\Ыщ ^ PROBLEMS (F HITTITE ART Lo MS - 1
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\ыщ ^ PROBLEMS (F HITTITE ART lo MS - 1 - W^iat is {f-W-tite art? What place does it occupy amo ng other arts of the Ancient ^ast? ?rhat means the паше/ Rarely any art has been so problema tic alt « __ 'Hwy-jaoaorn ara a Hittite/is derived from Mb±±tH3_L \ TçhittTm, used a couple of times^to designate not always the same, but people of an old native group in - -yria fi and neighböurjSS-jiÄ^W^Hebr. Khi ti, As syr, Khatti, E*. gyp t. He ta, all reflect an original khatti7~nâ!Hg~''ôî^b~ origines in middle AsiaMinor, who)!? spoke a language ф t <У <ЩР »'•j-kiiingiBQ» Щ a rare Caucasian уяг.^/Гу- and who had ootab-- Ш__№'1 a state of their own in the 5rd and the beginni ng of the 2nd millennium B.C.- s - . -nA- îè^^cA ,- i-tyU —- •"bout 1800^they »vere conquered by another nation, perhaps newcomers, who established a mighty empire and destroyed, in 1750, what regained of the old Sumero-Ak- 1 Ü№\ СЛАллЛ,, ЫАМ k-vv- ft 4 kadian glory in Babylonia. Ш«н__. ;тйтл i|4re\unknown, as is their name. 3й theft e; nlrn yrlnnguage somehow related to the Indo-Europ. family, which tihr— . «.1«. n»3ìiiwì nasili, "Nastan". Perhaps that *т& . al s^ their real ethnical name^ ^dt^-b^r//w^- é*«*? ,/ * Н4*СА*Э<Г . - ил** , jfëfaét,; &*4* /r Л u^a --, * 1\ C^U^CAJ - Hi . 2 - We know the. ."language well froe the thousands of doc- 4— uments fro® Boghazköi. Most awkwardly_J^or this langua-T) excusable only inasmuch as the name ''nasin was s till) unknown at th« time -y^e/TIgé. to-day, tne name "Hit-taxe" nas been adopted,iand tf the nation hence is £Ошш_Жу called ''the Hittites", T **--<t20*'K 'Ai fa^H^ere decidedly not Khatti, nor was their language, rtfeA ^r ffawal ,y Gne misdeed leads jo another: to correct the . *«* ^^* obvious mistake, the true khatti- language is now d:s - ^ - - - -еЛ tinguished fror., the Nasi as "proto-khatti", an express- . % ^-V^ *"*^ • bn which ^^^^^ 8^ !^^-^^ ..^^^&^ / apîkF PHI ja mr ni Дг fr flâa-tAnfflâohodjOf the same language3. Tf there is some- >?Vе r/ thing w>ong in oLir modern terminology, it is calling thf - at nation and their language "Hittite". ? )Boghauzlc Qod. For archaeological purposes we need a name for the "Kulturkreis", the sphere ofi civilisationyto which all_a thsrriT-oduetOi nut on_ y -_J »oty o£ the/lhatti, Nasi and ad/ so many others^belonai That civilisation begin* in the A M& . stone-age and endfexonly sHriterti'HG of Älexander the fi Great, that means ft l_eôfô|/56G0 years, and it ^1 at least Asia Minot in its widest meaning, North-ifîyria mid Mesopo ЬьтхаУЦпа »r Mesopotamia-1 шоАцр^Уо1у___цп Wat-fiacl .-£_1 ПШегп JazTrafthe land between the -4iphr- ates and Tigris, 7* Hitt. 8 - ates and Tigris, -jfchu -Rum^4iPQvi«oe~ ^ but » .vBabylonla in the South,- and ftrfa/-jffiria Fast of the Tigiis,- For the n'fftrtrmnnj. Mesopotamien branch the names Hur— UArrt-^hr. ri or Mitannu have tentatively been adopted, lately, >. with the emphasis of a great discovery. But the people bearing those names düß- appear before the 2nd millennium, are obscure as for ethnical relation and historical pa- rt, ?and never spr over the western regions of the same sphere of civilisation whereas the people of Asi 3 Mino.?, at least partly, did the 4-J__*_?-__ry. 5) -T.I-f.^oddooe Quite recently, A.Ungnad, the famous German assyri ologist, insists, dte strong arguments, wo _ _% тЧ> a3Ev~4ftotea.^. «if 'Hittite'ty the old fumerò »Baby lon«- ian term --»ubar(tu) ^^/Mesopotamia in wide limits, 4^6. /j*fc"- Л/ AaS the SW parts of our 'Kulturkreis1, and/speak^of Subarag„ ans /ofTits inhabitants. No doubt, the so-called Hurri or Witannu-people were Subaraeans as far as language f and C-iatoms go, and probably also as an ethnical group. But whether 3ubar was a geographical, ethnical or othef term is unknown, and the disadvatages (are equal: In ca<— — Hitt. 4 - ling e.g. a 7ork of art belonging to that sphere and w situated in the West of AsiaMinor "Subaraean" - not tu * say Subarite - Sybarite -, we would give it the name o/ a nation thaT surely did not produce it. ft*»- n h•** \ \- -чг '/ щт,Ап calling a similar work in Mesopotamia ' L'itti te! we givi it no ethnical name at all - there were never such 'Hittites', Qìiìy Krintti- - hence we don't imply any national authorship, but simply the belonging to a ? special civilisation. Where У* , civilisation includeg A\d6r a great number of peoples, an^emnical name is unfit for the /j ûi rf. 4) Swaootrie сси-^Ш.ь>Ь^ tfa/e, Therefore, I Ju-l лчлр-АЬъ name Hittite t > be changed, and stick it, the more so as, after all, it is already inveterated. Tt was suggested when v_ re than 80 years ago the first rock-sculptures of A- siaMinor attracted attention, and h afr ни. mm»» OUQet witk increasing knowledge. The excavations of Sendjirli in N.