the arabian and syrian deserts, and by degrees amalgamating with and superseding the previous accadian population. in egypt the semitic element was a late importation which never permanently affected the old egyptian civilization. in syria and palestine, the ph?nicians, canaanites, and hebrews were all immigrants from the persian gulf or arabian frontier, either directly or through the medium of egypt and assyria, who did not even pretend to be the earliest inhabitants, but found other races, as the amorites and hittites, in possession, whose traditions again went back to barbarous aborigines of zammumim, who seemed to them to stammer their unintelligible language. the position of semites in the moslem world in asia and africa is distinctly due to the conquests of the arab mohammed and the spread of his religion.
in arabia alone we find semites and semites only, from the very beginning, and the peculiar language and character of the race must have been first developed in the growing civilization which preceded the ancient min?an empire, probably as the later stone age was passing into that of metal, and the primitive state of hunters and fishers into the higher social level of agriculturists and traders.
to return from these remote speculations to a subject of more immediate interest, the discovery of these min?an inscriptions shows the existence of an alphabet older than that of the earliest known inscriptions in ph?nician letters. the alphabets of greece, rome, and 95 all modern nations are beyond all doubt derived from that of ph?nicia, and it has been generally supposed that this was formed from an abridgment of the hieroglyphics or hieratics of egypt. but the min?an inscriptions raise the question whether the ph?nician alphabet itself and the kindred alphabets of palestine, syria, and other countries near the arabian frontier were not derived from arabia rather than from egypt. the min?an language and letters are certainly older forms of semitic speech and writing, and it seems more likely that they should have been adopted, with dialectic variations, by other semitic races, with whom arabia had a long coterminous position and constant intercourse by caravans, than that these races should have remained totally ignorant of letters, until ph?nicia borrowed them from egypt. moreover, as professor sayce shows, this theory gives a better explanation of the names of the ph?nician letters, which in many cases have no resemblance to the symbols which denote them. thus the first letter aleph, "an ox," really resembles the head of that animal in the min?an inscriptions, while no likeness can be traced to any egyptian hieroglyph used for 'a.'
should these speculations be confirmed, they will considerably modify our conceptions as to the early history of the old testament. it would seem that canaan, before the israelite invasion, was already a settled and civilized country, with a distinct alphabet and literature of its own, older than those of ph?nicia; and it may be hoped that further researches in arabia and palestine may disclose records, buried under the ruins of ancient cities, which may vie in antiquity with those of egypt and chald?a.
96 but in the meantime we must be content to rely on the records and monuments of these two countries, and especially those of egypt, as giving us the longest standard of genuine historical time, extending backwards about 7000 years from the present century.
troy and mycen?.
the existence of civilization and commerce among other ancient nations which have disappeared from history, have received a remarkable confirmation from the excavations of dr. schliemann at troy and mycen?. the site of troy has been identified with the mound of hissarlik which formed its citadel, and the accuracy of the descriptions in homer's iliad has been wonderfully verified. the ruins of seven successive towns, superimposed one on the other, have been found in excavating the mass of débris down to the bed rock. the lowest of these was a settlement apparently of the later neolithic or earliest bronze ages, while the next, built on the ruins of the first at a level of eleven to twenty feet above it, was a strongly fortified city, which had been destroyed by fire, and which answers almost exactly to the description of homer's troy. the citadel hill had been inclosed by massive walls, and was surmounted by a stately palace and other buildings, the foundations of which still remain. it was protected on one side by the river scamander, and on the other the city extended over the plain at the foot of the citadel, and was itself also surrounded by a strong wall, of which a small fragment remains. the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth settlements consisted of mean huts or dwelling-houses built of quarry stones and clay, and the seventh, or uppermost, was the gr?co-roman ilion of 97 classical writers. the main interest therefore centres in the second city, which, from the articles found in it and the many repairs and alterations of the walls and buildings, must have been for a long time the seat of a nourishing and powerful people, enriched by commerce, and far advanced in the industrial and fine arts.
notwithstanding the destruction and probable plunder of the city, the quantity of gold and silver found was very considerable, chiefly in the vaults or casemates built into the foundations of the walls, which were covered up with débris when the citadel was burnt, and the roofs and upper buildings fell in. in one place alone dr. schliemann found the celebrated treasure containing sixty articles of gold and silver, which had evidently been packed together in a square wooden box, which had disappeared with the intense heat. the nature of these citadels shows a high degree not only of civilization but of wealth and luxury, as proved by the skill and taste of jeweller's work displayed in the female ornaments, which comprise three sumptuous diadems, ear-rings, hairpins, and bracelets.
