PART V 1 Hittites and Amorites mingled together in Ugarit

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The Hittites and Amorites were therefore mingled together in the mountains of Palestine like the two races which ethnologists tell us go to form the modern Kelt. But the Egyptian monuments teach us that they were of very different origin and character. The Hittites were a people with yellow skins and 'Mongoloid' features, whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws, are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies. If the Egyptians have made the Hittites ugly, it was because they were so in reality. The Amorites, on the contrary, were a tall and handsome people. They are depicted with white skins, blue eyes, and reddish hair, all the characteristics, in fact, of the white race. Mr. Petrie points out their resemblance to the Dardanians of Asia Minor, who form an intermediate link between the white-skinned tribes of the Greek seas and the fair-complexioned Libyans of Northern Africa. The latter are still found in large numbers in the mountainous regions which stretch eastward from Morocco, and are usually known among the French under the name of Kabyles. The traveller who first meets with them in Algeria cannot fail to be struck by their likeness to a certain part of the population in the British Isles. Their clear-white freckled skins, their blue eyes, their golden-red hair and tall stature, remind him of the fair Kelts of an Irish village; and when we find that their skulls, which are of the so-called dolichocephalic or 'long-headed' type, are the same as the skulls discovered in the[Pg 16] prehistoric cromlechs of the country they still inhabit, we may conclude that they represent the modern descendants of the white-skinned Libyans of the Egyptian monuments


The Kheta or Hittites first appear upon the scene[Pg 20] in the time of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty. The foreign rule of the Hyksos or Shepherd princes had been overthrown, Egypt had recovered its independence, and its kings determined to retaliate upon Asia the sufferings brought upon their own country by the Asiatic invader. The war, which commenced with driving the Asiatic out of the Delta, ended by attacking him in his own lands of Palestine and Syria. Thothmes I. (about B.C. 1600) marched to the banks of the Euphrates and set up 'the boundary of the empire' in the country of Naharina. Naharina was the Biblical Aram Naharaim or 'Syria of the two rivers,' better known, perhaps, as Mesopotamia, and its situation has been ascertained by recent discoveries. It was the district called Mitanni by the Assyrians, who describe it as being 'in front of the land of the Hittites,' on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, between Carchemish and the mouth of the river Balikh. In the age of Thothmes I., it was the leading state in Western Asia. The Hittites had not as yet made themselves formidable, and the most dangerous enemy the Egyptian monarch was called upon to face were the people over whom Chushan-risha-thaim was king in later days (Judg. iii. 8). It is not until the reign of his son, Thothmes III., that the Hittites come to the front. They are distinguished as 'Great' and 'Little,' the latter name perhaps denoting the Hittites of the south of Judah. However this may be, Thothmes received tribute from 'the king of the great land of the Kheta,' which consisted of gold, negro-slaves, men-servants and maid-servants, oxen and servants. Whether the Hittites were as yet in possession of Kadesh we do not know. If they were, they would have taken part in the struggle against the Egyptians[Pg 21] which took place around the walls of Megiddo, and was decided in favour of Thothmes only after a long series of campaigns.

Amenophis IV., the son of Amenophis III., was educated in the faith of his mother, and after his accession to the throne endeavoured to impose the new creed upon his unwilling subjects. The powerful priesthood of Thebes withstood him for a while, but at last he assumed the name of Khu-n-Aten, 'the refulgence of the solar disk,' and quitting Thebes and its ancient temples he built himself a new capital dedicated to the new divinity. It stood on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of Assiout, and its long line of ruins is now known to the natives under the name of Tel el-Amarna. The city was filled with the adherents of the new creed, and their tombs are yet to be found in the cliffs that enclose the desert on the east. Its existence, however, was of no long duration. After the death of Khu-n-Aten, 'the heretic king,' his throne was occupied by one or two princes who had embraced his faith; but their reigns were brief, and they were succeeded by a monarch who returned once more to the religion of his forefathers. The capital of Khu-n-Aten was deserted, and the objects found upon its site show that it was never again inhabited.


first success waited on the arms of Seti. He led his armies once more to the Euphrates and the borders of Naharina, and compelled Mautal, the Hittite monarch, to sue for peace. The natives of the Lebanon received him with acclamations, and cut down their cedars for his ships on the Nile.

