Note 64 — Chapter VII · THE RESULTS OF EXPLORATION.

The so-called “Hittite” system. The monuments in this character as yet found in situ occur in Armenia, Asia Minor, and Northern Syria. The most southerly sculpture of the kind yet known was discovered in a mound near Damascus excavated by Sir C. W. Wilson. The earliest found examples were five stones at Hamath, one of which Buckhardt saw. Other examples were discovered at Aleppo, and by George Smith at Carchemish. The system as at present known includes about 130 signs, some fifty of which are very frequently repeated. There is no doubt that these read (like the early Akkadian texts) in lines with syllables arranged in columns. Some of the emblems resemble those found in the earliest examples of other Asiatic systems (Egyptian, Akkadian, and Old Chinese), and by analogy it is probable that each emblem represents a word—noun, verb, or other grammatical form. My reasons for supposing the language to be a Turkic or Mongolic dialect are simple. 1st, The names of Hittites and Hittite cities known to us appear to be in such a dialect; 2nd, the short bilingual agrees with this view; and 3rd, the commonest signs (of which we know the sound through later hieratic forms) can be shown to represent common Mongolic words, such as pronouns and case-endings, &c. Many other suggestions have been made for comparing with Hebrew, Georgian, Armenian, and Egyptian, but in no case has it been shown that these languages supply a key to the sounds or to the bilingual. Take, for instance, the Hittite royal title Tarku. It exists only in the Turanian languages—Turkic Tarkan, Mongol Dargo, Cossack Turughna, Etruscan Tarchu and Tarquin, all meaning “a chief.” The number of words which I have so compared now amounts to a hundred in all, and I believe it places the character of the language on a sound and scientific basis.—See Journal Anthropological Institute, August 1889.