The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 21, 1901, Page 11

THE 8 WERE THEFHTOTES A PLZZLE oF THEAGES. RECENT DISCOVERIES . ZammmN (——— N ASIA MINOR MAY /e [T Sy 5 FURNISHAN ANSWER, o A SUNDAY CALL. 11 { R s e i Y & kS . o INCINER- ARY URN PHoTo P CUNEIFORM TEXT FOUND AT BOGHAZ-KEU1 INCAI THE TEXT 18 INSCRIBED IN ASSYR TAN CUNEIFORM, BUT THE LANGUAGE. @ -l + == HERE is no more impor- tant historical puszszle to be solved then that of the that occupled Asia during the thousand years before we became fairly acquainted with Greek civili- This was the time of Mycenaean culture, which know from gems and pot- t Just then Crete was in s glory, as lately proved by Evans and Mr. Hogarth. was this period on which ous excavations of Dr. 1liemann have thrown much ght. It was then that the written at Tel-el- a were -written, that opened to us the history ine and Syria as far 1400 B. C. The expe- the E; tian Kings iteenth and nine- asties most pro- cted Western Asia, the contact and ere of Egyptian and ) oeeefolefnlet=t- @ ol ool el ct th 1 the least known. of M. Chantre s toC docia had for its pur- vestigete this Hit- and its results first importance. az-keui, and st n ideas and civilization + Phoenician, the He- 1 - re i the Hittite nations. I Z Of these the Hittite seems to .. - x h the strongest, - - aps the most influen- ; There he found y tablets, in Assy- n script, but some of them the language of the Hit- s will settle the na- e of the langnage and help finally to read the peculiar ite hieroglyphics, not yet factorily deciphered. A ultitude of other objects found by him throw light on the art of the people. When we remember that Hittite cul- covered®all Asia Minor, hat its art is hardly dis- able from the Myce- the mother of Greek, we cannot too highly wvalue such investigations as those of M. Chantre. BY CLIFTON HARBY LEVY. sa and © delnimteielntelelelmfelods Aol bl oot @ 411 S the centuried Hittite problem at last to be solved? Are we now to ascer- tain who this mysterfous people were, whence they came, what they thought It seems more at our scholars are upon the eve of some wide reaching discoveries re. lative to this mysterious ancient race, for # large mass of new material has just been brought before them by the re- searches of a French explorer, M. Ernest Chantre of the University of Lyons. He has been working for two years or more Cappadocia, and there he has un- yarkable ancient monuments o and Pelasgic age and peo- r with numerous inscriptions rian cunsiform character, »ward a solution of ' question with which the world have ever ar with the Bible has 1t as one of the conquered by took possessio:: , under the ieader- : remember d of David, whose by that monarch, was a according to the tradl- Jesus with David, r e bloed in s veins, fir B was the son of David and the ty People. this peopls se that they were 121l tribes in Pales- and the Hivi ibed upon the mon ssyria leads us Uy ns. From these it is s, or Khetta, as tho 1, were & powerful cor.- living in Northern nor any time before onward until the é m C, . 1 paintings of these t they were of a light 11 in stature, and their hair in pigtails, mode of picturing ptian monuments buted to the Hittites 1 concluded that the olian stock, as, Arrans and Semites, surrounded, s people must have ul one, for ail the e m beoh a very BABYLON WHICH No SCHOLAR HAS CEREDED IN TRANSLATING * power of Egypt was summoned agalast them, and treaties were made between the Egyptlans and Hittites on equal terms. In the time of Rameses II more than one campalgn was necessary to bring the Hittites to terms, and though the Bgyptian Pharach was victorious he was glad to make & treaty with his redoubt- able foe. From excavations at Hamath and Car- chemish, on the Euphrates, and the evi- dence of Egyptian and Assyrian inser) tions it seems certamn that before 1500 I C. the Hittites occupied these two citles as capitals and controlled a large part of Asia Minor. It had been noticed also that some Hittite remains existed in Cappado- cia, that province lying in the center of Asia Minor to the east of Armenia, and it is here that M. Chantre has made some notable discoveries. < The great trouble hitherto was not that the world did not possess quite a number of Hittite monuments, bul that no schclar in ¢ country d read them. The queer hieroglyp seemed to resemble those of Egypt, yet they could not be read by them as a guide. it was found t s the case in Chlnese, the characte were to be read down the column some- times, while at