there are also numerous vases and cups of terra-cotta, and a few of gold and silver, and bars of silver which have every appearance of being used for money, being of the same form and weight. the fragments of ordinary pottery are innumerable, the finer and more perfect vases are often of a graceful form, and moulded into shapes of animals or human heads, and decorated with spirals, rosettes, and other ornaments of the type which is more fully illustrated as that of the pre-hellenic civilization of mycen?.
for schliemann has not only restored the historic reality of priam and the city of troy, but also that of 98 agamemnon "king of men," and his capital of mycen?. the result of his explorations on this site has been to show that a still larger and more wealthy city existed here for a longer period than troy, and which affected a more extensive area, for its peculiar art and civilization were widely diffused over the whole of the eastern coast of greece and the adjoining islands, and specimens of it have been found on the opposite coasts of asia minor, as we have seen at troy, and as far off as cyprus and egypt, where they were doubtless carried by commerce. the existence of an extensive commerce is proved by the profusion of gold which has been found in the vaults and tombs buried under the débris of the ruined city, for gold is not a native product, but must have been obtained from abroad, as also the bronze, copper, and tin required for the manufacture of weapons. the city also evidently owed its importance to its situation on the isthmus of corinth, commanding the trade route between the gulfs of argos and of corinth, and thus connecting the eastern mediterranean and asia with the western sea and europe. the still older city of tiryns, of which mycen? was probably an offshoot, stood nearly on the shore of the eastern gulf, while mycen? was in the middle of the isthmus about eight miles from either gulf. tiryns was also explored by schliemann, and showed the same plans of buildings and fortifications as troy and mycen?, and the same class of relics, only less extensive and more archaic than those of mycen?, which was evidently the more important city during the golden period of this great mycen?an civilization.
those who wish to pursue this interesting subject further will find an admirable account of it in the 99 english translation of schliemann's works and essays, with a full description of each exploration, and numerous illustrations of the buildings and articles found. for my present object i only refer to it as an illustration of the position that egypt and chald?a do not stand alone in presenting proofs of high antiquity, but that other nations, such as the chinese, the hittites, the min?ans of southern arabia, the mycen?ans, trojans, lydians, phrygians, cretans, and doubtless many others, also existed as populous, powerful, and civilized states, at a time long antecedent to the dawn of classical history. if these ancient empires and civilization became so completely forgotten, or survived only in dim traditions of myths and poetical legends, the reason seems to be that they kept no written records, or at any rate none in the form of enduring inscriptions. we know ancient egypt from its hieroglyphics, and from manetho's history; chald?a and assyria from the cuneiform writing on clay tablets; china, up to about 2500 b.c., from its written histories; but it is singular that the other ancient civilizations have left few or no inscriptions. this is the more remarkable in the case of the mycen?an cities explored by dr. schliemann, for their date is not so very remote, their jewellery, vases, and signet-rings are profusely decorated, their dead interred in stately tombs with large quantities of gold and silver, and yet not a single instance has been found of anything resembling alphabetical or symbolical writing, or of any form of inscription. atreus, agamemnon, and a long line of kings lie in their stately tombs, with their gold masks and breastplates, and their arms and treasures about them, without a word or sign to distinguish father from son, ancestor from successor. 100 their queens are buried in their robes of cloth of gold, their tiaras, necklaces, bracelets, rings and jewels, equally without a word to say which was clytemnestra and which electra. how different is this from the egyptian royal tombs and palaces, where pompous inscriptions record the genealogies of kings for fifty or more generations, and the first care of every pharaoh is to carve the annals of his exploits on imperishable granite!
another strange peculiarity of this mycen?an civilization is the absence of religious subjects. images and pictures of their gods abound on all the monuments of egypt and chald?a. every frieze and tablet, every seal and scarab?us, is full of representations of osiris and isis, of thoth and ammon; or in chald?a of bel, merodach, and istar, and their other pantheon of gods, each under its own symbolical form, and innumerable little idols or figurines attested their hold on the population. but at troy, tiryns, and mycen? there is nothing of the sort. animals and mortal men are freely depicted on the vases, and moulded as ornaments for domestic utensils, but religious subjects are so scarce that it is even doubtful whether a few scanty specimens bear this character or not.
