HITTITES, the descendants of Heth, one of the children of Canaan, the grandson of Noah. I. Notices of them in the Scriptures. In the account of the settlement of nations after the flood the Canaanites are said to have been "spread abroad" and to have extended over the land of Palestine from Sidon on the n. to Gaza on the south. Their subsequent history shows that their spreading abroad was also far beyond those bounds. The children of Heth sold the field and cave of Machpelah to Abraham. Two of the daughters were wives of Esau. Among their towns one was named "the city of instruction" and " the city of the book"—titles implying au acquaintance with letters, and remarkable in connection with the inscriptions by which the course of their migra tions is now traced. At the time of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua they are men tioned as among the possessors of the land, dwelling with the Jebusites and Amorites in the mountains, and extending their dominions to the river Euphrates. At a later day two of them are named among the personal attendants of David: Ahimelech, who went down with hint into the camp of Saul, and Uriab, who was one of the thirty that constituted his guard. Solomon imposed tribute on diem in common with other Canaanitish nations. In his day it is recorded that they were accustomed to buy horses and chariots in Egypt. That they continued in Palestine during and after the captivity appears from the statement in Ezra that some of the returns„ Jews married Hittite women. Thought no particulars are recorded in Scripture concerning their religion, its idolatrous character is declared, since among Solomon's idolatrous wives Hittite women were included, and on the tribe, in common with the other inhabitants, are charged the abominations that defiled the Notices found in ancient inscriptions. 1. On Egyptian monuments, in the time of Mimeses II., 1306 B.C., Hittites are conspicuous among the eastern enemies of the Egyptians. This portion of them corresponds with those who are spoken of in Scripture as living beyond the bounds of Palestine. One of their cities, called Kadesh, " the holy," was neat' a lake, now named Kedes, fed by the Orontes s. of Emesa. The city is also described as being in the land of the Amo rites, to which Carehemish, too, on the w. side of the Euphrates, belonged. Their country, consequently, was in the valley of the Orontes. Ramescs II. boasted that lie defeated this people with their allies, and commemorated the so-called victory on a papyrus roll, as well as by sculptured inscriptions, in which many tribes are mentioned a$ allied together who evidently did not dwell in Palestine. The Hittites are repre
sented as having a regular army composed of disciplined infantry, cavalry. and 2.500 chariots, each drawn by two horses, and carrying a charioteer and two warriors. This army contained med of bearded and the' other smooth-faced, and differ ing in dress and arms; yet both deScribed under one nahle and -as united in a common cause. The fact, however, that in the 21st year of Rameses II. the great king of the Hittites went to Egypt and made a treaty of peace seems to favor the claim sct up for the allies that they were not defeated by the Egyptian king but, on the contrary, forced. him to sign a treaty, the terms of which were not unfavorable to them. A copy of a treaty, preserved in a hieroglyphic inscription, gives some information concerning the religion of the Hittites, describing their gods of war, of women, of mountains and rivers, with special mention of Ashtaroth in connection with a god of another name that corresponds with Baal. 2. In the AsSyrian inscriptions there are references to a nation having a name that corresponds with the Hittites, and consisting of a confederacy ruled by 12 chiefs. Their territory was in the valley of the Orontes, and they were aided people of the sea-coast, probably the Phenicians. Inscriptions, in what are recognized as Hittite characters, have been found on clay impressions of seals in Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh; iu the walls of buildings at the ancient Hannah; in a rock-sculpture at Ihreez, in Lycaonia; at Carchemish; at Boghaz Keui and Eyuk, on the eastern side of the Ilalys; at Ghiaur Kalessi, in Phrygia; at Karabel, in Lydia; in the Taurus; and near Antioch. These various monuments indicate that the Hittite empire once extended from Carchemish, their capital, to the shores of the rEgean; and that two roads tra versed it: one used by Crcesus in his march against Cyrus, and the other, along the s., the route of Xenophon and "the ten thousand." As the Assyrian empire rose that of the Hittites declined. Their provinces in Asia Minor were lost first, and after wards their possessions in southern Syria. Kadesh on the Orontes, once their capital, and Hamath fell into Semitic hands; and, at last. Carchemish was taken by Sargon, 717 n.c. The double eagle is shown by the sculptures to have been a Ilittite symbol. It was adopted by the Seljukian sultans in the 11th c., was brought to Europe by the crusaders, and used by the German emperor in 1345.