Hittite Hieroglyphs Research Articles

GEÇ HİTİT BEYLİKLERİ

Despite the disappearance of the Hittite Empire, the southeastern states continued to maintain Hittite culture for nearly five centuries. In the Assyrian records, Syria and the Taurus Mountains continued to be referred to as the ‘Hatti Country. Late Hittite kingdoms erected many rock monuments with Hittite hieroglyphs in their regions. From this point of view, it can be said that the Hittite cultures and traditions continued to be effective through the Late Hittite Kingdoms until the regions from Malatya in the north to the Palestinian borders in the south under Assyrian rule. After the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the Phrygians became dominant in Western Anatolia and the Urartians in Eastern Anatolia. In the region between the two states, the late Hittite principalities emerged. In this context, in the region covering Kayseri, Nevsehir, Nigde, Tabal, Melitene / Meliddu in today's Malatya province and the northern region of Maras, Gurgum around Maras, Kummuh in Adiyaman Province, Que in Adana Province, Pattin in Hatay region and in the Carchemish districts with the same name were established around. During this period, the Arami tribes established kingdoms in Syria. The first and most powerful of these was Damaskos (Damascus). The dynasties of Til-Barsip, Ya’diya and Arpad were overthrown and Aramis succeeded. Ya’diya’s name was changed to Sam’al. Til-Barsip and Arpad took the names Bit Adini and Bit Agusi and became the capitals of the new kingdoms. The Assyrian kings receiving taxes from the Aramaic and Hittite kingdoms did not affect the prosperity and abundance. Hittite culture spread southward to Palestine. Assyrian regained power and organized Syrian campaigns during the Asurnasirpal period and took control of almost all the land east of the Euphrates.

A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek

(1977). A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek. Tel Aviv: Vol. 4, No. 3-4, pp. 178-190.

A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek

A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek

A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek

A Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impression from Tel Aphek

Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impressions from Korucutepe

EXCAVATIONs at the mound called Korucutepe in the area which is to be flooded by the Keban Dam on the upper Euphrates in eastern Turkey were conducted in 1968 as a Joint Expedition of the Universities of Chicago and of California at Los Angeles, Professors Maurits van Loon and Giorgio Buccellati serving as codirectors. In 1969 and 1970, with the participation of the University of Amsterdam, it became The Joint Expedition of the Universities of Chicago, California (Los Angeles) and Amsterdam, with the writer as Expedition Director, Professor van Loon as Field Director, and Professor Philo H. J. Houwink ten Cate heading the Dutch group. A report on the results of these three seasons will be published in a later issue of this journal; 1 it seems advisable, however, to make the hieroglyphic seal inscriptions available at this time. In 1968, twelve clay bullae (including fragments) of the type best known from Bogazk6y were discovered in a shallow pit in square 0 21. A brief description of the find circumstances can be found in the METU report for 1968, p. 98.2 The present writer, who spent that season as guest of the University of Istanbul Expedition at the neighboring site of Tepecik, was kindly invited by M. van Loon to study these bullae and to prepare them for publication. Of the roughly circular pit only the southern half falling into the square 0 21 was cleared in 1968. When we excavated its northern half, in 0 20, in 1969, only two more bullae were found. However, during that same season the Elazl~ Museum confiscated seven more bullae (and one stamp seal) which had obviously come from our mound. Since the scarp between 0 21 and 0 20 as well as the surface of 0 20 showed no traces of interference it is unlikely that they were dug up between the two seasons. It seems more probable that they went astray while the excavation of 1968 was in progress,

THE EXCAVATTONS 1971 AND 1972 AT SULTANHAN HOYUK

Sultanlıan Höyük is 50 kms from Kayseri and is situated at the noinl wherd the Kayseri-Sivas railroad crosses the lıighvvay. It is 900 m away frnın the famous Seljuk caravanserei. The ınound has heen noted by the scientific circles as thefindspot of the stela inscribed with Hittite hieroglyphs presently conserved at Ankara Archaeological Museum. The mound was badly damaged due to the construction of Kayseri-Sivas railroad in 1929 when needed stones and earth were obtained from itL At that time the attention of researchers was attacted by the appearence of an insc- ription in. Hittite Jûeroglyphs.

