READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

THE HITTITES OF SYRIA

I.

THE SOUTHERN HITTITE PEOPLES

BEFORE we continue the history of the Mesopotamian lands under the Neo-Babylonian empire we must turn back in order to survey the main features of the history and civilization, first of the Hittite and related peoples of north Syria and, then, of the Urartians of Lake Van; and finally the movements of nomads which brought the Scythians into south-western Asia and hastened the downfall of Assyria.

The ethnical and the cultural uses of the term Hittite ought to be distinguished in Syria as in Asia Minor; but in practice, the distinction is less easy to observe. On the one hand, we do not possess any documents written by a Syrian Hittite people, which certify its own use of the ethnic term Hatti; on the other hand, while non-Hittite contemporary or nearly contemporary documents notice various Syrian elements under the names Hatti, or Heth, at various epochs, both early (i.e. before the Cappadocian occupation of the country) and also during some centuries subsequent to the Cappadocian withdrawal, it is none the less true of some of these elements and probably true of others, that they were not of the same race as the Cappadocian Hatti, though within the same cycle of culture. In speaking of the Hittites of Asia Minor we have appropriated the terms Hatti and Hattic to the Cappadocians; and, strictly speaking, these terms ought not to be used otherwise in the chapter which now follows. We cannot, however, on present knowledge, be more precise than our ancient authorities; and, since these do speak of Heth and Hatti in Syria, without necessarily denoting Cappadocian kin, we must do so too; but for the sake of distinction the Syrian Hatti will usually be called neo-Hatti.

The peoples or states south of the Taurus, which we have authority to regard at any epoch as Hittite in respect of culture, are distributed (but by no means continuously) over the northern half of Syria and the north-west of Mesopotamia with an extension, to be discussed presently, into Palestine. In north Syria the Hittite cultural area, as defined by the occurrence of Hittite monuments great and small, includes the riverain belt from above Samosata to a point opposite the mouth of the Balikh; also, in the interior, virtually all the north-west as well as the north-east, monumental evidence being most cogent for a belt lying immediately below Mt Amanus and the Taurus. There is reason for including the Killis district and all the Cyrrhestica down to Aleppo; and there is no doubt about the middle valley of the Orontes from about Kala’at el-Mudik through Hamah (the ancient Hamath) to Restan. But for the lowest part of that valley —the Antioch district— Hittite evidence is wanting. In Mesopotamia, too, the riverain belt, extending from Birejik inland to Seruj and downstream to south of Tell Akhmar, possessed Hittite culture at some period. Since, however, it is by no means certain whether all these Syrian and Mesopotamian districts were Hittite at the same period, or from, or to, what dates they severally were held by Hittite peoples, it will be well, before proceeding further, to see at what periods any inhabitants of them are called Hittite by ancient authorities, or can reasonably be argued on other grounds to have been such.

The earliest attestation of the presence of a Hittite population in any part of Syria is made for Palestine by the Hebrew tradition. Many references in the Old Testament to the existence of a belief that Palestine had once been the home of ‘Children of Heth’ carry cumulative conviction not only of the universality of this tradition among Israelites in the time of the Monarchy, but also that it had some foundation in fact. Even if such sporadic Palestinian Hittites, as are noticed in the records of the Judges and the Kings, are to be regarded as jetsam left by an ebbing tide of recent Cappadocian invasion, the memories of ‘Children of Heth’ at Hebron in the time of Abraham, and of a Hittite tenure of Palestine in general before the Hebrew invasion, remain unexplained. About the bearing of other biblical references upon the question of Hittite residents in Syria at a later period, more will be said presently.

Along with these Hebrew beliefs should be considered a Babylonian tradition, although it does not refer explicitly to Syria. According to official archivists of the Neo-Babylonian monarchy, the First Dynasty of Babylon was brought to an end by Hatti. Their invasion, which is to be dated early in the second millennium B.C., was so overwhelming, that Babylon remained feeble and without history of importance until the full establishment of the Kassites. We cannot be sure what Hatti are meant; but there is a reasonable presumption that this term would not be used at Babylon, in the sixth century B.C., for peoples not Hittite either in race or in culture, seeing that Mesopotamians had been familiar with such peoples since at least the fifteenth century. Therefore, it may be presumed that this tradition does attest the presence of a powerful Hittite element established in some region or other south of the Taurus before the historic descent of the Cappadocian Hatti.

