Patriarchal Palestine by Archibald Henry Sayce
page 40 of 245 (16%)
page 40 of 245 (16%)
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in eastern Asia Minor in the neighbourhood of the modern Malatiyeh.
Here, in fact, was their original home. Thanks to the Egyptian artists, we are well acquainted with the Hittite physical type. It was not handsome. The nose was unduly protrusive, while the chin and the forehead retreated. The cheeks were square with prominent bones, and the face was beardless. In colour the Hittites were yellow-skinned with black hair and eyes. They seem to have worn their hair in three long plaits which fell over the back like the pigtail of a Chinaman, and they were distinguished by the use of boots with upturned toes. We might perhaps imagine that the Egyptian artists have caricatured their adversaries. But this is not the case. Precisely the same profile of face, sometimes even exaggerated in its ugliness, is represented on the Hittite monuments by the native sculptors themselves. It is one of the surest proofs we possess that these monuments, with their still undeciphered inscriptions, are of Hittite origin. They belong to the people whom Israelites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Armenians united in calling Hittites. In marked contrast to the Hittites stood the Amorites. They too are depicted on the walls of the Egyptian temples and tombs. While the Hittite type of features is Mongoloid, that of the Amorite is European. His nose is straight and somewhat pointed, his lips and nostrils thin, his cheek-bones high, his mouth firm and regular, his forehead expressive of intelligence. He has a fair amount of whisker, ending in a pointed beard. At Abu-Simbel the skin is painted a pale yellow--the Egyptian equivalent for white--his eyes blue, and his beard and eyebrows red. At Medînet Habu, his skin, as Prof. Petrie expresses it, is "rather |
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