were discovered by Winckler among the clay tablets found at Boghaz Koi. Subbiluliuma also turned his armies southward and conquered Syria down to the confines of Palestine. These conquests were in progress when some of the El-Amarna letters, written to Amenophis IV of Egypt and translated in Part II, p. 344, ff., were written. Here he pursued the same policy that he had pursued in Mesopotamia, and compelled the conquered countries to enter into treaties with him, which subjugated them to his will. Among the kings so treated was the Amorite King Aziru, who at that time ruled Amorites living in the southern part of the valley between the Lebanon mountain ranges and in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher. They also held some of the southern Phoenician cities. This represents the most southerly extension of Subbiluliuma's power.

Whether Subbiluliuma also extended his conquests to the west of Asia Minor, we have no means of knowing. Some scholars suppose that he had done so before he began the conquest of Mitanni. Certain it is that Hittite rock sculptures of gigantic size exist in the mountains near Smyrna and Manissia, to the west of Sardis. These sculptures represent the great Hittite goddess. Near Smyrna there are also the remains of great buildings. We know of no Hittite monarch who would be so likely to have carried Hittite power to these parts as Subbiluliuma. If he did so, possibly in later time the Hittites here became independent. At all events, some centuries later they were known to Ionian Greeks in this region, for Homer's Odyssey, Book XI, line 521, records the tradition that some Hittites were killed with Eurypylos.

When Subbiluliuma died he was succeeded by his son, Arandas, whose occupation of the throne was brief, and who seems to have been without effective power. After a short time he was replaced by his brother, Mursil, who appears to have enjoyed a long reign. Subbiluliuma, called by the Egyptians Seplel, was reigning when Amenophis IV of Egypt came to the throne in 1375 B. C., for he sent an embassy to congratulate him, and Mursil appears to have reigned until after the year 1320 B. C. The two reigns, therefore, covered more than half a century. The first years of Mursil's reign were apparently passed in peace, but soon after 1320 Shalmeneser I invaded the countries in the eastern part of the Hittite confederacy, conquering all the territory east of the Euphrates, and a considerable territory to the west of that river. Meantime, Mursil

had renewed the treaty with the Amorites of Syria, whose king at this time was Abbi-Teshub, or Abi-Adda. Ere long, however, trouble arose for him on his southern border. Seti I of Egypt came to the throne in 1313 B. C., and began a series of vigorous campaigns for the conquest of Palestine. In time he came face to face with the Hittite power in Syria.

At this juncture Mursil died and was succeeded by his son, Mutallu, who soon met Seti I in battle and convinced that monarch that it was unwise to attempt to extend Egypt's empire in Asia to the Euphrates, as Thothmes III had done. Owing to internal troubles in Assyria the eastern border of the Hittite realm was left undisturbed for a considerable time, during which Mutallu could devote himself to other matters. In 1292 B. C. Ramses II succeeded Seti I as king of Egypt and soon began vigorously to push Egyptian conquests into northern Syria. Mutallu recognized the importance of the struggle and collected a large army from all his allies. These forces were drawn from all parts of Asia Minor; even the countries of the extreme west contributed their quota. Aleppo and states in that region also contributed their share. A great battle was fought at Kadesh on the Orontes in 1287 B. C., in which Mutallu, by surprising his foe, disorganized a part of the Egyptian forces and endangered the life of Ramses himself. By the opportune arrival of reinforcements the Egyptians escaped entire defeat, so that the result was a drawn battle.

The battle had, however, cost the Hittites much. The slaughter of their forces had been enormous. Among the slain were many chieftains, including the king of Aleppo. The Amorites at once threw off their allegiance to the Hittites, and many of the other troops mutinied. Mutallu was assassinated. He was succeeded by Hattusil II, the Khetasar of the Egyptian inscriptions.

Assyria had become weak, so that Hattusil was no longer pressed upon his eastern border. After a little he reduced the Amorites once more to submission, and compelled them to take back their king, Put-akhi, whom they had driven out at the time of their rebellion against Mutallu. He gave Put-akhi a Hittite princess for a wife. Later, about 1271 B. C., Hattusil concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Ramses II of Egypt. The treaty which guaranteed this alliance has come down to us, and is the first international treaty the details of which are known to us. (See Chapter I, p. 30.)

Hattusil II must have enjoyed a long reign, but we do not know the date of his death. He had two successors, Dudkhalia and Arnuanta, whose reigns are known to us, and who continued the sway of the dynasty down to about 1200 B. C. They were respectively the, son and grandson of Hattusil II. An edict of Dudkhalia concerning the vassal states has survived, in which the name of Eni-Teshub, King of Carchemish, appears. Carchemish would seem to have been the chief of the allied states. Of Arnuanta we have no details, though two fragments of royal edicts and a seal of his have come down to us. He was called "the great king, the son of Dudkhalia." After him our sources fail, and the story ends in darkness. We know, however, that the days of the power of this dynasty were over. Egyptian sources tell us that tribes from western Asia Minor and from beyond the sea swept over Cilicia and northern Syria soon after the year 1200 B. C., and there was then no Hittite power there to restrain them.