Furthermore, the Israelites believed that a Hittite element had continued to reside in their neighbourhood far into the period of the Monarchy. Two biblical passages argue that some Hittite, or even Hattie, state was understood to have lain not far away on the north. One of these enumerates the alien peoples from which Solomon chose wives (1 Kings XI, 1). Besides the Hittites, all the peoples there mentioned were neighbours of Israel, ranging round a segment of a circle from Edom to Sidon. It is natural, therefore, to place the source of the Hittite wives at some point on that same segment—say, in the upper Orontes valley. The other passage relates to the panic of the Syrian army outside Samaria. The king of Israel (son of Ahab who had been an ally of Hamath at the battle of Karkar) had hired against them, said the Syrians, the kings of Musri (in the Taurus?) and the kings of the Hittites; and both were supposed to be within striking distance (2 Kings VII, 6). It is difficult to believe that either the Syrians in crediting this rumour, or the Israelites in telling the story of it, were thinking of powers other than such as lay comparatively near to them and to the scene of action—chieftains, e.g. of Northern Mesopotamia and of the northern parts of Syria. There are, of course, other passages, which argue Hebrew familiarity with Hittites at this period—for example, notices of Hittite residents in Palestine, such as Ahimelech and Uriah. Their presence, if other arguments were lacking, would have no more significance than need be attached to the presence of Moroccans and Yemenites in modern Jerusalem; but, since other arguments do exist, it gives support to the theory of the historical existence of a centre of Hittites not far from Palestine. Such a centre may well have been Hamath, for Hamathite territory has yielded Hittite monuments (at the modern Hamah and Restan); and relations of amity between David of Judah and Toi of Hamath are recorded. Since the region of Coele-Syria, immediately north of Galilee, was known to the Israelites as the ‘entering in of Hamath’, the Israelite and Hamathite dominions may be presumed to have been coterminous. David’s kingdom, if we may trust the emended text of 2 Sam. XXIV, 6 (confirmed by the Lucianic recension), extended to Kadesh and the land of the Hittites; and the Assyrian question to Hezekiah, ‘Where is the king of Hamath?’ was a reminder that the last of the outer defences of Israel had been carried. Immediately north of Hamath, on the lower middle Orontes (a Hattic name, Arandas), lay Khattina, whose name and that of its king, Tarkhulara, in the ninth century, suggest Hittite connections; but we have little evidence for asserting that any other parts of central north Syria were Hattie. At the time of, or indeed after, the Cappadocian descent subsequent to 1400, nothing in our Hattic and Egyptian records suggests that any region south of Taurus was inhabited by kin of the invaders. Most of the small states of the north and centre were certainly not ruled then by Hattic princes, whatever race may have been represented by the bulk of their populations. Moreover, it seems clear that a broad Semitic wedge had been driven by the Amorites between any possible Hittite peoples of the north and the south. Where Amorites were not, there Harri and other non-Hattic princes held the length and breadth of the central north lands. Nor does any unmistakable evidence attest a population of Hittite culture in northern Syria, before or during the Hattie empire; or, indeed, till, at earliest, two or three generations before the close of the second millennium, even at Zenjirli, whose geographical position must have exposed it to the passage of Hattic imperial armies. At Carchemish, whose territory the later Assyrians called ‘Hatti-land,’ there is no such evidence till about the end of that millennium. Shalmaneser I, recording his western advance, included that place in Musri, and did not call its people or any other Syrians Hatti; and the first Assyrian mention of ‘Hatti’ there is made by Tiglath- Pileser I near the end of the twelfth century. Thenceforward, throughout the Assyrian Empire of the first millennium, kings of Carchemish (e.g. from Sangara in the time of Ashur-Nasir-Pal) will constantly be styled kings of Hatti.