Assyrische Königsliste und "Dunkles Zeitalter" (Continued)

Previous articleNext article No AccessAssyrische Königsliste und "Dunkles Zeitalter" (Continued)Benno LandsbergerBenno Landsberger Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Cuneiform Studies Volume 8, Number 21954 A journal of ASOR Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1359531 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 9Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Douglas Stuart The Sovereign's Day of Conquest, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 221 (Nov 2018): 159–164.https://doi.org/10.2307/1356098 Jeanny Vorys Canby The Walters Gallery Cappadocian Tablet and the Sphinx in Anatolia in the Second Millennium B. C., Journal of Near Eastern Studies 34, no.44 (Oct 2015): 225–248.https://doi.org/10.1086/372427 Hans G. Güterbock Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impressions from Korucutepe, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 32, no.1/21/2 (Oct 2015): 135–147.https://doi.org/10.1086/372227 Michael C. Astour Ḫattus̆ilis̆, Ḫalab, and Ḫanigalbat, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 31, no.22 (Oct 2015): 102–109.https://doi.org/10.1086/372153 Pinḥas Artzi Some Unrecognized Syrian Amarna Letters (EA 260, 317, 318), Journal of Near Eastern Studies 27, no.33 (Oct 2015): 163–171.https://doi.org/10.1086/371960 Claire Epstein That Wretched Enemy of Kadesh, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 22, no.44 (Sep 2015): 242–246.https://doi.org/10.1086/371744 M. B. Rowton The Date of Hammurabi, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17, no.22 (Sep 2015): 97–111.https://doi.org/10.1086/371450 Hayim Tadmor Historical Implications of the Correct Rendering of Akkadian dâku, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 17, no.22 (Sep 2015): 129–141.https://doi.org/10.1086/371453 Samuel I. Feigin , and B. Landsberger The Date List of the Babylonian King Samsu-Ditana, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14, no.33 (Oct 2015): 137–160.https://doi.org/10.1086/371263

Karatepe, the Key to the Hittite Hieroglyphs

I. Scholars who attempted the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphics began their task with only slender hopes. They had, it is true, before their eyes the successes of their predecessors in solving the secrets both of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and of the Assyrian cuneiform scripts. But these successes had been made possible because in each case a ready key had, been at hand in the shape of a bilingual. Until six years ago no bilingual equal to the Rosetta stone or the Behistun texts had been found for Hittite hieroglyphics and, except for the doubtful help accorded by the inscriptions on a seal or two, to which we shall return, the decipherers had to rely upon their own unaided intuition. It is one thing to elucidate the meaning of an unknown language when it is written in an already known script, such as the Etruscan: or when it is a more or less known language written in a mysterious character, such as turned out to be the case with the Assyrian (for the decipherers were much aided by the discovery that it was a Semitic language akin to Hebrew). But when neither the script nor the language nor their authors are known, when it is known neither what the signs are likely to mean nor what sounds they represent nor who spoke them, the task is indeed a hard one. The degree of success which was achieved in spite of all is sufficiently remarkable to deserve a brief description, since it is a feat which it was always said would prove impossible.

Mopsos

In 1946 an expedition led by Professor H. Bossert and his Turkish colleagues of the Institute for Research in Ancient Oriental Civilisations at the University of Istanbul investigated a site, now called Karatepe, in Cilicia, in a wild and remote part of the Taurus Mountains overlooking the Ceyhan River. There they found a small citadel fortified by a wall and ornamented with lions in the gateways. They excavated the gateways and found them to be flanked by sculptured slabs and inscriptions partly in Phoenician, partly in Hittite hieroglyphs. A further excavation on the summit of the hill found other inscriptions in these two languages, which finally, when compared, proved to be versions of the same text. The long-sought bilingual which would interpret Hittite hieroglyphic script had been found. Confirmation was now to be available of the slow and hesitant interpretations of the hieroglyphs which had been attempted over ninety years.