there is a pit in the central court of the palace at mycen? which has been thought to be a sacrificial pit under an altar, but this rather because such an altar is described in homer, than for any positive evidence. there are also a very few figurines of terra-cotta, which have been thought to be idols, because they are too clumsy to be taken for representations of the human figure by such skilled artists, and because they bear some sort of resemblance to the rude ph?nician idols of the goddess astarte. but, with this exception, there is 101 nothing at troy or mycen? to indicate a belief in the homeric or any other mythology.
as a question of dates, we know that the supremacy of mycen? and its civilization came to an end with the invasion of the dorians, which is generally placed about 1000 b.c. we know also that it must have had a long existence, but for anything approaching to a date we must refer to the few traces which connect it with egypt. a scarab?us was found at mycen? with the name of queen ti engraved on it who lived in the thirteenth century b.c. mycen?an vases have been found of the older type with lines and spirals, in egyptian tombs of about 1400 b.c., and of the later type with animals in tombs of about 1100 b.c., and mr. flinders petrie, by whom they were discovered, says that any error in these dates cannot exceed 100 years. mycen?an pottery has also been found at thera under volcanic ashes which geologists say were thrown up about 1500 b.c.
we are pretty safe, therefore, in supposing this mycen?an civilization to have flourished between the limits of 1600 and 1000 b.c. in this case it must have been contemporary with the great events of the new empire in egypt which followed on the expulsion of the hyksos; with the victorious campaigns of ahmes and thotmes which carried the egyptian arms to the euphrates and to the black sea; with the rise of the hittite power which extended far and wide over asia minor, and contended on equal terms in syria with ramses ii.; and with the coalition of naval powers which on two occasions, in the reigns of menepthah and ramses iii., commanded the sea and invaded egypt. the mention of ach?ans among the allies whose fleet was defeated in the sea-fight on the pelusian mouth of 102 the nile, depicted on the triumphal tablet of ramses iii., becomes an historical reality, and some of the hostile galleys may well have been those of a predecessor of agamemnon.
it is doubtful, however, whether these mycen?ans or ach?ans can be properly called greek. both their civilization and art are asiatic rather than hellenic; they have left no clue to their language in any writing or inscription; and the type of the race, as far as we can judge of it from paintings on the vases, was totally unlike that of classical greece.
queen sending warrior to battle. (from "warrior vase," mycen?. schliemann.)
in one instance alone the human form is represented on the vases found at mycen?, viz. on that known as the great "warrior vase." this is a large amphora, with a broad band of figures round it, representing on one side attacking warriors hurling spears, and on the other a queen, or female figure, sending out warriors to 103 repel them. the vase is broken, but there are in all eight figures with their heads nearly perfect, and all of the same type, which is such an extraordinary one, that i annex a copy of the woman and one of the warriors.
one asks oneself in amazement, can this swine-snouted caricature of humanity be the divine helen, whose beauty set contending nations in arms, and even as a shade made faust immortal with a kiss; and this other, agamemnon, king of men, or the god-like achilles? and yet certainly they must be faces which the dwellers in mycen? either copied from nature, or introduced as conventional ideals. they cannot be taken as first childish attempts at drawing the human face, like those of the pal?olithic savages of the grottos of the vezere, for they are the work of advanced artists who, in other cases, drew beautiful decorations and life-like animals; and in these figures the attitudes, dress, and armour show that they could draw with spirit and accuracy, and give a faithful representation of details when they chose to do so.
adam, eve, and the serpent. (from a babylonian cylinder.)
the only approach to a clue i can find for an explanation of these extraordinary mycen?an faces is afforded by the picture of adam and eve, with the 104 serpent and tree of life, on an old babylonian cylinder in the british museum.
it will be seen at once that there is a considerable resemblance between the two types of countenance, and it strikes me as possible that, as mycen?an art was so largely derived from babylonian, this may have become a conventional type for the first human ancestors, in which it was thought by the mycen?an copyists that heroes and kings ought to be represented.
this, however, is a mere conjecture, and all we can infer with any certainty from troy and mycen? is, that a considerable civilization and commerce must have prevailed in the eastern mediterranean at a date long prior to the commencement of classical history, though much later than that of the older records of egypt and chald?a.