To complete the survey, we must glance at north Mesopotamia. There abundant archaeological evidence demonstrates that, at some time, and for no inconsiderable time, Hittite culture prevailed as much as in any part of Syria. It may have been established quite as early as, for example, at Zenjirli; for rude monuments, showing human types and technical style similar to those of the early Zenjirli sculptures and the same sort of subjects (but no Hittite inscriptions), have come to light at Tell Khalaf in the Mitannian country far east of the Euphrates. Of a later class and period are other Hittite monuments distributed along the left bank of the river from Birejik to the Balikh, and at least as far inland as the Seruj district. These seem to be products of a culture either identical or kin with one which was established at Carchemish at some epoch after 1200 BC. That this was partly neo-Hattic, influenced by an influx from beyond the Taurus, the newcomers being either survivors of the Cappadocian Hatti, or elements from south Cappadocia from Melitene, which had inherited of those Hatti, is argued later. But, whoever these were, their characteristic culture was imposed on an earlier, which belonged to the Mesopotamian cycle; and from this they took over at the first many features. Presently they received a fresh reinforcement of Semitic influence. Aramaeans, who had flooded north-west Mesopotamia before the twelfth century, crossed the Euphrates and occupied a belt of Syria north of Carchemish reaching from the river to the Amanus range. Also, about the end of the eleventh century, they took and held Pitru, a town on the Sajur, south of Carchemish. It is not impossible that they may have taken even Carchemish itself at this time, and so have become part authors of the later Hittite monuments both in north-west Mesopotamia and in certain northern districts of Syria. To the north, immediately below the Taurus, where on the east the range abuts on the Euphrates, lay an independent state, Gurgum or Gamgum, which, a century later (Sargon’s time), had princes of Hattic-sounding names, Tarkhulara and Muttallu. It is mentioned in close connection with Kumukh, then ruled by another Mutallu. South of the Aramaean belt and west of riverain ‘Hatti-land,’ we find Tunip and Halman (Aleppo) still existent as states, though the last (if not both) may have been subject to Arpad, which lay some twenty miles north of Aleppo in the direction of Killis. Whereas Halman is never mentioned as offering opposition to Assyrian forces, Arpad gave them repeated and serious fighting.

Before we pass to the history of these Hittite states attention must be called to the south Cappadocian group of principalities, which, at more than one moment of that history, are found in relations with some states of the Syrian group. The Hittite character of their culture is attested by numerous monuments, to be regarded as post-Hattic, which range from southern Lycaonia across the Anti-Taurus to Melitene. None has yet been found north of the Mazaca-Caesarea district on the middle Halys. In contrast to monuments of the Hattie period, such as that at Fraktin (Ferakdin) the south Cappadocian reliefs how divine and human types resembling not the north Hattie but those prevalent at Carchemish after 1000 BC; and when they bear inscriptions, these are usually in the reduced linear Hittite script. The principalities in question, enumerated from east to west, were: first, Milid (Melitene), about whose Hittite monuments and their probable date something is said later. This principality, which carried on the traditions of Hanigalbat and was frequently raided or traversed by Assyrian armies from the time of Ashur-Uballit II onwards, owed allegiance, at one time or another after 1000 BC, to rulers with Hattic-sounding names, such as Lalla, Salamal, and Tarkhunazi. Its territory extended probably from the Euphrates to the main ridge of Anti-Taurus and commanded two (or three) main passes of the Taurus which converge on Marash. It seems to have lain very open to Assyrian attack, and to have been compelled to throw in its lot fairly consistently with Assyrian fortunes.

Next to it lay two small states, Tabal and Kumani (Comana), or perhaps one only, if the first named included the second. Assyrian armies could, and did, reach this region from either Milid or Cilicia. Its western frontier was, probably, the range of the Ala Dagh which shuts off the approach to the great pass of the Cilician Gates; and it commanded the head of a third pass to Syria by way of Marash, that which enters the Taurus south of Gyuksun (Cocusus). It has relatively few Hittite monuments to show, and one, if not two, of the small number is Hattie, being a relic of an earlier age when this region was, probably, Kissuwadna: but the rest are demonstrably post-Hattic.

Next in order, on the west, is a broad and comparatively plain region which in later days was the Tyanitis. Here the Hittite monuments are, without exception, post-Hattic, and very closely related to a certain group in northern Syria. The Tyanitis was, without any reasonable doubt, in post-Hattic days territory of the Mushki, who were ruled by kings bearing a dynastic name, Mita; and this people must have made the monuments in question. The Mushki were politically distinct from the Carchemish folk, but allied with a king of the latter, in the eighth century BC, in the prosecution of a combined movement against Assyria. Their origin and the causes of their presence in south Cappadocia are obscure. Their name appears first in history during the twelfth century, in northern Mesopotamia; and a body of Mushki was still settled in the foot-hills below the source of the Tigris some generations later. But these facts are quite consistent with settlement of the Tyanitis by another, and perhaps the main, body in or about the twelfth century; and if, as there is reason to argue, the Mushki formed an element also in the Phrygian realm of the Midas dynasty, one would look to the north rather than the south for their place of origin, and incline to regard their appearance in Mesopotamia as the result of a raid or raids undertaken after, or coincidently with, settlement in southern Cappadocia.

