In the twenty-first year of Rameses II., the great king of the Hittites, KHeTSEERA, came to Egypt to make a treaty of peace. A copy of the treaty is pre served in a hieroglyphic inscription. From this it appears that KHeTSEERA had been preceded by his grandfather SAPRARA, his father MAURASARA, and his brother MAUTNUKA, and that in the reigns of SAPRARA and MAUTNURA peaCe had been made up. on the same conditions. The information the in scription affords as to the religion of the IIittites will be noticed later. In a tablet of the thirty-fourth year of the same king, one of his wives, a Hittite princess with the Egyptian name RA-MA-UR-Ne FRU, is represented as well as her father, the king (or a king) of the xx-leTA. Solomon also, as Dr. Brugsch remarks, took Hittite women into his hareem (r Kings xi. 1). Rameses III. (B.c. dr. 128o) had a war with the KlIeTA, mentioned in one of his inscriptions with KeTEE (xe'resH) KARA[K1AMSA (Carchemish), ARATu (Aradus ?), and ARASA, all described as in the land AMARA.
The religion of the Hittites is only known from the treaty with Rameses II., though it is probable that additional information may be derived from an examination of proper names. In this act the divinities of both the iand of KHeTA and of Egypt are mentioned, probably because they were in voked to see that the compact was duly kept. They are described from a Hittite point of view, a circumstance which is curious as shewing how carefully the Egyptian scribe had kept to the document before him. They are the gods of war
and the gods of women of the land of KHeTA and of Egypt, the SUTEKH of the land of KHeTA, the SUTEKH of several forts, the ASHTeRAT (written ANTeRAT) of the land of KHeTA, several unnamed gods and goddesses of places or countries, and of a fortress, the mountains and rivers of the land of KtfeTA, and of Egypt, Amen, SUTEKH, and the winds. SUTEKH, or SET, was the chief god of the Shepherd-kings of Egypt, one of whom appears to have abolished all other worship in his dominions, and is also called DAR, or Baal. SUTEKII is per haps a foreign form, SET seems certainly of foreign origin. ASHTeRAT is of course Ashtoreth, the consort of Baal in Palestine. They were the prin cipal divinities of the KHeTA, as they are men tioned by name and as worshipped in the whole land. The worship of the mountains and rivers is remarkably indicative of the character of the reli gion, and the mention of the gods of special cities points in the same direction. The former is low nature-worship, the latter is entirely consistent with it, and indeed is never found but in con nection with it.
The following names of Hittites occur in the Bible :—Ephron, Zohar, Adah, daughter of Elon, Bashemath (Basmath), the same ? Judith, daughter of Beeri, Ahimelech, Uriah, Sibbechai ? The Egyptian monuments furnish us with the following :—SAPRARA, MAURASARA, MAUTNURA, KHeTSEERA, TARAKANTJNASA, KAMAEET, TARKA