In 1911 the British Museum undertook the excavation of Carchemish on the Euphrates, the capital of the North Syrian sector of the Empire; but the most precious results have been achieved by Winckler at Boghaz Keui, the capital of the Cappadocian portion of the Hittite dominions, which yielded a library of 20,000 tablets of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, now stored in the museum at Constantinople.  A few bilingual inscriptions have furnished valuable clues; but the world still eagerly awaits the coming of a new Champollion to unlock the doors of the treasure-house.  Winckler himself died in 1913; but in 1915 the Austrian Professor Hrozny startled the world by proclaiming his conviction that Hittite was an Indo-European language.  Whether or no his contention is confirmed, orientalists of both hemispheres are hot in pursuit, and it is no rash prophecy that within a decade scholars will read Hittite as they now read cuneiform and hieroglyphics, and new chapters of incalculable importance will be added to the story of the Ancient East.

The recovery of the political and religious history of the empires surrounding Palestine has run parallel with the application of critical methods to the Jewish scriptures.  To read Ewald’s History of the People of Israel, which was regarded as dangerous by pious folk in the middle of last century, is to realize the progress of Semitic studies.  The great revolution in our conception of the Old Testament which rendered Ewald out of date was accomplished by Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel.  That the arrangement of the Canon was utterly misleading, that the Prophets were earlier than the priestly code and that the Psalms for the most part were later than both, was proclaimed in the writings and lectures of Vatke and Graf, Kuenen and Reuss; but it was not till their discoveries were confirmed and elaborated by Wellhausen that they won their way, and it was generally recognized that their reconstruction alone rendered the religious development of the Jews intelligible.  This outline was shortly after filled in by Stade in the first critical history of Israel; but his emphasis on the falsity of tradition was overdone, and subsequent critics, while accepting the late redaction of the law, have argued that parts of it are far older, in substance if not in form, than Wellhausen and his disciple were prepared to allow.

The history of the Jews owes much less to archaeological research on the arena of their historic life than Egypt or Mesopotamia.  No splendid buildings or sculptures have been brought to light, and the inscriptions are few.  But British, American, and German excavators have flashed light far back into the third millennium, and a partial excavation of Jerusalem has revealed a network of prehistoric tunnels and aqueducts.  The historic life of Gezer has been minutely revealed by Macalister, with the strata of seven cities reaching back to the neolithic age.  The most piquant result