North of the Tyanitis lies a district in which several post-Hattic monuments occur, the majority being inscribed in the linear script. This is the volcanic region of Mt Argaeus and the valley plains about its roots, of which Mazaca-Caesarea was chief town in historic times. If this district constituted another state in the post-Hattic age, we do not know its name; but our ignorance could be explained by the fact that the Assyrians, who never penetrated far into Tyanitis or subdued the Mushkian power, did not reach it. Not improbably, it was the original state organized by the Mushki after the fall of Hattic power in the north; hence they subsequently reached Tyana and possessed themselves of the rich Lycaonian plain. Finally, to the west of the Tyanitis, beyond low hills which shut off the district of Iconium, Hittite monuments again occur, but they are of older appearance than the Tyanean, and may well be Hattic, or provincial work contemporary with the Hattic empire.

II

THE STRUGGLE WITH ASSYRIA

Before the historical curtain is raised upon Hittite Syria by records of the Second or New Assyrian empire, light is thrown on its condition by three isolated groups of data. The first group, which concerns the Cappadocian invasion and occupation, ending with the thirteenth century, has been dealt with already. The second group, to which allusion has been made above, concerns the penetration of Syria, after a considerable interval of time, by the Aramaean peoples which, by the close of the twelfth century, had occupied all the left bank of the middle Euphrates. The third group consists of allusions to riverain Syria by two Assyrian monarchs of the closing period of what we may call the First Empire, and a much more informing statement by Nebuchadrezzar I of Babylon, that, in or about the year 1140 BC, he had to withstand an invasion of southern Mesopotamia by ‘Hatti’, whom in the end he thrust back into the north. This statement conveys a possible confirmation of the conjecture made above that Carchemish experienced, in the twelfth century, an influx of neo-Hatti from beyond the Taurus. They may have occupied the place either on their way to the south or on their return. In any case it seems reasonable to account for the sudden appearance of a Hittite culture there in that century by a movement which ended, as an earlier Hattic movement to the south had ended, with an attack on Babylon.

After the raids which Tiglath-Pileser I pushed across the Euphrates and even into the Sajur valley, more than two centuries elapsed before another Assyrian king entered a Syrian district. While the north flank of the Taurus was not so fortunate —for example, armies of Adad-Nirari III twice attacked the territory of Kumani (Comana) in the late tenth century—Syria gained immunity from the Aramaean wedge, which had been thrust up from the south into north-west Mesopotamia. Assyria, suffering from relapse since the death of Tiglath-Pileser I, was powerless to stop a fresh Semitic horde, in the prime of its expansive force, from settling along the Khabur and the Euphrates, and even in the richer Syrian country, which she herself coveted. Presently, however, settled life began to abate Aramaean truculence, as it always abates that of Arabs; and before much of the ninth century had elapsed, Assyria was again contemplating a thrust towards the Syrian lands. In a series of devastating raids spread over some seven years, during which Ashur-Nasir-Pal attacked continually and exhaustively the Aramaean chiefs and all their possible allies from the Khabur up to and beyond the Taurus, he broke through, and raided even the transriverain lands of Bit Adini; and in 876, having secured his passage and repassage of the Euphrates by fortresses, which he built and garrisoned on the left bank, he could lay Carchemish under contribution, and go forward to central Syria. His purpose seems to have envisaged transient adventure rather than permanent conquest, its goal being the Great Sea. He marched, therefore, straight for the lower Orontes valley, without touching Aleppo, and, finding himself in the state of Khattina, took toll of its chief towns on both sides of the river, before crossing the mountains to some point on the coast, probably not far from Latakia. Since we hear nothing of Hamath in his annals, it is not to be supposed that he followed up the Orontes valley even so far as Kala‘at el-Mudik. He claims to have received presents from the cities of the Phoenician shore as far south as Sidon; and it is likely enough that these societies forestalled what seemed an imminent assault. Then, at the end of summer, he appears to have retraced his steps to the Tigris, as directly and quickly as he had come; and, so far as we know, he would be seen in Syria no more.

