A Lost Civilisation
Before 1880 secular scholars and historians denied the existence of the Hittites. The Hebrew Bible mentions them some 47 times but to the sceptics the absence of a Hittite civilisation in known history was proof that the biblical record was inaccurate and couldn’t be trusted, with the implication that it couldn’t be trusted in any other area either.
But in the past century-and-more, things have changed. In early 2004, I took a road trip, beginning in Istanbul, and circling some 1000 km through central and southern Turkey, visiting ancient Hittite cities and archaeological sites.
My journey began at the Hittite Museum in Istanbul. The jewels of the museum are the Hamath Stones, which are fitted to one of its walls. They were the first artefacts to catch the attention of historians and archaeologists to the Hittites, who were unknown to scholars. They are now known to have been a great empire in Asia Minor, but lay lost and forgotten for thousands of years.
In 1812 John Burckhardt discovered the fabulous ruin of Petra, but four years before that he was in Syria. At the city of Hamath he noticed some slabs of stone built into the wall of a house. The stones contained strange hieroglyphic characters. In Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, he referred to them as “a stone with a number of small figures and signs which appears to be a kind of hieroglyphic writing, though it does not resemble that of Egypt.” As nobody had any clue as to the nature or origin of this writing, no further interest was taken.
It wasn’t until 58 years later that they came to the attention of two scholars from the United States, Johnson and Jessup, who also reported seeing them. The following year William Wright, an Irish missionary in Damascus, saw the stones, and set in motion a series of events to get them to Constantinople.
Wright was on good terms with the governor of Syria, Subhi Pasha, and suggested to him that it would be in the interests of the government to have these stones removed and safely installed in the museum of Constantinople. Subhi Pasha agreed, but when workmen began chiselling out the stones, they ran into trouble. The locals believed the stones possessed magical properties, especially for dealing with rheumatism. They were not about to lose their curative medium, and objected violently.
However, as the governor had access to the military, the stones were removed and taken to his palace. That night whirling dervishes raced through the streets stirring up the passion of the mobs, who then attacked the palace. Adding to the volatile situation and confusion, that night a spectacular meteorite display lit up the night sky, which the mob interpreted to be a sign of Allah’s wrath!
Next morning an angry delegation came to the gates of the palace. The governor admitted them and quietly listened to their protests. “Had these falling stars killed or injured anyone?” he enquired. The delegation admitted that no-one had been injured. “Had any animals been injured or killed?” “No.” “Had any property been damaged?” “No.” “Ah, then,” said the governor, “what better evidence could you have for Allah’s good pleasure on the removal of the stones?” The delegation and the mob were silenced and the stones were shipped to Constantinople.
The broader drama climaxed in 1880 when Archibald Sayce addressed an elite gathering of scholars in London and claimed that the many artefacts turning up in Turkey should be attributed to the biblical Hittites. The scholars laughed him to scorn, but time was to prove Sayce correct. In 1861 the Encyclopaedia Britannica contained just eight lines on the Hittites. By 1881 it devoted two pages, stating: “We wait longingly for a confirmation of Professor Sayce’s view that the Hittites were the authors of the Hamathite hieroglyphics. . . . If this be proved . . . this wonderful nation steps into a position hardly surpassed by that of any of the nations of the distant East.”
Another extraordinary tablet is displayed in a glass case in the museum. Egyptologists had long noted the inscriptions from the time of Rameses II in which he boasted of his crushing victories over the “Hatti” in the Battle of Kadesh. At that time no-one knew who the Hatti were. Rameses recorded a peace treaty he’d made with them, which had been sealed with the marriage of a Hittite princess to the great Rameses.
In 1906 Hugo Winckler was searching for tablets in Boghazkale when he was astonished to find fragments of a cuneiform tablet on which was recorded the Hittite version of this same treaty, between the Hittite king Hattusilis and Rameses. It is this fragmented tablet that holds pride of place in the Istanbul museum.
The Hittites were a remarkable people who displayed some commendable qualities. Their laws were reasonably enlightened. Women, for example, are mostly depicted as equal with the men. Their military strategies were brilliant, and they probably invented the light chariot for military purposes. They appear to be the first in history to ride on horses. Whereas other nations commonly used horses to pull chariots, the Hittites climbed on their backs. One tablet actually contains instructions for breaking-in a horse.
In the midst of bustling Ankara is a steep hill on top of which are the remains of a Hittite citadel. The nearby Ankara Museum contains a superb collection of Hittite reliefs of figures and hieroglyphs. Lions must have been plentiful in ancient Anatolia, because they figure prominently among them. Another dominant motif is of the weather god holding a bolt of lightning in his hand.
Travelling east from Ankara we came to Alaca Huyuk, a Hittite ruin that has been well excavated. Two large sphinxes flank the entrance gate. Prominently displayed beside the gate is a relief of three acrobats performing their arts. One is a sword swallower, the centre one is a flame eater, and the one on the right is scaling a ladder, which is not leaning against a wall. I think this relief tells us something about the nature of the Hittites. “We enjoy life; come in and join in the fun,” they seem to say.
