Bogazkale, Turkey
Tourism

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the Kizilirmak about 200km/124mi east of Ankara. It is situated below the sprawling archeological site, at the upper end of the Budaközü valley where the Zincirli Dag (1,641m/5,386ft) and the Akcadag Tepesi (1,689m/5,543ft) converge and where the Yazir Deresi and Büyükkaya Deresi, two source streams, join forces to form the Budaközü Dere. On a plateau in between, a kilometer or so southeast of the village and some 90m/300ft higher up, are the ruins of Hattusas's lower city, including those of the Great Temple. Limestone outcrops rising abruptly from the plateau and along its flanks made fine natural sites for the acropolis and for various fortifications and towers. The New (upper) City, with three fortresses and numerous temples, stood further to the south, where the far from level plateau, dotted with boulders and broken by summits and ridges, rises to a height of 1,242m/4,076ft. The huge scale of the city can be judged from the fact that the walls encircling it were once 6km/4mi long.

History

The acropolis (Büyükkale) is known to have been inhabited in the third millennium B.C. In the 19th century B.C. Assyrian merchants established the kind of trading colony for which the Assyrians were famous on the northern edge of the pre-Hittite town. At the beginning of the 18th century B.C. a King Anitta of Kushar (the precise location of which remains unknown) destroyed both the town and the trading settlement. Despite his having also put a curse on it, in the 17th century B.C. one of his successors moved his capital to Hattusas and even styled himself Hattusili (I) accordingly. The next Hittite king, Mursili I, embarked on a wide-ranging and successful series of conquests from which not even Babylon escaped. Following an interim period of reverses and decline, Hittite power expanded once again around 1450 B.C. leading to the creation of the Hittite Empire. Most of the buildings and sculptures seen today date from the heyday of the Empire.

Around 1200 B.C. Hattusas and its empire were destroyed by unidentified invaders, possibly the so-called Sea Peoples. Since there is no evidence of any recovery it must be assumed that the entire population of the city was either deported or killed. The ruins stood abandoned for more than two hundred years before Phrygians built a new town on the acropolis.

About 650 B.C. this settlement was in turn partly destroyed. Subsequently there was further building on the acropolis under the Medes, Lydians and Persians. Coins found on the site suggest that, from A.D. 240 to 350, the acropolis may have been in use as a sanctuary. Bogazköy began as an Ottoman village, growing up to the northwest of the ruins in the early 18th century around the seat of the ruling derebey.

History of the Excavations

The site, the existence of which is referred to in the Old Testament (Genesis 23), was rediscovered in 1834 by the scholar Charles Texier, although he was unable to identify the remains. It was A. H. Sayce who first suggested their possible Hittite origin. In 1882 C. Hamann carried out a survey, and two years later E. Chantre discovered the first cuneiform clay tablets in Accadian and the (then unknown) Hittite language. In 1920, B. Hrozny succeeded in placing Hittite within the Indo-European family of languages.

The first systematic excavations were undertaken in 1906/07 and 1911/12, led by H. Winckler, Th. Makridi and O. Puchstein. These brought to light the royal palace archives containing some 2,500 cuneiform tablets, enabling the site to be positively identified as that of the Hittite capital Hattusas, the name of which was already known from the so-called "Amarna Correspondence" (State Archive of the Pharaoh Echnaton). Since 1977 there have been further investigations by P. Neve concentrating on the upper city, finds from which include 1040 Hittite inscription tablets uncovered on Nisantepe (Medallion Hill). A path has been laid out enabling visitors to make a circular tour of the site.