His brief apparition, however, bore fruits with which his successor had to deal more than twenty years later. Awakened to a common danger, the jealous inland states of north Syria drew together into a defensive league under the influence of the Aramaeans of Damascus and the leadership of king Irkhuleni of Hamath. But the crisis had not yet quite come. Shalmaneser III, on ascending the Assyrian throne, found the Aramaean states more or less recuperated; and he had to devote three years to breaking down the barrier once more. But, when at length his father’s road was reopened, it was better assured than of old. Shalmaneser had been at pains not only to destroy the trans-Euphratean strongholds of Bit Adini, but also to colonize and garrison on the right bank of the Euphrates a point which commands the ferries off the Sajur mouth; and from Pitru (renamed in Assyrian fashion) he could keep Carchemish in salutary fear. Having thus cleared his way Shalmaneser sat down at Pitru in 853 to discover who was or was not on his side by sending summons to all the princes of the north to bring him tribute. Among those who obeyed was Kalparuda of Khattina, who should be neo-Hattic.

It is tempting to divide north Syria at this moment between Hittite states, which followed the Assyrian, and Semitic states, which leagued together against him; but such a rule would have to admit too many exceptions. The attitude of the states was determined evidently by geographical position and recent history, rather than by racial considerations. Thus, while Khattina, which had felt Ashur-Nasir-Pal’s hand twenty-three years earlier, submitted at once with most of the north-western states, Hamath, which probably was just as much or as little Hittite, but had not yet been raided by Assyria, headed the opposition. Its allies were mainly Semites of the south, including the Damascenes, the Israelites under Ahab, and divers Phoenicians, trans-Jordanians, and Arabs; but among them were also some northerners from Kue, beyond Mt Amanus, and from Musri in or beyond the Taurus—districts which had had little or no experience of Assyrian raids.

Shalmaneser marched from Pitru to Aleppo and thence southward by what is now the line of the railway. He encountered, so far as we know, no serious opposition, until he was within the territory of Hamath, and had come down into the Orontes valley at a point some distance north of the city. There he found the forces of the League based upon a stronghold, named Karkar, whose site has not been identified. The battle which ensued was indecisive (853 BC). Shalmaneser’s records agree in claiming, as matter of course, an Assyrian victory; but since they vary, by more than a hundred per cent., in the tale of enemies killed, one may doubt if the Assyrians remained sufficiently in possession of the field to make any count of the dead. In any case, it is clear that they withdrew northwards again without attempting to advance upon Hamath itself, or even to assault Karkar; and that the League was left in being for several years more. In 849 Shalmaneser returned to the charge, taking apparently the same route from the Euphrates to fight on the Orontes, in much the same locality as before, and with the same general result. The king of Damascus, Ben-Hadad, held the field in person on this occasion against him. A third raid, three years later, effected no more; but a fourth, in 841, seems at last to have sealed the fate of Hamath, and opened the road to the south. Time had played the Assyrian game. The cohesive force of Syria was outstayed by that of Assyria; and with the deaths of Ben-Hadad and Ahab, the League went to pieces. The great Phoenician cities and Jehu of Israel stood out of it, making separate terms with Shalmaneser, who henceforward was free to begin the process of wearing down Damascus, as in twelve years he had worn down Hamath.

III

THE ASSYRIAN CONQUEST AND OCCUPATION

Throughout Shalmaneser’s campaigns we hear of no serious movement in that riverain country which, to the Assyrians, was peculiarly Hatti-land. Evidently it was held securely in clientela by the menace of the Pitru garrison. This is the period of the most excellent art remains found at Carchemish—for example, of certain reliefs on the Palace stair which, for the first time in the artistic history of the site, betray a debt to Assyria; for they are inspired to some extent by the free art which, in the early ninth century, produced the bronze plating on the doors of Balawat. Since sculptures in the same style, but of less excellent execution, have been found both at Sakjegeuzi and Zenjirli, it may safely be inferred that all northernmost Syria had fallen in some measure under that same influence since Ashur-Nasir-Pal’s appearance in the west.