Proposal for a New Reading of the Hittite Hieroglyphic "TAR"

Proposal for a New Reading of the Hittite Hieroglyphic "TAR"

HİTTİT HİEROGLİFLERİNİN YAŞI MESELESİ

In the time of the great Hittite Empire, the Hittite hieroglyphs were also used on both great monuments and small works such as the seal, as in Nisantas epigraph, as well as in the Hittite cuneiform script. In the study, the age of such Hittite hieroglyphics is discussed with examples.

Hittite Hieroglyphic "All, Every, Whole"

Hittite Hieroglyphic "All, Every, Whole"

HITTITE HIEROGLYPHIC “all, every, whole”

HITTITE HIEROGLYPHIC “all, every, whole”

A Phœnician Inscription from Eastern Cilicia

In 1946 Professor Helmuth Bossert, a distinguished scholar who had already made several remarkable contributions to Anatolian studies and had taken an outstanding part in the decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphs, in collaboration with an able Turkish colleague, Dr. Bahadir Alkim, published the first account of their discovery of fragments of Old Semitic inscriptions at Karatepe (Aslantaş), in Cilicia. The site is marked by the remains of a small walled enclosure at the top of a hill in the most inaccessible recesses of the Upper Ceyhan River, on its West bank. Opposite Karatepe on the East bank of the river on a hill called Domuztepe, they found remains of a little township, evidently of the late Hittite period. But to return to Karatepe, about which the discoverers furnish further welcome information in their second report; it appears that inside the walled enclosure, there was a series of carved basalt slabs facing East, and forming either the façade of a small temple-palace such as was discovered at Tell Halaf or Sakca-gözü, or the decoration of a gateway, as at Zincirli or Carchemish. Near by, to the South, was a broken gateway-lion, inscribed.

Hittite and the Indo-European Languages

IN 1942 I. J. GELB published the third part of his Hittite Hieroglyphs.1 Its main result is an almost complete decipherment of the normal syllabary, so that the moment has come where it is possible to read the inscriptions written in these hieroglyphs as far as they employ phonetic syllables and not ideograms. Gelb also assigned values to certain rarer signs; among them are-to mention only the few that are of significance for the purpose of this article-those read su, ki, and ke. When doing so Gelb expressed the opinion that hH (i. e. hieroglyphic Hittite), in contradistinction with cH (i. e. cuneiform Hittite), belonged to the eastern, not the western branch of the Indo-European languages, that it was a satem, not a centum language. In matters Indo-European he was advised by G. Bonfante, and a joint article on this question by both these authors was announced as in preparation. The article has now appeared in this Journal (64. 169-190). It reiterates the claim Gelb had previously made and discusses the question as to the linguistic position of hH in great detail. It can be expected that the view that the two authors advance with so much vigor will soon be quoted by non-linguists and utilized by them as an established fact. Hence, it seems necessary to investigate its foundations. It is not the purpose of this article to enter into a discussion of areal linguistics, the method used by Bonfante. This is unnecessary. Should the basis for Bonfante's position prove unsound, not even the best method could reach valid results. In a review of Gelb's book which was printed in this Journal (64. 84iff.) I warned against the conclusion which I then foresaw would be drawn from the author's reading su, namely that hi was a satem language, and said: Such an argument is circular. That very hypothesis was instrumental in positing the value in question. Gelb's argument in favor of the reading Su (litt. Hier. III 19iff.; cf. his own summary JAOS 64 174 f.) is as follows: The sign in question, here marked as x, occurs in three words which everybody agrees are forms of the words for dog, horn,, and horse ; they are x-wa-ni-i-ha, x+r-ni,2 and 'a-x-wa-.3 Their similarity in structure with IE. *k' (u) won, *kfrn-, and *ek'wos is evident. This means that the sign x is the representative of IE *k' followed in all probability by the u-vowel. Since according to Gelb no homophones can be admitted in the syllabary of hH, such syllables as are otherwise represented in the syllabary must be eliminated as possible readings of the sign. For this reason the reading cannot be lcu (as had been proposed by Hrozny) or su; there is already a well established sign klu, and there are four signs with s one of which must be su. A reading zu is for the same reason unlikely and made still more improbable by the fact that hH z is usually a development of t. The conclusion is drawn that the most likely possibility, then, is S.' 4 Into this argument certain premises have entered. Firstly, that there is no polyphony. With this I agree 5 (JAOS 64 85). Secondly, that additional values must fit the gaps left in the system. This is correct in principle; however, it must not lead to the demand that all places are to be filled in all circumstances. The sound system of the language may limit a consonant to the position in front of certain vowels. Thirdly Gelb exhibits a strange belief in the accuracy of transliterations like su