(5) Carchemish. Of the other Hittite kingdoms far less is known. Carchemish, which, as we have just seen, played an important part in the federation of the great Hittite power, continued its existence for several centuries. In the time of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III the kingdom of Carchemish entered into alliance with these kings and preserved its existence by becoming their vassal. Judging from the meager reports hitherto published of the British excavation at Carchemish, this was a flourishing period in the history of the city. A hundred years later, in the reign of Sargon, Pisiris, who was then king of Carchemish, defied the Assyrian, who brought the kingdom to an end in 717 B. c. (Cf. Isa. 10:9.)

(6) Samal and Yadi.-When the Aramæans swept westward about 1300 B. C. they apparently dislodged the Hittites from a number of their sites and occupied their country. Among the places so occupied was the site of Sendjirli mentioned above. All the carvings found among its architectural remains reveal the influence of Hittite art, but the inscriptions found there are in Aramaic. These inscriptions show that there were in that region two petty kingdoms named, respectively, Samal and Yadi. The names of several kings of these monarchies who ruled between 850 and 730 B. C. have been recovered. They are all Aramæan.

(7) Hamath.-Farther to the south, at Hamath on the Orontes, a Hittite kingdom existed in the time of David. Its king was then called Toi or Tou, who made an alliance with David (2 Sam. 8:9, f;

1 Chron. 18:9, f.). This kingdom was probably the outgrowth of the earlier occupation of the Orontes valley, three hundred years before, by the Hittites of the great empire. It continued until the time of Ahab. Its king was then Irhulina, who along with Ahab, Ben-Hadad of Damascus, and several other kings made an alliance to resist the encroachments of Shalmaneser III of Assyria in 854 B. C. (See Part II, p. 360, ff.) Irhulina caused several inscriptions to be made on stone, which survived at Hamath until our time. According to Mr. Thompson's interpretation of them they are all records of his various alliances. By the next century, however, the Aramæans had captured Hamath, for in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser IV (745-727) and of Sargon (722-705 B. c.) the names of its kings were Semitic. These names were, respectively, Enu-ilu and Yau-bidi, or Ilu-bidi.

We gain glimpses also of a number of other Hittite states. There was, for example, the state of Kummukh, which lay to the west of the Euphrates, and another in western Cilicia, that had its center at Tyana, the modern Bor. These, states appear to have reached their zenith after the fall of the great Hittite dynasty which had its capital at Boghaz Koi. Doubtless as time goes on we shall learn of the existence of many other small Hittite kingdoms which flourished at one time or another. At some time, either when the Hyksos were making their way into Egypt or when Subbiluliuma was pushing southward into Syria, the Hittites mentioned in the Old Testament must have made some small settlements in Palestine. Here the Hebrews came into contact with them. They were really an unimportant outlying fringe of the great Hittite people, but they had the good fortune to have their names preserved in the most immortal literature in the world, the Bible, and so their memory was ever kept alive, while that of their more illustrious kinsmen was utterly forgotten. It is only archæological research that has restored something of the original perspective.

CHAPTER IV

PALESTINE AND ITS EXPLORATION

THE LAND: Rainfall. EARLY EXPLORATION: Place names. EARLY AMERICAN EXPLORATIONS: Robinson and Smith. Lynch. American exploration societies. PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND: Warren's excavations at Jerusalem. The survey of Palestine. Exploration of Lachish. Bliss's excavation at Jerusalem. Excavation at Azekah. At Tell es-Safi (Gath?). Tell el-Judeideh. At Marash (MoreshethGath). Gezer. Beth-shemesh. Exploring the Wilderness of Zin. THE GERMAN PALESTINE SOCIETY: Guthe's excavation at Jerusalem. Megiddo. Taanach. Capernaum. Jericho. THE AMERICAN SCHOOL AT JERUSALEM. SAMARIA. PARKER'S EXCAVAtions at JeruSALEM. LATEST EXCAVATIONS.

1. The Land.-Palestine is a very different land from either Egypt or Mesopotamia. They are made by the irrigation of rivers. Palestine is fertilized by rain from heaven. In them the scenery is monotonous; they are river valleys each of which was once in part an arm of the sea, but now filled up by the gradual deposit of mud. Palestine was formed in one of the greatest geological upheavals the earth ever experienced. This was nothing less than a great rift in the earth's crust extending from the Lebanon mountains to the Indian Ocean. The strata on the west side of this rift slipped downward past those on its east side for a mile or more. Those on the west were bent at different points in this long course in different ways, but the result of the rift itself was to form the Jordan valley and the bed of the Dead Sea, the valley which runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba, and that deep rift between Asia and Africa which forms the Red Sea itself.

In Palestine the strata on the west of this rift bent up into two parallel ridges, to the west of which a narrow plain of varying width, ancient Philistia, rises from the sea. To the east of this rift the land remained at approximately its old level. The various ridges of the country are, on account of the birth-pangs of their origin, intersected with valleys innumerable, so that in no country of the world can such variety of scenery and climate be found within such narrow limits.

Rainfall. This land, with all its variety of form, is redeemed from the desert by the moisture which the west winds drive in