others they read from to left and left to right, or, as it is “boustrephedon’ as an. ox plows, ng up one furrow and down the next. nis is a trifie to decipherers of aneiznt texts, for some of the earliest Gree texts read in this faskhion. But after it was ascertained that the characters should be read in all sorts of directions the scholars were just as far as they were before; they could not translate a singls line with any accuracy or All kinds of theories k ne from Chinese, T mitic, to May Colonel ¢ excellent work for the Pa tion Fund, believes that he ¢ been set’ ubn, Hittite inscription, but in the world accepts his Professor Jensen has written seve volumes upon the de- cipherment of the Hittite inscriptions, but few accept his conclusione. He hold the Hittites borrowed thelr alphabet the Egyptians, but * the Ha 2 nians, as he calls the early prog: the modern Armenians. formed the guage, which is to be understood in the light of Armenian, much as anclent Egyptian has been nelped by . modern Coptie. On the Right Track. While Professor Hilorecht and a few other scholars believe that Profess Jen- sen is on the right track, no one is yet ready to mssert that the problem 1s =olved or that the Inscriptions of the Hittites can be read with e same accuracy with which we can now read the Kgypticn hieroglyphics and the Assyrian eyneiforn. The leading investigators havé been w ing to find some little text side by with a text in some known language whick will assist the decipherer in reading the Hittite as he was alded by the Greek of the Rosetta Stone in reading the Egvp tian. While this is what has been walted for and expected, ald comes in a peculiar, un- looked for form, which may nevertheless lead to the solution of this age long m: tery." It is to M. Chantre that the dis- covery is due and it was In Cappadocia that he found the texts which may reveal the whole truth and furnish the key to | the problem. | The texts which he has found are writ- ten in cunelform characters, but in some unknown lagguage, which every one be- lieves to be Hittite. The texts have been read as if they were Assyrian, for the values of the syllables are well known, and here undoubtedly the interpretation of the Hittlte language lies. There is, however, much more than the mere reading of unread monuments in the discoveries of M. Chantre, for in Cappa- docia he has found not only Hittite re- mains, but remains of Pelasgic clvilization s well. An entirely novel fleld of specu- lation, which has been broached before, but never with great force, Is now laid open for future investigation. Relation of the Greeks. It is concerned with the origin of Greek civilization, which means the civilization of all the modern world, for It is from Greece that all our arts and letters come. It has been imposaible to trace all of thé letters of the Greek alphabet heretofore, and it is uncertain whence these letters came, but now In the light of the discov- eries made in Cappadocia it seems more than probable that the inscriptions found at Mycenae and In Cyprus, which have astonished many scholars by their like- ness to Hittite characters, may have been derived from this aaclent and powerful race. And It was a wonderful people, if we are to judge from the menuments in stone and clay which it has left to the world to puzzle over for centuries. On all sides its memorials are discovered; even in Baby- Jon, that stronghold of Aryan and Semitic power, The Germar expedition now un- covering the ruins has found a great bas- relief of a Hittite deity, the god of thun- der and lightning, with a long, perfectly preservéd inscription on it, but which no one can interpret, The stone column nn which this pleture and inscription stand is 49 inches high, 21 inches wide and 14 inches thick, It seems paralyzing to look at the clearly cut hiero- glyphs and, studying the pictures of arm, leg, foot, head of a man, with the hand up, and all the other familiar pictures, to have to admit that we cannot read & syl- lable of it, Onmly after M, Chantre's in- geriptions have been carefully gone over by the scholars of Eurepe and America will it be possible to state that ne selution 2 p has been fourd larship never gives up: it post and says, 1f 4, “better luck next time.” yu ntre found a huge teil, mounds of ruins are called, in the ich were two great sphinxes, with bas-relfefs of processions ts with offe for the Hittite The m notable of these rep- ze of four‘persons rende: ng hom goddess, who is seated. The figure of the goddess is almost