Peoples of Ancient Syria

EVER since the recognition of Sumerian influence in the Indus valley through discoveries in the excavation of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, archæological investigation has added continuously to the evidence of the remarkable, and it may be said, unexpected degree and geographical extent of the contacts and movements of cultures and peoples even in the early stages of the development of civilized society. Now Mr. Sidney Smith, in a communication to The Times of June 16, indicates how a preliminary examination of the tablets from the Palace excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley at Atchana affords evidence of the extremely mixed character of the population of Syria in the fifteenth century B.C. In ancient times, it would appear, the site of Atchana was known as Alalakh. It was the capital of the country, Mukish-khe, mentioned in Hittite and Egyptian records. It was a vassal State of the kingdom of Mitanni, as appears from a tablet recording an attempt to establish citizenship of a Mitannian province, brought before the king of that people about 1450 B.C. by a subject of Niqmepa, ruler of Mukish-khe. The documents which have been found at Atchana, Mr. Smith states, concern the status of certain citizens, and are in the Akkadian language. From the names recorded it is possible to deduce that the population contained a considerable proportion of Babylonians and of Khurrians, an indigenous people in Mitanni, but spread over a considerable area extending from Kirkuk, east of the Tigris, to northern Palestine, and of whose existence no knowledge survived prior to modern excavation. Niqmepa may be a Khurrian name, but his son's name is Babylonian. This, Mr. Smith points out, is merely another phenomenon of a mixed civilization, in which the predominant elements were Babylonian, apart from local law and administration. He goes on to say that the inscribed seal, to which Sir Leonard Woolley referred in his report, is no proof of Hittite conquest. The language of the Hittite hieroglyphs is not Hittite, though it may be Indo-European. The seal is, therefore, merely further proof of the mixed character of the population.

The Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Decipherment of the Hittite HieroglyphsW. F. AlbrightW. F. Albright Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research Volume 54April 1934 A journal of the American Schools of Oriental Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1354931 Journal History This article was published in the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research (1921-2021), which is continued by the Bulletin of the American Schools of Overseas Research (2022-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

A New Decipherment of the Hittite HieroglyphsHittite Hieroglyphs I. Ignace J. Gelb

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsA New Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs Hittite Hieroglyphs I. Ignace J. Gelb W. F. AlbrightW. F. Albright Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 49, Number 1Oct., 1932 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/370360 Views: 2Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (1895-1941), which is continued by the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1942-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Verified

The Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Verified

The Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphic Texts

There are the same recognized rules for the decipherment of an unknown script as there are for that of an ordinary cipher, and if they can be followed the script can be deciphered with as much ease as the cipher. Sometimes they cannot be followed, sufficient materials being absent; in this case, all we can do is to wait patiently until the materials are forthcoming.