Although Shalmaneser secured a base on Syrian soil and opened to Assyrian armies the direct south road through Aleppo and Hamath to Damascus and Palestine, he left on one side a large and rich district of Syria, including the domains of modern Killis and Antioch, together with the basins of the Afrin, the Karasu, and the lower Orontes. Various parts of this region were to give his successors considerable trouble for more than a century, while Damascus would still hold out obstinately in the south. We hear of campaigns on the Orontes undertaken by Adad-Nirari III, at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the eighth; by Ashur-Dan III a generation later; and finally, after the middle of the eighth century, by Tiglath-Pileser III, the great organizer of Assyrian territorial empire. The centre of native opposition was for long the city of Arpad (Tell R’fad), some twenty miles due north of Aleppo; and even after its reduction, in 740 BC, the Antioch plain, then called Unki or Amki, was not pacified. A prince, Tutammu, then ruled these north-western valleys, where to the present day the most Hattic-looking peasantry in Syria survives. The last stand of north-west Syria seems to have been made under one Azriyau (Azariah), prince of a district near Samal, and obviously a Semite. Some Semitic states of the yet unsubdued south supported him—for example, Damascus, Tyre and Israel; but his chief foreign allies came from beyond the Amanus and the Taurus. In all, says Tiglath-Pileser in his annals, the Assyrian forces had to deal with nineteen leagued foes; and when, at length, they captured Azriyau’s stronghold of Kullani, he, the Great King, had to annex the whole north-west, colonize points in it with Assyrians, and interchange plainsmen for hillmen and vice versa, even as, in the same district, less than a hundred years ago, the Turks used to deport Kurds from Amanus and push up Armenians in their room.

One of the small states reduced was Samal, whose king, Panammu, had probably been a supporter of Azriyau. This place, now represented by the Kurdish hamlet of Zenjirli, has affected our knowledge of Hittite Syria out of all proportion to its size, thanks to the systematic exploration of it carried out by German excavators, between thirty and twenty years ago. Small though it was, it had considerable importance in the world of its time, as the crossing-place of two main tracks, the one coming south from Marash and the Taurus passes and continuing to the Antioch plain and the Orontes valley, the other coming from the Euphrates and striking across to Cilicia by the easiest of the Amanus passes. Its situation on a col, commanding two great roads, excites expectation that, among divers foreign influences affecting the culture of the place, that of the Cappadocian Hatti would be conspicuous. These imperial invaders did not approach Syria through Plain Cilicia (if we may judge by its lack of Hittite remains), and must have used the Marash passes and the three main tracks leading south—by Aintab to Carchemish, by Killis to Aleppo, and by Zenjirli to the Orontes. But, in fact, there is curiously little trace of Cappadocian culture at Zenjirli. No inscription in Hattie script came to light in any part of its excavated area, or, again, at Sakjegeuzi in the same district; and although two stones so inscribed (one has been re­used and possibly brought from a distance, and neither looks of early date) have been found on outlying sites, and the use of relieved characters, in the ninth century, for inscribing Semitic texts implies local acquaintance with Hittite writing, that lack tells strongly against any presumption of a Hattic occupation of the place, or, indeed, of Hattic influence having had responsibility for its culture. Still more convincing is the evidence of plastic monuments. The style of the earliest reliefs at Zenjirli— dados of the southern Town Gate—cannot, on any reasonable artistic canon, be affiliated to the latest Hattic style as shown in, e.g. the Warrior-god relief at Boghaz Keui. This style is already far ahead of the earliest Syrian, and one must go back to the first Hattic style, that of the Euyuk façade-dados, for any possibility of causal connection. But if one does so, not only do the two arts remain very dissimilar in general and in detail, but also a serious difficulty of chronology arises. If the earliest plastic work of Zenjirli is to be affiliated to the Euyuk style, its date must be pushed back into the fourteenth century BC, and a gap of some five centuries will yawn between it and the great bulk of the Zenjirli monuments, demonstrably dating from the ninth century. As a matter of fact, those south Town Gate sculptures are, in all probability, not of an earlier century than the eleventh.

If this be so, it is necessary to look elsewhere for the parentage of Zenjirli culture. The remarkable similarity of some sculptures found at Tell Khalaf, on the upper Khabur, suggests North Mesopotamia, where, from an unknown antiquity till almost the end of the second millennium BC, Mitanni, related in some way to the Cappadocian Hatti, was a civilized and important power. If, in that region, further research should reveal earlier Hittite remains than those of Tell Khalaf, and evidence of an old focus of Hittite civilization developed by Hatti or Harri or Mitanni, the Cappadocian Hittite culture might be explained as its earlier offshoot and the Syrian as its later.