alto- gether broken away, but the leading fig- ure standing upright is certainly a and the goddess was probably other representations found borheod. The priest seems to be pouring out a Itbation to the zoddess, while behind him stands a priestess, clothed in a long rove, presenting some offering with both hands. Two other persons follow, possibly the sacrificing worshipers. Here we are in @ great palace of the Hittites, guarded by the two sphinxes, the huge stones of the walls astonishing the L o e 2 e e O beholder by* ness. THE HITTITE STELE,FOUND IN BABYLON B THE 1S THE UNKNOWN GERMAN “EXPEDITION their magnitude. It was at Some dis- tance from the palace thai one of the most interesting monuments found was discovered. It was a bas-relief of a double-headed eagle, afterward adopted by the Austrians and Russians. Along the face of the living rocks of Boghaz - keul were found processions seeminsly of gods, and it is thought that th e are monumental reminders of the conquest of Cappadocla by the Hittites, aided, as they thought, by their divini- ties. ¥ Cologsal Work. Another palace was found at Eski- Konak, and here was the throne used by the kirg, formed of a solid block of stone, with two lions looking out from it. Buyuk-Kaleh, or the great fortress, is a tremendous piece of work, some nine hundred yards from the palace which it was intended to protect. Cyclopean walls recalllng those of Tiryns and Mycenae are stil standivg in some places. They are from sixteen to twenty feet in thick- Petween the fortress and the pal- ace the largest number of cuneiform tab- lets was found. The discovery of these tablets has aroused no small amount of -interest, for they seem to go back at least to the time of Amenophis III and IV, when the As- syrian alphabet was borrowed by the anelent Armenians and their neighbors. These tdblets are comparable in all re- spects h_those found in Egypt at Tel- el-Amarpa, which fixes their date with considerable exactness. The largest tab- let of all’in a perfect state of preserva- tion contains a list of the cities, which must be of great historical and geo- graphical value. There are astrological tablets; contract tablets and lexicographi- cal fragments which are of special in- terest. M. Chantre holds that according to the style of the writing many of these tablets date from 2000 B. C. or earlief. It was generally held that the relation bétween the Hittites and the Babylon- lans was later than that with the Egyp- tlans, but the discovery of the stele at Babylon and the finding of these cunei- RIAN DE BOIS-GUILBERT-—the Round Table—the days of old— who ehall dare say the age of chivalry is past? . It is a very old saying that | “love laughs at locksmithe;” but it re- mained for an up-to-date love to give the laugh to the Emigration Commissioner— | that flinty-hearted ogre who would bar {love out of a country that certainly ap- preciates love when it is the real thing |such as the case In question undoubt- | edly is. . Filled with the longing to gain & home |in the United States, Benorita Virginia Herrera sailed | from Mazatlan a short time ago on the steamer Curacao, At Ensenada, her sister, by one of those | strange chances that sometimes occur, | boarded the same vessel and also salled away from the Land of Manana with the fear of a drunken husband in her heart; for she had a husband, a government of- ficlal, who drank mescal and then beat her. As he was drunk practically all the time, the beating®s came most regularly |and with but little time between whiles to allow the bruises to get well. "With | this married sister, Concepclon, came also | her two small -children. All went well after the voyage was well {begun. Away to the east was the gray and green shore of the land of the Ameri- canos. All round the air was fresh with a suggestion of the new life that was stretching out before them, away from the drudgery and the fumes of mescal. Far up the coast lay the Mecca of thelr dreams—the Golden Gate; and beyond the Golden Gate—thelr future. At last the Curacao reached the dry dock of the Union Iron Works, where the Ogre appeared, All romances, you know, must of necessity have a villain; and in this case the Emigration Commissioner was cast for that role—quits unwillingly, you understand, for the Emigration Com- missioner is really the best-hearted follow in the world; but when necessity sternly decrees that there must be a villain there is nothing for you to do but act the part. It was found that under the law gov- erning immigration