Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 96

HITTITES AND THEIR SCRIPTS
95
are partly ideographic and partly phonetic; the greater part of the characters are ideograms (Fig. 49), for instance, the symbols for "god," "king," "prince," "great," "city," "sacrifice," "land," "ox," or signs representing animals, plants, parts of the body, and so forth, employed either as word-signs or determinatives. Fifty-seven signs have according to Gelb (Fig. 50, 1) a syllabic value.
ORIGIN OF HITTITE HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING
The problem of the origin of the Hittite hieroglyphic writing has not yet been solved. Some scholars have derived it from the Egyptian hieroglyphics, others from the Cretan pictographic script. In fact, the form of Hittite hieroglyphic writing is highly pictorial, as is indeed that of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Cretan pictographs, but this does not mean necessarily that it must have derived from one of them.
br "ox"
"city"
"con
queror "(?)
"stool"
"sacri
fice"
"call"
"god"
ance" (?) "import
"king"
"Vase"
"warrior"
<4
"palace"
"prince"
"river"
CP. "goat"
reign"(?)
"to speak"
op "sove
"vine"
"land"
Fig. 49-Hittite ideographic symbols
"great"
D "noble' (?)
"monu
ment"(?)
Indeed, a comparison between Hittite hieroglyphic writing and the Egyptian hieroglyphics shows that there is no direct connection at all between them; and while there are some external similarities between Cretan pictographs and Hittite hieroglyphics (Fig. 50, 2), no connection can be proved so long as the Cretan pictographic script remains undeciphered; the chronological difficulties must also be considered.
The present author's view is this: with the expansion of the Hittite Empire, the necessity arose for a monumental script for writing on stone. Perhaps impressed by the beauties of Egyptian writing, with which they were familiar, the Hittite rulers decided on a pictorial script as most appropriate for this purpose; Kroeber's theory of "stimulus-diffusion" or "idea-diffusion" would here seem to fit perfectly. At a late period a simpler cursive form of Hittite hieroglyphic writing developed (Fig. 48).
As to the date of the creation of Hittite hieroglyphic writing, nothing can be said with certainty, but we may assume that the script existed