Boghazköy

The site of the Hittite capital of Hattusas, excavated by Hugo Winckler in the early 20th century and which yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets from which much of Hittite history was reconstructed. The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times. In c 1500 BC, it became the citadel of Hattusas. As the Hittites' power grew, so did their capital, all within a massive defensive wall of stone and mudbrick. Six gateways were decorated with impressive monumental carved reliefs, showing a warrior, lions, and sphinxes. Four temples have been excavated within the walls, each grouped around an open porticoed court. Two buildings housed the archives with over 10,000 inscribed clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform script and the Hittite language. A cemetery close to the city held large numbers of cremation burials, a surprisingly early occurrence of this rite. The city fell at the same time as the empire, c 1200 BC. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city.

The site of the Hittite New Kingdom capital, Hattusas, occupying a rock citadel called Büyükkale in central Turkey. Little is known of the Chalcolithic or Hittite Old Kingdom phases on the site; excavation has in the main concentrated on the monuments of the New Kingdom city, after cl400 bc, which covered cl 20 hectares and was defended by a stone and mud-brick city wall. A series of major buildings on the citadel represents administrative quarters and royal buildings, including an audience hall. Two of these buildings housed archives of clay tablets inscribed in the cuneiform script and Hittite language; there were more than 10,000 of these tablets and they have provided much information about the Hittites. Another important building was Temple I, not on the citadel, but in the lower town, which consisted of a series of rooms around three sides of a court with a colonnade on the fourth. Other temples have been excavated on the citadel and in the lower town and there is a rock-cut sanctuary c2 km away at Yazilikaya. There were at least six gateways in the city wall and three of these were decorated with impressive carved reliefs. The city fell at the same time as the Hittite empire, in the early 12th century BC.