Senorita Herrera, as well as her sister, could not land, This was an rwful situation; no money, no friends, stranded at the doors of a strange land among people whoee lan- guage, even, she could not speak, 3 £ Many appeals were made and a number of stratagems inavgurated, but the Emi- gratifon Commissioner gave them all the stony eye, He was there to see that the laws of the country wure obeved and not even beauty in distrest could move him. This was on Monday, and on the follow- ing Sunday the Curacao was to start on the return trip to Mexice. Unless a mira- cle happened or the Gmigration Commis- sloner was suddenly stiicken with soften- ing of the heart Senotita Virginia and her sister would be comuelled to return—ons to_the dull routine of hife in a home she did not love and the other to the drunken husband and the daily beatings. Now it is right here thac the hero usual- ly steps in in the well-regulated romance. And the hero was on the t In the person of Camilo Cappola, a the Curacao! He heard the distressing story and the warm blood of his Italian ancestors throbbed through his veins with chivalrous pity for the 18.vear-old victim of an ungallant immigration law. “Marry me, senorita,” said he, “‘and be free! As my Wwife you cuh go and come a8 you please.” The sound of the soft Italian, so akin to her own native tongue, fell sweetly upon the ears of Senorita Virginia Herrera. 8he consented. 3 And now yet another character appears in the pretty liftle roman ustice Thomas & Dunn. He was the one to en: act the part of the pairlarch who jolned he hands of the lovers and says brokenly, less you, my children!” Of course thero slignt inconsistency here arlsing from the fact that the fiemn. Justice is a young and handsome fellow instead of a white- whiskered father in Israel, but what would you? One can't expect to have in this benighted age all the concomitants of rictly medieval romance; so you must lnu"lne the white whiskers and let it go at that. ‘It was truly a romantic affair from be- nning to end,” smiled Justice nn e other day. ‘‘A- messenger came to my chambers begging me to go down to the Curacao to perform a marriage cere- mony, It was rather an unusual request, but the messenger explained the urgency of the matter, =0 I accompanied him. “‘Arrived at_the drydocks of the Union Iron Works, 1 was disma; to find the steamer standing hl{h and dry, her decks some sixty or seventy-five feet mbove the ground, and no means of galning them save by the way of the perpendicular lad- der that clung to its sides. “However, the wedding party was above watching us with.anxious anticipation. ‘We tackled the ladder. “It was like trying to climb a lightning rod. It reminded me of the times when in my youth I used to scale all sorts of impogsible places ‘coonin| neatly to the top and very unromantic desire to be well out of it and in my easy chaif once more. It is good to rise in the world, but not on a ladder that goes straight up and down. “But ws got upon the decks all right, Just how I don't remember. All such min- or details were swallowed up and forgot- ten in the wave of thanksegiving that we were alive. *“We proceeded to the cabin, and I be- gan asking the usual questlons hecessary in such cases. Neither had ever been married before. Both were of martiagea- ble age. ‘Are you in any way related? I asked finally. “‘Only that we love each other,’ sald the young lady, and it took all her lim= ited stock. af English to frame the sen- ence. “That eertainly was no bar, although many people of our country prefer a mar- riage where money and not love is the main Incentive that guides the marriage ceremony. . “The _littls procession formed and marched to the captain’s cabin to the Lo- hengrin wedding march. I performed the marriage service, and Senorita Virginia Herrera, who had come aboard with no thought of marriage, went ashore with a husband; for Emigration Commissioner North, hearing of the wedding, sent word to his deputies to allow the couple to land. But Concepclon, the unfortunate sister, was weeping bitterty in the now lonely cabin, for no way had as yet opened to apples. I got an to feel a her. The Ogre was frowning once more and no Ju! ucnnbulm could possibly rescue her, for she had a husband already, or one who called himself her husband and drank mescal. ption if she went r back to Inuud-a would be something to give one a «nightmare for years after- Day f“" d;‘y Concepelon leaned over the rail watching the deckhands huarry- ing the cargo into the hold. Upon the