From the time of Ashur-Nasir-Pal at any rate, if not before, Samal had princes with Semitic names who were almost certainly Aramaeans. The earliest known to us is Gabbar, whose grandson, Kalamu (or Kalammu)—the precise pronunciation of all these names is unknown—sent presents to forestall attack by Shalmaneser. The father of Kalamu, named Haya, may have been ruling in Ashur-Nasir-Pal’s time, and Gabbar even earlier than the latter’s reign. Subsequently, in or about 815, a prince named Karal was on the throne, and from him a line of Aramaean princes is given to us by epigraphic records down to about 730—Panammu, Bar-Sur, Panammu II, and Bar-Rekub, who was a worshipper of Baal of Harran, and not son, but grandson, of the last Panammu, who had killed Bar-Sur, his father. The latter was king of Yadi, a place not known to us. He may, therefore, not have been in direct succession to the earlier princes; but in any case we may be assured by his name that he continued Aramaean rule at Samal. His son, Bar-Rekub, inherited a principality whose independence was henceforth limited by direct overlordship of Assyria, and perhaps, by an Assyrian garrison.

It has been noticed that Bar-Rekub is represented with full beard and moustache in the Assyrian fashion, instead of with chin-beard and shaven lower and upper lips, as was the Babylonian fashion followed at an earlier time at Zenjirli; and probably he was the first to acknowledge unconditional vassalage. Up to this time, although some Assyrian influence had come to bear on the local art, the general character of Zenjirli culture, as will be shown later, had remained essentially Hittite, the North Semitic script being sometimes used to express a non-Semitic language, and cut on stone in relieved characters according to the tradition of Hattic hieroglyphs. But henceforward Assyrianization was to proceed apace, though the principality, after the manner of distant vassals of Assyria, seems on occasion to have broken away from allegiance. Esarhaddon had to attack and retake it in 670 BC, and a great stele, found on the site, records its submission to him and re-entry upon the roll of Assyrian subjects. Among these, no doubt, it was constrained to abide till at least the last quarter of the reign of Ashurbanipal.

After 740 we hear little more of independent states, cities, or princes in north Syria. When Assyrian armies passed down to attack Damascus (it fell in 732), or Tyre, or Israel (Samaria sur­rendered in 722), or Philistia or even Egypt, the official annalists rarely found anything to record about the northern districts through which those armies attained their objectives. Shalmaneser V had some trouble with a town named Shabarain, north of Damascus (presumably the Sibraim of Ezek. XLVII, 16, and the Sepharvaim of 2 Kings XVII, 24); and Sargon, five years later, dealt with a momentary recrudescence of Hamathite independence, when the central Syrians, from Arpad to Damascus, made common cause with beleaguered Samaria. But after Karkar had been stormed, the rebel king of Hamath, Yaubidi, died under torture, and the revolt collapsed.

There is no indication in Sargon’s annals that Carchemish and the riverain Hittites stood in with this rising. The offence, for which this city was punished by armed occupation and reduction to an Assyrian governorate (717 BC), seems to have been that its prince, Pisiris, had been fomenting a distinct movement in the north in concert with some trans-Tauric peoples, of whom the Mushkian, under its king, Mita, was the chief. It was quickly suppressed. An Assyrian fortress-palace was now built at Carchemish, on the north end of the Acropolis hill, and the history of the city was merged thenceforward in that of the Assyrian empire. But its late allies, who were not so accessible to Sargon’s armies, remained unsubdued. Raids into the Taurus occupied Assyrian forces for the next five or six years; and though the easternmost districts, Gurgum, Milid and Tabal, were occupied, the more westerly region (Tyanitis), in which Mita ruled the Mushki, remained defiant. As late as 709 it was beyond the power of the Assyrian governor of Cilicia to reduce; and indeed, another half-century later, we find it still flourishing as an independent state.

