The Treaty of Alliance between Hattusili, King of the Hittites, and the Pharaoh Ramesses II of Egypt
1920; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 6; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3853914
ISSN2514-0582
Autores Tópico(s)Ancient Egypt and Archaeology
ResumoTHE publication in Germany, during the war, of the Hittite archives discovered at Boghazkoi by Hugo Winckler makes it at last possible to compare in detail the hieroglyphic and cuneiform versions of the famous treaty concluded by the Hittite king HIjattusili with Ramesses II of Egypt.Archaeology has no more romantic coincidence to show than the recovery in the heart of Asia Minior, a thousand miles away across the Mediterranean, of those two clay tablets reproducing in Babylonian language and writing the self-samne treaty that Ramesses II had comnlemorated upon hieroglyphic stelae in his Theban temples-The full details of the story are doubtless unknown to many readers of the Journal; we may therefore be permitted to narrate them briefly by way of preface to our mnore technical investigations.In the course of the expedition to Egypt, wherein Champollion sought to turn to practical account his decipherment of the hieroglyphs, his attention was especially attracted to the sculptures and inscriptions recording the wars between Ramesses II and a people whose name he read as Scheto.The sequel to those wars was a treaty of alliance of which the full terms were set forth in a hieroglyphic version upon great stelae in the temples of Karnak and the Ramesseum respectively.Champollioii copied both the more complete example at Karnak and the fragmentary one in the Ramesseum, but his tentative rendering of some lines in the Notices Descriptives', as well as a reference in his published letters2, shows that he did not yet divine the exact purport.This was, however, quite clearly recognized by his pupil Rosellini, the first scholar to attempt a complete translations.Since those early days many translations and editions of the text have seen the light, but it must be confessed with some shame that Egyptologists have not yet provided themselves with quite definitive copies of this all-important historical document.The best edition available is one published by the late W. Max Miiller in 19024, and it would be doing him an injustice to suggest that there is very much amiss with it; but a collation made by Professor Sethe, which, thanks to his kindness, we have been permitted to use for the present article (see P1. XVIII), shows that in points of detail Max Muiller's copy left a good deal to be desired; and a comparison of the first lines with the photograph of Beato pointed to the same conclusion.When will our scholars realize that the accurate copying of the monuments above ground is a task of far greater urgency than the exploitation of new sites ?Champollion was inclined to equate the people whose name he read as Scheto with
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