When Seti died, however, the Hittites were again in possession of Kadesh, and war had broken out between them and his son Ramses II. The long reign of Ramses II. was a ceaseless struggle against his formidable foes. The war was waged with varying success. Sometimes victory inclined to the Egyptians, sometimes to their Hittite enemies. Its chief result was to bring ruin and disaster upon the cities of the Canaanites. Their land was devastated by the hostile armies which traversed it; their towns were sacked, now by the Hittite invaders from the north, now by the soldiers of Ramses from the south. It was little wonder that[Pg 25] their inhabitants fled to island fastnesses like Tyre, deserting the city on the mainland, which an Egyptian traveller of the age of Ramses tells us had been burnt not long before. We can understand now why they offered so slight a resistance to the invading Israelites. The Exodus took place shortly after the death of Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the oppression; and when Joshua entered Palestine he found there a disunited people and a country exhausted by the long and terrible wars of the preceding century. The way had been prepared by the Hittites for the Israelitish conquest of Canaan.

It was in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses (B. C.[Pg 26] 1383) that the event occurred which was celebrated by the Egyptians, The Egyptian armies had advanced to the Orontes and the 

neighbourhood of Kadesh. There two Beduin spies were captured, who averred that the Hittite king was far away in the north with his forces, encamped at Aleppo. But the intelligence was false. The Hittites and their allies, multitudinous as the sand on the sea-shore, were really lying in ambush hard by. In their train were the soldiers of Naharina, of the Dardanians and of Mysia, along with numberless other peoples who now owned the Hittite sway. The Hittite monarch 'had left no people on his road without bringing them with him. Their number was endless; nothing like it had ever been before. They covered mountains and valleys like grasshoppers for their number. He had not left silver or gold with his people; he had taken away all their goods and possessions to give it to the people who accompanied him to the war.

The whole host was concealed in ambush on the north-west side of Kadesh. Suddenly they arose and fell upon the terrified Egyptians by the waters of the Lake of the Amorites, the modern Lake of Homs. The chariots and horses charged 'the legion of Ra-Hormakhis,' and 'foot and horse gave way before them.' The news was carried to the Pharaoh. 'He arose like his father Month, he grasped his weapons, and put on his armour like Baal.' His steed 'Victory in Thebes' bore him in his chariot into the midst of the foe. Then he looked behind him, and behold he was alone. The bravest heroes of the Hittite host beset his retreat, and 2500 hostile chariots were around him. He was abandoned in the midst of the enemy: not a prince,[Pg 27] not a captain was with him. Then in his extreme need the Pharaoh called upon his god Amun. 'Where art thou, my father Amun? If this means that the father has forgotten his son, have I done anything without thy knowledge, or have I not gone and followed the precepts of thy mouth? Never were the precepts of thy mouth transgressed, nor have I broken thy commandments in any respect. Sovran lord of Egypt, who makest the peoples that withstand thee to bow down, what are these people of Asia to thy heart? Amun brings them low who know not God.... Behold now, Amun, I am in the midst of many unknown peoples in great number. All have united themselves, and I am all alone: no other is with me; my warriors and my charioteers have deserted me. I called to them, and not one of them heard my voice.'

The petition of Ramses was heard. Amun 'reached out his hand,' and declared that he was come to help the Pharaoh against his foes. Then Ramses was inspired with supernatural strength. 'I hurled,' he is made to say, 'the dart with my right hand, I fought with my left hand. I was like Baal in his hour before their sight. I had found 2500 chariots; I was in the midst of them; but they were dashed in pieces before my horses.' The ground was covered with the slain, and the Hittite king fled in terror. His princes again gathered round the Pharaoh, and again Ramses scattered them in a moment. Six times did he charge the Hittite host, and six times they broke and were slaughtered. The strength of Baal was 'in all the limbs' of the Egyptian king.

'In the year twenty-one, in the month Tybi, on the 21st day of the month, in the reign of King Ramessu Miamun, the dispenser of life eternally and for ever, the worshipper of the divinities Amon-Ra (of Thebes),[Pg 30] Hormakhu (of Heliopolis), Ptah (of Memphis), Mut the lady of the Asher-lake (near Karnak), and Khonsu, the peace-loving, there took place a public sitting on the throne of Horus among the living, resembling his father Hormakhu in eternity, in eternity, evermore.