When the spies examined Canaan they found the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites,' dwelling in the mountains' (Num. xiii. 29), that is, in the high tracts that afterwards formed the refuges and rallying-points of the Israelites during the troubled period of the judges. There is, how ever, no distinct statement as to the exact posi tion of the Hittites in Palestine. We may draw an inference from their connection with Jerusa lem and the Amothes, and their inhabiting the mountains, and suppose that they were probably chiefly seated in the high region of the tribe of Judah. Of their territory beyond Palestine there are some indications in Scripture. The most important of these is the designation of the Promised Land in its full extent as all the land of the Hittites,' already mentioned, with which the notices of Hittite kings out of Canaan must be compared. In Solomon's time all the kings of the Hittites' are spoken of with the kings of Syria,' in connection with the traffic with Egypt in chariots and horses (r Kings x. 28, 29). So, too, when the Syrians, who were besieging Sama ria in the time of Jehoram, fled, the cause is thus stated:—‘ For the LORD had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, the noise of a great host : and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the E,gyptians, to come upon us' (2 Kings vii. 6). The latter two passages indicate that, at the periods to which they refer, there was a Hittite settlement beyond Canaan;governed by kings, and powerful from its use of chariots and horses, and the warlike disposition of its people.
The Egyptian monuments give us much informa tion as to a Hittite nation that can only be that indicated in the two passages just noticed. The kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties made extensive conquests in Syria and Mesopo tamia. They were opposed by many small states, which probably always formed one or more con federacies. In the time of Thothmes III. (B.c. cir. x45o), the leading- nation was that of the RUTEN (or LUTEN), which appears to have once headed a con federacy defeated by that king before Megiddo (De Rouge Revue Archeo n. s., iv. p. 346, seqq.) The KHeTA. were conquered by or tributary to Thothmes III. (Birch, Annals of Thothnzes p. 21); but it is not until the time of Ram eses II. (B.c. cir. 1360), second king (according to .Manetho) of the r9th dynasty, that we find them occupying the most important place among the eastern enemies of the Egyptians, the place before held by the RUTEN. The name is gene rally written Kriel', and sometimes KlIeTA, and was probably in both cases pronounced KHAT. It is not easy to detennine whether it properly de. notes the people or the country ; perhaps it denotes the latter, as it rarely has a plural termination ; but it is often used for the former. This name is iden tical in radicals with that of the Hittites, and that it designates them is clear from its being connected with a name equally representing that of the Arno rites, and from the correspondence of this warlike people, strong in chariots, with the non-Palestinian Hittites mentioned in the Bible. The chief or strongest city of the xxeTA, or at least of the terri tory subject to, or confederate with, the king of the KlieTA, was KeTeSH, on the river ARNUT, ANURTA, or ARUNATA. KeTeSH was evidently a Kadesh, a sacred city,' trip, but no city of that name, which could correspond to this, is known to us in Biblical geography. It is repre
sented in the Egyptian sculptures as on or near a lake, which Dr. Brugsch has traced in the modern lake of Kedes, fed by the Orontes, southward of Hems (Emesa). The Orontes, it must be observed, well corresponds to the ARUNATA. The town is also stated to have been in the land of AMAR (or ANIARA), that is, of the Amorites. The position of this Amorite territory- is further defined by Car chemish being placed in it, as we shall shew in a later part of this article. The territory of these Hittites, therefore, lay in the valley of the Orontes. It probabiy extended towards the Euphrates, for the KHeTA are also connected with NEHARENA, or Mesopotamia, not the NAH1RI of the cuneiform in scriptions, but it is not clear that they ruled that country. Probably they drew confederates thence, as was done by the Syrians in David's time.
The greatest achievement of Rameses II. was the defeat of the KHeTA and their allies near xe 'rem, in the fifth year of his reign. This event is commemorated in a papyrus and by several in scriptions and sculptures. The nations confeder ate with the KHeTA were the ARATU, Aradus ? m4Xus.c, Mash ? PAATSA or PATASA, KESHKESH, ARUNU, KATAwATANA, KHEERABU, HelbOn ? AKATERA, KETESH, ReKA, Arkites ? TENTENEE (or TRATENUEE) and KARAKAMASHA, Carchemish.
These names are difficult to identify save the seventh and the last, but it is evident that they do not be long to Palestine. The Hittites are represented as having a regular army, which was strong in cha riots, a particular which we should expect from the Biblical notices of them and of the Canaan ites, where the latter name seems applied to the tribe so called. Each chariot was drawn by twa horses, and held three men, a charioteer anti two warriors. They had also cavalry and dis• ciplined infantry. In the great battle with Ram. eses they had 2500 horses, that is, chariots. The representations of the KHeTA in the sculptures relating to this campaign probably shew that their forces were composed of men of two different races. Sir Gardner Wilkinson thinks that both belonged to the KileTA nation, and it seems hardly possible to form any other conclusion. The nation of Sheta [the initial character is sometiines read seems to have been composed of two distinct tribes, both comprehended under the same name, uniting in one common cause, and probably subject to the same government.' Thcse supposed tribes differed in dress and arms, and one was sometimes bearded, the other was beardless (Ancient Egyptians, i. pp. .3S.3-3S4, woodcut p. 385). They are rather fair than yellow, and the beardless warriors are pro bably of a different race front the people of Pales tine generally. In some cases they remind us of the Tatars, and it is impossible to forget that the Egyp tians of the Greek period evidently took the xxeTA for Scythians or Bactrians. The name Scythian is not remote, nor is that of the Kittas, or warrior Tatars in the Chinese garrisons, but mere word resemblances are dangerous, and the circumstance that the Scythians appear in history when the Hit tites have just disappeared is not of much value. But it is worthy of remark that in the time of Moses there was a Rephaite ruling the Amorites in Palestine, as the sons of Anak had apparently long ruled the Hittites in Hebron, so that we need not be surprised to find two races under the same government in the case of the Hittites of Syria.