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The Moscho-Hittite Inscriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

A. H. Sayce
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Extract

Two years ago, in the JRAS., an article of mine was published on the leaden rolls with Hittite hieroglyphic texts discovered by the German excavators on the site of Assur (JRAS., Oct., 1925, pp. 707 seq.). The chief purport of the article was to point out the verification the texts afforded of my decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphic inscriptions; where I had postulated the same phonetic value for two or more different characters, these characters are found interchanging with one another, while the geographical and personal names we should expect to meet with are to be read if we give the characters the values I have assigned to them. The nature of the texts, moreover, if my system of decipherment is accepted, agrees with what analogy would suggest it ought to be. What makes them so especially important for the purpose of verification is that they are long, complete, with every character clearly defined, and, above all, that they belong to a locality and period when the script was affected by the contemporaneous use of the Phrygian alphabet and accordingly is phonetic rather than ideographic besides marking the divsions between the words.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , October 1927 , pp. 699 - 715
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1927

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References

page 701 note 1 Cf. the name of Bar-r(e)k(u)b, “Son of the Chariot,” king of Sam'al.

page 702 note 1 Journal of Hellenic Studies, iii, 1, pp. 6–11.

page 703 note 1 Mi- “dirk”, a-mi- “dirk-man”, confused in later inscriptions with the curved sword or scimitar used by the guard who “protected” the temple and citadel.

page 704 note 1 Cf. the familiar English “chimbley” for “chimney” !

page 705 note 1 “Cilicia antea ad Pelusium Ægypti pertinebat, Lydiis, Medis, Armeniisque, Pamphylia, Cappadocia sub imperio Cilicum constitutis. Mox ab Assyriis subacta in breviorem modum subacta est.” The “Medes“ are the Manda of the Hittite cuneiform texts (Madai in Gen. x, 2) who left their name in the classical Matiênê. The statement of Solinus has now been traced to Timagenes (6rst century b.c.).

page 706 note 1 Written mi-is-KÊ-ka-a-ni-in in Carch. i, A 1, a 1. The phrase is: “A Carchemishian of the Moschian Tarkuians” (Mi-is-KÊ-ka-a-ni-in DET. “god” Tarku-wi-in iwa Kar-KA-kaṃ-mi-mis); KA is represented by the axe. In Carch. i, A 11, b 3, we have MIS-mi-i-ka-a-wa-an DET. Tua-ua-wa-na “Moschians of Tyana”, and in Carch. i, A 2, Mis-kas-is Ku-KU-uan-KUANA-na-miya ana “the Moschian lord of the Holy City”. Further on in the same line we have: Mis-n-is-wi Mis-n-i-miya ana “I am the Sun-god, lord of the city of the Sun-god”, who may, however, have been a goddess, like Khebe(t) the Sun-goddess of Arinna, since the words just quoted are preceded by a picture of a bird and the words me-is-wi miya “I have built the city of…”

page 706 note 2 See also Carch. i, A 11, b 2, where we have: “I have built for my Sun-god (Mis-ni-mi) in the land of N(a)-agus-si a sanctuary (?), I have built houses of katinas-stone” (GÛ-ATTA ka-ti-na-yis). Further on in the same inscription (c 5) we read: “supreme over the Tarkuians, lord of Melid (Me-ilid-yi-s), in the land of Karkamish (Karka-mi-ś-MI-i) I have built a house (ti-mia) and an ox-column.” I should identify Nagis and Nakuanas, Nagia-nis with Nagiu on the Armenian frontier which Sennacherib in a letter to his father associates with Gurun and “the forts of Gamir” (Harper, , Letters, 146)Google Scholar .

page 707 note 1 This name is usually represented by the ideograph But in the passage quoted above the phonetic characters ka-ti are added to it, and at Bulgar-Maden (Mess, xxxii, 5) N(a)-ka-tu(a)-ka-mí-s “Nakatu-town” occupies the place the name usually has in other inscriptions. The name of the (deified) city which precedes it at Bulgar-Maden has the phonetic complement me attached to it at Carchemish (Carch. i, A4, a 3), where it follows the name of “Khalmian Carchemish” and is followed by that of Mu-ke-s, the Mukis of the cuneiform texts. For “the Kuwarbisgods of Mukis” (Mukisanus) see JRAS., Jan. 1927, p. 88. The classical name of Nigdeh is unknown. It is situated near Andaval (Andabalis) and a little north of Bor (Tyana). Nagidos was on the coast.

