. The eastern nations and Greece. re. Other routes led from Phoenicia across the Mesopotamian plainsto Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, Iersia, and thence on into the heart of central Asia. 96] THE EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES 91 traders went they carried this alphabet as one of their exports. Itwas through them that the Greeks received it; the Greeks passed iton to the Romans, and the Romans gave it to the German this way our alphabet came to us fromthe ancient East.^ It would be difficult toexaggerate the importance of this gift of thealphabet to the peoples of Europe. Withoutit their civil
. The eastern nations and Greece. re. Other routes led from Phoenicia across the Mesopotamian plainsto Armenia, Assyria, Babylonia, Iersia, and thence on into the heart of central Asia. 96] THE EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES 91 traders went they carried this alphabet as one of their exports. Itwas through them that the Greeks received it; the Greeks passed iton to the Romans, and the Romans gave it to the German this way our alphabet came to us fromthe ancient East.^ It would be difficult toexaggerate the importance of this gift of thealphabet to the peoples of Europe. Withoutit their civilization could never have becomeso rich and progressive as it did. Among the other elements of culture whichthe Phoenicians carried to. the peoples of theMediterranean lands, the most important,after alphabetic writing, were systems ofweights and measures. These are indispen-sable agents of civilization, and hold somesuch relation to the development of tradeand commerce as letters hold to the develop-ment of the intellectual II. THE HITTITES 96. The Empire of the Hittites. Ourgrowing knowledge of the peoples and statesof Asia Minor has revealed the fact that theelements of Egyptian and Mesopotamian cul-ture were carried westward over the im-memorial land routes through this peninsulaas well as by the waterways of the Medi-terranean. Chief in importance, before thePersian period, of the peoples controllingthese land routes were, first, the Hittites,and then at a much later time the attention drawn to the empire of the Hittites (sect. 28), whosecapital city Hatti was situated on the uplands of Asia Minor, east ofthe Halys River. From about 1600 on for several centuries this 1 All systems of writing now in use, except the Chinese and those derived from it,are from the PhcEnician script. Fig. 61. The IIittiteGod of the Sky A stele excavated by in the palace ofNebuchadnezzar at Babylon,whither it probably had beencarried as a war trophy fromnorther
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