REDISCOVERY OF A NATION LOST FOR 3000 YEARS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28002, 23 June 1956, Page 5

REDISCOVERY OF A NATION LOST FOR 3000 YEARS

[Reviewed by H.A.H.I.]

Narrow Pass, Black Mountain. The Discovery of the Hittite Empire. By C. W. Ceram. Victor Gollancz, in association with Sidgwick and Jackson. 284 pp. Index.

In a few places in the Bible brief mention is made of the Hittites, as in the Book of Numbers (Chap, xii, verse 29): “The Amelikites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.’’ The name of this people has been known to scholars for centuries, yet it was never suspected that a great Hittite nation had ever been a dominant political lorce in history, with a culture, a scrip and a legal code of its own. The existence of the Hittite Empire was unknown even to the ancient Greeks and Romans; and until recently the Hittites were a truly forgotten people, dismissed by scholars right down to our twentieth century A.D. as totally unimportant. It seems incredible that a once flourishing and powerful commonwealth whose sway extended over the whole of Asia Minor as far as Syria, who conquered Babylon, and whose King in the year 1296 B.C. defeated the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II in the great battle of Kadesh, should have escaped the notice of archaeologists and historians for nearly 3000 years, yet this was so. Its rediscovery has been sudden and dramatic, and this tale of how a handful of scholars whilst pioneering in the bare tablelands of Asia Minor, resurrected this unknown civilisation is of fascinating interest. Already archaeologists are able to interpret the language and script and to write a fairly full history of this nation that passed away more than thirty centuries ago, and the story in this book oi how scholars have contrived by excavation, by research and by tne subtlest reasoning to build up such an astonishing body of knowledge in so short a time holds all the excite-

ment of a detective novel. • In 1834 a French traveller in Inner Anatolia, the modern Turkey, reported that he had come across the rums of an important town, but he knew nothing of the people who had built and inhabited it. Then the great Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, reported the finding on the west coast of Turkey of some rock carvings of a kind so far unknown in any part of the Near East. The world of scholarship, which hundreds of years previously had managed to reconstruct admirable pictures. of the cultures of Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria was now faced with an apparently insoluble mystery. Then in the 1870’s a young Em lish archaeologist. Archibald Henry Stace. made an examination of rock sculptures among the hills of Smyrna, and for the first time ascribed all these mysterious monuments and inscriptions to the Hittites. At his instigation more thorough investigations were carried out, and in 1906 the German, Winckler, finally discovered in Boghazkoy, the site of the ancient Hittite capital, a vast store of clay tablets bearing cuneiform texts, the royal archives of this people. After 10 years of intense study, a Czech professor. Hronzy, succeeded in deciphering these tablets, and at last all doubts were dispelled. In Asia Minor, as long ago as the second millennium before Christ, there had existed an Empire whose language belonged to the Indo-European family of languages, an Empire that, for 500 years, had directed or played a leading part in the history of Asia Minor and the Middle East. At its head had stood a ruling house that produced, important diplomats and military leaders: a Hittite king had conquered Babylon, another defeated Rameses the Great in a decisive battle and crowned his victory with a treaty

which gave peace to Asia Minor tor seven centuries. Finally the Hittite State was wiped out in a great national migration which took place in approximately 1200 B C.

C. W. Ceram tells this story not as a & scientist but as an enthusiastic ama- ? teur. He gives us a share in the *' adventure of excavation and discovery and in the detective work of deciphering the first texts: and gives us also J an unforgettable picture of a remark- , able civilisation. Since Dr. Roger Duff’s investigations into the moa hunter discoveries at the Boulder Bank T in Marlborough, New Zealanders have become aware of a new method of , dating pre-historic events by the radio- , carbon method. On page 146 of this * book, the author gives a simple ex- .. planation of it. Briefly this process depends upon the ratio of radioactive - carbon atoms of atomic weight 14 to ordinary atmosoheric carbon of atomic weight 12 contained in dead organic ' specimens such as splinters of bone, bits of plants, shreds of cloth, chips of wood, and pieces of excreta. The - Cl 4 gradually disintegrates at a known rate in time as it reverts to nitrogen. Ey measuring the relative proportions • of Cl2 to Cl 4 in once-living organic matter, the scientist is able to assess : its age. Thus the most modern branch ; of science, atomic physics, has provided 1 archaeology with a remarkable tool for chronological research. Originally published in German, this book has been translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Many excellent photographs and line drawings and maps add considerably to the interest of the text, and for those who wish to follow up this introduction to Hittitology, there is a valuable bibliography of some 20 pages. Students of archaeology and of ancient historv will welcome this authoritative work. Yet because it is no dry as dust history, but has been especially written in nontechnical language for the general reader, the book can be recommended as one which will enjoy a wide public appeal. SEA RESCUES Turmoil. Fv Ewart Brookes. Jerrolds, Ltd., through Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd. 176 pp. For the most part the work of tugs is routine and goes on unnoticed, but occasionally a long and spectacular tow or a courageous rescue or salvage job will capture the imagination of the, public and make the headlines in the world’s newspapers. Such an episode was the attempt of the salvage tug Turmoil to tow to safety the sinking United States freighter Flying Enterprise. Mr Brookes has described this epic struggle fully and very well, and the fact that it was lost in no way diminishes the skill and courage of those who combined 1 to fight an unrelenting adversary. There are also accounts of othernotable tows and rescue jobs undertaken by the Turmoil, as well as ’ something about the tug herself and the gear she uses. Mr Brookes has i the greatest admiration for the late i Captain Parker, of the Turmoil, and ■ his methods—an admiration which the i reader will share after reading of the work of this great tugmaster. Other spectacular towing feats by ■ other tugs are described. Mr Brookes ■ also tells something of the develop- ) ment of the deep-sea rescue tugs and - of their ordinary work: and of the ' fierce, competition among British. I French and Dutch tugs. They keep 1. constant watch and are always ready - for sea. This is a most readable 1 book well illustrated with photoi graphs, and marred only by an o.c- -? casional annoying repetition of r metaphor and adjective.