The secret of the Hittites : the discovery of an ancient empire / by C.W. Ceram [pseud.] Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cont.: I. The enigma of their existence -- 1. Discovery and wild surmise -- Leander swan from Asia to Europe -- What was known about the Hittites in A.D. 1871 -- What is known today -- Asia Minor: A winter like Northern Germany, a summer like Southern France -- Texier and the ruins of Boghazkoy -- "Sheik Ibrahim" -- The Hamath stones -- Sayce guesses the existence of a Hittite Empire -- 2. The Bible and new research -- Abraham and the Children of Heth -- The Bible as a source book of history -- A farmer's wife throws clay tablets around the Armarna archives -- "Let my brother send me very much gold" -- Humann and Luschan dig at Zinjirli -- Lions beneath the "flower of the lower world" -- "The goal we had sought had been achieved" -- Really? -- 3. WInckler digs in Boghazkoy -- The anti-Semite and his Jewish banker -- Tacht-biti -- Vermin -- Zia Bey, scion of Seldjuk nobility -- The first thirty-four clay tablets -- A royal treaty 3100 years old -- Hattusas, the capital of the Hittites -- Zia Bey's banquet -- Digging up clay tablets as a peasant woman digs potatoes -- Garstang visits Winckler -- Lieutenant Kammergruber and the advancement of science II. The riddle of the scripts -- 4. On the art of deciphering -- Dead languages -- The classic examples: Grotefend and Champollion -- The dream of scholars: A bilingual -- William Jones learns Sanskrit -- THe discovery of the Indo-European family of languages -- Friedrich Hrozny's preliminary report -- Ninda, Ezza, and Vadar -- The Hittites were Indo-Europeans -- 5. Did the Hittites speak Hittite? -- Questions for Hrozny -- How did Indo-Europeans come to Anatolia? The dangers of etymology -- The grammar of Hittite -- A scholar corrects the mistakes of Hittite scribes -- The eight languages of Boghazkoy, is Chinese an important language in London? -- Who really spoke Hattili? -- "You rise out of the sea" -- Cuneiform and hieroglyphic scripts --etc.