page 708 note 1 In the photograph it looks like Nâ-i-yis, a title of the kings of Mer'ash (Mess, xxi, 3, lii, 4, nâ-â-yi-ś nâ-a-yi-si “king of kings”), but the following word is Khatti-kuanis “priest of Khatti”. As Khatti, however, is not preceded by the ideograph of divinity, while the Kara Dagh king had the name of Khattê-ku-ani-s, the name may be that of the king himself.

page 708 note 2 Or, perhaps, better a-yê. MIYA “city” is phonetically represented by a-ya, a-yi, and a-i, when it signifies “land” rather than “city” in the Greek sense. Cf. the Homeric aἶa and Phrygian oua “village”.

page 709 note 1 “The 9 Rivers” are already mentioned in the Hittite cuneiform texts (BKU. xv, p. 30, 58). Cakes and birds were offered to them from the “sacred grove” (ambassi) and “forest”, but unfortunately their geographical position is not indicated.

page 709 note 2 Ni(s) is “water”; is “water-basin” asmis (Mess, i, 3, xxxiv, C), also nis (Carch. i, A 4, a 2); is “river” nis, more exactly tê(?)tis (see Carch. ii, A 15, b** 2 and 4). Nina, Nana, the name of the Water-goddess, is derived from ni(s). A seal in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (Mess, xliii, 8), first published by Lajard, has on one side of it a figure of the flying horse known to the Greeks as Pêgasos, from whom the fountain of Hippokrênê was sprung. Ramsay has pointed out (Oriens, i, 2, p. 5) that the Greek πνγ was borrowed from Asia Minor and signified “a divine fountain”. Hence Pêgasos will have been the “Fountain deity”, and it must be more than a coincidence that the Hittite characters running round the figure on the seal read according to the values which I assigned to them more than ten years ago Na-ana-si-is “Nanas(s)is”, ax name, by the way, met with in the Greek inscriptions of Asia Minor, a bye-form of which is Nĕnassos. The name signifies “son of the Watergoddess”, who is symbolized by the head of a horse (Carch. i, A 11, b 6), as I also stated more than ten years ago. Here, therefore, is another verification of my reading of the texts.

page 711 note 1 It may be noted that the Hittite -mê “(am) I” is represented in cuneiform on the Tarkondemos seal by me-e. This does not mean, as I used to suppose, that the oblique line attached to the Hittite 1111 had the phonetic value e, but that the numeral 4 was to be pronounced in a special way. The numeral was mi; see Carch. i, A 6, 6. I need hardly draw attention, by the way, to the striking confirmation of my system of decipherment this passage affords. Years before the discovery of the inscription it had led me to give the values of kas and me to the numerals 3 and 4 and the phonetic values of ku or kê, is, and mi to three other characters. And here we have the numeral 3 glossed phonetically as tê-is and 4 as mi, the values in every case being those which I had assigned to the characters in question.

page 711 note 2 If we could be certain that the Us-khatti of the Bowl Inscription (Mess, i, 3) is the Us-khitti of Tuna who paid homage to Tiglath-pileser III in 732 B.C. we should have at least one fixed date. And the commencement of the text favours the identification as it reads: “this work of art, a water-bowl, for the temple of Tarkus of Atuna I Us-khatti have made” (Tarkuwi isi-ti A-tu-na-a-i, the last word being literally “of the royalland”).

page 712 note 1 The seal is very interesting, as it represents a long-robed deity seated on an altar and extending his right arm over a small child who stands and grasps the end of a long rod held by an advancing man behind whom is another man with a similar rod. At the back of the deity the same child stands naked on a stool while a priest with uplifted arms pours a libation over him from a vase. The hieroglyphs are written over the extended arm of the deity and the head of the child. The cuneiform inscription is: (if i-du-khu-su (2) zu-hhu-ur-ta (?) (3) [ra ?]-me-ku-um (4) i-ra-mu-ku; “(1) They have offered him; (2) the child (fem.) (3) the libationer (?) (4) will baptize.”