-Syria, since 1890, later those of Karkhemish on the %phrates, explorations at Boghazkei and Oyük in centr at AsiaMinor, retzealed/the existence of a cultural uni » " bc^ondic OtibtUf?-l<a it opposed to the sphere of Sumer-Ba»? Ж: •^ Htt. 5 - aÀÀ&r Only .яша. I*.¥inckler, in 1906, discovered the archie* ves of Boghazköi, and when just after the ear the fir__ st attempts of deciphering were published, the startli ng fact was ootoMlQiiQd that the language of the -Empi re of Khattusa-Boghazkoi"from 1800 - 1200 B.C., was re lated tcrthe Inde-r\iropean family. A new branch of phi lology Sprang up, under the erroneous name "îïettitology* and in the excitement a less excusable misdeed was com.» Bitted: one began speaking of "the Indo-Europeans", or even "the Aryans of AsiaMinor".( Indo-European is a purЛ & linguistic, not an ethnical term, k/vax the^backgrou«. nd otmndo hojjc of an 0_Ы superior civilisatiun, created by "Northerners" in the less valued Ancient FastJ, The sculptures of some of those peoples, you saw just now, speak in favour of any Northerners. 5) Hieroglyphs. TheJ^oghazkëi-documents are written in Akkadia/ cuneiform väp e^, jWk__c_o, ab. the middle of the 2nd mill- ennim r#»s fadoptedk__as in Egypt^ for diplomatic and int-A JCT^ational affairs J But at the same time a native hier oglyphic script existed, which went on to be used for monumental uurposes, and after the end of the empire^ 7* - Hitt, - 6 - lived on in some of the succeeser-states. The deciphç_ ring has just started, and the language seems to be a dialect of the nasi-Hittite. Tt is only reasonable to -*• specimens assume that the oldest SFXXHEXXXMS we own.are not witne sses of the inventionj hieroglyphs must have existed y> before cuneiform was introduced, hieroglyphic script is old by definition. but not only men; works of art, but entire groups, we may say whole sites are without any writing, a point" of importance and generally neglected: it suggests for such works a date anterior to the common use of writing and certainly anterior to the introduction of cuneiform. 6) T.H., sfi rpio&u £___n .Such a site is TellHalaf with its amaa- zing awâunt of sculptures. Almost all Hittite sculptur—• v_ es^have been discovered not in their original stratum, but in second or - -drd use. Tt is the typical fate of those works of imperishable basalt. In T.HAlaf a/ inscription in Assyrian cuneiform has buen added ji • *у^ ч - ^ /yA^^. ~" 3} then^saying that the" were used, not made for the palace of a local ruler, who lived probably ab. 1200 3, &-_5hp-£f-y8j[a eafefiE^a^from T.Halaf has aggravated the — Hitt. 7 - problems, anaforces us to revise our entire attitude w towards 'Hittite', in this case 'Subaraean' monuments. It is a most complex problem, as shown by the fact th— . from-- at various scholars date the monnment^Jab. 5000 ©•*£•.> C.C/ tonn to 800/- From outside, that is an astonishing testimonium paupertatis, would mean the profession that archaeology was completely unable to selve the problem, 7 ) -Syrian ho ad, Jc<mwvs-W A дд^ yet, t>be[ргЪЬТщ) archaeology faces no othet* **" <У-иЛ<ЛЛ(У)-1 §tuL than i before any prehistoriî>/material *^j .> inscriptions. There is no reason for such unconditional» Surrender. The method to deal with it is neither new юг untried* critical analysis of style. That method ne_ , _* ver rot'uooa, and yet has been questioned in our case, but only because the skeptics did not realize »hat is t|stylo". *'Le style c'est l'homme» is perfectly true. Style is essence, the sum of all intrinsic properties, as well as form, the «hole outward sfeape. Intrinsic p properties and outward shape must continuously change with history, /J ith time. One component of style is timf and analysis of style leads straight to a relative ch-. ^г Hitt.S - chronology. To transfer relative(chrónoìogy) into abso lute cjffer., some historical information is necessary, щ eh ich may come from purely literary sources, linked up with the archaeological material in a psychologically convincing way, or it may be achieved by comparison with foreign, dated works of art, which cannot fail en— on their relatively narro.. <ХЛ€&. tirely, because the old oriental civilisations"] were not without contact. 8) Iwriz. But to assign its place to the art of a whole spher^ of civilisation, which stretched over fi many lands and several thousand years, involves an intimate knowledge of everything comparable, Und comparable means not some single objects - which would soon prove to be complet ely misleading -, but the growth of large groups of ard iri various periods and lands.