whatf her sister sat trying to cheer her up with the hope that another miracle might happen. Bignor Cappoia worked all through the day-in the fire room and after working hours labored indefatigobly, to bring influence to bear in favor of his hapless sister-in-law. Ard he succeeded. San Francisco peo- ple took up the cause of the unfortunate sister, she was brought before the Emi- gration Commission and flnally declared eligible to land. And then, as if by magic, the forbidding frown of the terrible Emi- ration Commissioner smoothed away nto a benignant smile and it was he, who, following the example of kind-hearted Justice Dunn, gave freedom and a father- 1y blessing to the other released captive. ITTITE. IT MAY PROVE A KEY * 4 form writings at Boghaz-Keul show that the relations between the Hittites and the Assyrians were very ancient indeed. It {8 proven also by the architectural temains and the pottery found that the Hittites were possessed of a civilization closely approaching that of the Aegeans at a very distant perfod. M. Chantre has no doubt that the relations between the Hittites and the Babylonians extended as far back as 3000 B. C. The information as to the life of the anclent Hittites is fuller on account of these researches, and the finding of what the discoverer calls a Pelasgian city, with remains compar- able to those of Mycenae and Cyprus, will furnish much food for thought and fur- ther investigation. A Mortgage on a Temple. Tt 18 surprising to leafn ffom one of the tablets that it was the custom even at that remote date to pay interest on loans, and that sums of money were loaned by the priests for the temple, and that on the other hand the priests sometimes bor- rowed from the people, but at their risk. One of the tablets reads: “If all of his money makes a‘profit In the temple Sahamilrama may take the profit, but if the money is lost in the temple Sahamil- rama loses it.” Concefning the sixteen tablets found at Fuyuk, M. Chantre states that while the writing on these tablets seems to ap- proach that usually found on similar As- gyrian tablets, the forms of some of the characters differ materially from those used by the Babylonians. That these characters so used were a variation In- troduced by the Hittites after borrowing the method of writing seems certain on account of the Hittite monuments, amid which these tablets were discovered. The prehistoric stage may well claim the stone and bronze utensils found there, as well a8 the coarser pottery and the heads of animals comparable to those found at Hissarlik and Cyprus. The second epoch corresponds to that of Mycenae, fof hera We can note the beginning of painting, and the predominance of geometrical and curved designs over those of animals. Nor is it possible to belleve that the Cappadocians could have borrowed from the Aegeans, for though their art is com- parable in its early stage, it Is original in subject and treatment. And, besides, in Cappadocia the axes and stone implements of the earliest period resemble those found in Armenia far more than they do those of Greece. It Is pecullar that at Euyuk, as at Hissarlik, incineration seems to have been the method of disposing of the dead, rather than any kind of burigl. Passing to the southern part of Cappa- docla, M. Chantre found indisputable proof that the Hittites had occupled this part of the country completely, for thers at Ferak-Edin was a great bas-rellef. It was only a few miles from the village of Feraktin, cut into the cliff over a stream. The sculptures are about six feet from the top of the cliff and extend ten feet in length, being three feet high. The scene represented is that in which two divini- ties, one male and one female, receive the offerings of their worshipers. Back to 8000 B. C. In summing up the results of these ex- cavations the explorer holds that they prove the date of the Hittites to be much earlier than has usually been supposed, runcing back to at'least 3000 B. C. He suggests that this date should be assigned to the foundafion of the palace and fort- ress of Boghas-Keul, as well as of the other citles found in this locality. The fact has alto been proved that an- terior to the making of the Hittite in- scriptions, found elsewhere, an entire primitive civilization was developed in Cappadocia by this remarkable people, coming we know not whence, and their close connection with the Babylonians at a very ancient date is no less conclusively proved. L e T e e e e e e e e T e e e e e e e Senorita Virginia Herrera. P