But that doesn’t mean the Hittites didn’t engage in warfare. Skilful in military action, they carved out an empire extending from the Black Sea to Central Syria. They even conquered and looted Babylon.
From Alaca Huyuk it is 30 km to the old Hittite capital of Hattusis, now called by the Turkish name Boghazkale. These ruins were first found by Charles Texier in 1854 while searching for the lost Roman city of Tavium. Boghazkale stunned him.
Several gates lead into the city. Further up the hill is a lion gate and beyond that a sphinx gate. At its heart was a temple complex. A paved road runs through the centre and enormous stones were used for the walls. One such stone is six metres in length and correspondingly wide and high. How it was quarried and transported to the site can only be speculated.
The Hittite method of construction was unique. Turkey is earthquake-prone, so instead of building entirely of stone, masonry blocks were used only for foundations. Set on them were wooden structures, less susceptible to quakes. But to anchor them to the foundation stones large holes were drilled into the rock and tenons inserted. These holes are quite large and perfectly circular. How they bored them so perfectly is not known, but obviously the Hittites were an intelligent and resourceful people.
Recent discoveries in Boghazkale include the foundations of numerous small temples scattered all over the place and are all sizes and orientations. Given this, it can only be surmised that the Hittites worshipped numerous deities, with separate temples for each.
Next I travelled south to better known Cappadocia, with its amazing geological formations and fairy chimneys, geological formations that defy the imagination. Also in Cappadocia are amazing houses and churches cut from the soft rock. East of Goreme is the large Turkish city of Kayseri. In it is a small but interesting museum of Hittite artefacts, which come from the ruins of nearby Kultepe. Kultepe had two separate civilisations, one of which was a large Hittite city, and the other an early settlement of Assyrian traders.
Further south, on the Mediterranean coast, is Adana, and not far to the west is the old city of Tarsus, from which the Bible writer Paul came. About 80 km north-east of Adana is Karatepe. Very few tourists go there and the road is poorly signposted. But it once contained “signposts” of huge importance for archaeology, and opened their hieroglyphic script to us.
The walls around Karatepe are massive. It was at one of the gates that a noteworthy discovery was made. Until this discovery the Hittite hieroglyphs remained a locked script. The Hittite language had been deciphered largely through the discovery of the Azarwa letters, which were in the known cuneiform script, but the hieroglyphs defied attempts to unlock them.
It was Hittitologist Professor Helmuth Bossert who made the discovery. He had heard of some stone lions that had been seen at Karatepe and decided to investigate. He did some preliminary investigations, which confirmed that it must have been a Hittite stronghold, then in March 1947 made some initial probes. He was excited to find a slab of stone on which there was a Phoenician inscription.
He dared to think it might have once stood at the gateway, and, if so, he postulated, then there may be another—in Hittite hieroglyphic script—paralleling it on the other side of the gate. A little scratching around soon located such a stone. Bossert concluded that he’d found the long-sought bilingual. He left it there, saying nothing to any of his team, and returned to Istanbul.
In September he returned to Karatepe and on the first morning excavated the slab on which were Phoenician characters. “Fantastic,” Bossert enthused. “If we dig over here, we may even find its hieroglyphic counterpart!”
Some enthusiastic digging followed and, sure enough, the other stone was found but further digging revealed that it did not contain an inscription- only the marks of time. However further digging did reveal a Hittite inscription and Bossert had his precious bilingual. It did prove to be the key to unlocking the Hittite hieroglyphic script.
An interesting thing: Hittite writing is boustrophedon, literally, “as the ox ploughs.” The hieroglyphs read from left to right and on the next line right to left.
So the basics of the Hittite hieroglyphs can now be read, but there is still a lot the scholars do not know. The script used for everyday writing was the Assyrian cuneiform, either in the Akkadian or Hittite language. The hieroglyphs were used only for royal or priestly writing.
onsequently there are still many words that are not understood. Scholars are still working on it.
So the Hittites have been rediscovered, but as far as the Bible was concerned, they were never lost. They are not subscripts to history, but have the prominence befitting an important people.
They are at the head of a list of nations the Israelites were commanded to destroy upon entering Canaan. Of them Moses wrote, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and drives out before you many nations— the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you . . .” (Deuteronomy 7:1).
On one occasion, when the Jewish capital of Samaria was besieged by the Arameans (or Syrians), the Aramean army suddenly fled in panic. The reason was that “the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said one to another, ‘Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!’” (2 Kings 7:6).
The significance of this verse goes beyond the mere mention of the Hittites, for, significantly, they are listed ahead of the Egyptians. No historian would doubt the might of the Egyptian armies, but here they are headed by the Hittites. Obviously the Bible writers recognised them as a great nation, yet in secular history they were lost and forgotten.
Bible history should be taken seriously. These were not the fanciful myths and legends such as found in folk history, but the record of God’s dealing with humankind. They are factual, and can be counted upon as accurate renderings of history. As King David wrote, “All your words are true” (Psalm 119:160).
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