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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 Excerpt: ... that about the time of the Trojan Wars and for some centuries afterwards, the country of the Lydians was in a state of vassalage to the kings of Assyria. But an Assyrian inscription informs us that Asia Minor, west of the Halys, was unknown to the Assyrian kings before the time of Assur-bani-apli, or Assurbanipal (circ. B.C. 666), who it is stated received an embassy from Gyges, king of Lydia 'a remote' country, of which Assurbanipal's predecessors had never heard the name. Nevertheless that there had been some sort of connection between Lydia and Assyria in ancient times is probable, though it cannot be proved. "Professor Sayce is of opinion that the mediators between Lydia in the west, and Assyria in the east, were the people called Kheta or Hittites. According to this theory the northern Hittite capital Carchemish (later Hierapolis) on the Euphrates, was the spot where the arts and civilization of Assyria took the form which especially characterises the early monuments of Central Asia Minor. "The year B.C. 1400 or thereabouts was the time of greatest power of the nation of the Hittites, and if they were in reality the chief connecting link between Lydia and Assyria it may be inferred that it was through them that the Lydians received the Assyrian weight, which afterwards in Lydia took the form of a stamped ingot or coin. "But why it was that the light mina rather than the heavy one had become domesticated in Lydia must remain unexplained. We know however that one of the Assyrian weights is spoken of in cuneiform inscriptions as the 'weight of Carchemish! If then the modern hypothesis of a Hittite dominion in Asia Minor turn out to be well founded, the weight of Carchemish might by means of the Hittites have found its way to Phrygia and Ly...