Military roads connected the Hittite cities of Cappadocia with the rest of Asia Minor, and monuments of Hittite conquest or invasion have been met with as far west as the neighbourhood of Smyrna.

These monuments are all alike distinguished by the same peculiar style of art, and by the same system of pictorial writing.

The writing, unfortunately, has not yet been deciphered, but as the same groups of characters occur wherever an inscription in it is found, we may infer that the language concealed beneath it is everywhere one and the same.
When the Assyrians first became acquainted with the West, the Hittites were the ruling people in Syria.

As, therefore, the Babylonians had included all the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, whatever might be their origin, under the general name of Amorites, the Assyrians included them under the name of Hittites.

Even the Israelites and Ammonites are called "Hittites" by an Assyrian king.