The annals of later rulers of Assyria, down to the fall of the empire, fail to illuminate the history of north Syria; but other records of the seventh and the sixth centuries throw light on it now and then. The great stele of Esarhaddon, mentioned above as found at Zenjirli, leaves no doubt that north-western Syria continued subject to Nineveh. Nor is there more doubt about the north-east; for cuneiform documents, found at Gezer in Palestine, of the time of Ashurbanipal, are dated by the eponymate of his governor in Carchemish. The sculptures of Carchemish become more and more Assyrian, and Hittite features less marked till, towards the close of the seventh century, the use of the Hittite script fell into decay, and the indigenous pre­cremation folk (to judge by burials of this period and the following one) emerged and reasserted a pre-Hittite culture.

IV

THE ASSYRIAN RETREAT

In the latter half of the seventh century (probably not before 637 BC) occurred a destructive invasion of all Syria from the north, headed by Scythians under Madyes, son of Bartatua; but the few details of its course and effects that are recorded by Herodotus and, perhaps, reflected in the writings of the Israelite prophets, Jeremiah and Zephaniah, belong rather to the history of Palestine. The Greek historian, writing about two centuries later, states that these Scyths dominated western Asia for eight-and-twenty years; and modern commentators have concluded that it was their force which abolished Assyrian dominion west of the Euphrates, some twenty years before the catastrophe of Nineveh. Scythian elements certainly remained long enough in north Syria to introduce some influences of South Russian culture into Syrian grave-furniture, and, in the south, to give a new name to the old Philistine and Hebrew town of Beth-Shan (modern Beisan), the excavation of which may, it is to be hoped, throw light upon the Scythian occupation. But at present there is not enough evidence to determine whether there was really a widespread Scythian domination in Syria which lasted for any considerable period, or whether the result of the invasion was not rather that most districts and cities reasserted their own independence of the moribund Assyrian rule.

North Syrian graves of the latest Hittite period demonstrate also that, during the last quarter of the seventh century, Egyptian cultural influence and Egyptian products gained ground rapidly, ousting the former influence of Assyria. The fact is not surprising, seeing that, as a fragment of Nabopolassar’s annals has lately revealed, Egypt was exerting strong political pressure upon Syria in the last part of the reign of Psammetichus I and the early part of that of Necho II. If the former king could send an army up to and across the Euphrates in 616, the predominance of his influence in the lands west of the river must be presumed at an even earlier date. Among the motives which caused this whilom rebel to join hands after all with Assyria was, no doubt, fear of the Scythians, who were supported by Nabopolassar; and the latter was the foe whom immediately he was envisaging. He proved, however, unable in that campaign to break the Babylonian rebel, or four years later to avert the catastrophe of Nineveh. But after yet another three years his successor, Necho, resumed his policy in hope of saving a remnant of the Assyrians who had taken refuge in the Harran district under Ashur-Uballit, last of a famous name, but been worsted by Nabopolassar. An Egyptian contingent was sent thither in 609, and in the following year Pharaoh himself advanced into Syria with a large army to take and hold all of it, west of Euphrates, for a base of operations against the Babylonians and the Medes. It is doubtful whether, after he had swept Josiah out of his path, he advanced in person farther north than Hamath; but, in any case, from this point he was able to command the tributary allegiance of all Syria, until, in 605, Nabopolassar sent a full levy up the Euphrates valley under his son, Nebuchadrezzar. Necho hastened to the help of the Harran refugees, but was forestalled by a counter advance of the Babylonians. The armies clashed at, or opposite, Carchemish, and Necho, completely defeated, had to make all haste back to Egypt, pursued by the victor. Carchemish itself seems to have been destroyed by one party or the other, and, as its remains show, it did not revive till Hellenistic times.

So Syria passed into the neo-Babylonian empire and under its shadow remained for about half a century, till the coming of Cyrus the Persian. During this period almost the whole of it is practically without history, largely because we have hardly any cuneiform chronicles dealing with foreign expeditions, or, indeed, with any provincial concern, of the Babylon of that epoch. It must be remembered that, were it not for the O.T., we should know nothing of those wars in the south, which ended in the capture of Jerusalem. Nebuchadrezzar himself, when in Syria, appears, like Necho, to have remained by preference at, or near, Hamath, controlling the country from Riblah, its central point. Since, however, we know nothing of his relations with what lay to the north, it is useless to attempt to follow further the fortunes of the Hittite peoples in that quarter. Indeed, by now they had so far lost their distinctive culture that they may be regarded as merged in the common Semitism of the Syrians.

CHAPTER VII

HITTITE CIVILIZATION