Hattusa (Boğazkale)

Hattusa, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986, was the capital of the Hittite Empire — the dominant Bronze Age power in Anatolia and the northern Levant from approximately 1650 to 1180 BC. Located near the modern village of Boğazkale in Çorum province, central Turkey, the site occupies a naturally defensible rocky plateau overlooking the Kızılırmak River basin. At its height during the 14th and 13th centuries BC, the city covered approximately 180 hectares and was enclosed by 6 km of monumental stone walls incorporating around 200 towers and six principal gates. The Hittite Empire is celebrated in history for its military confrontation with Egypt under Pharaoh Ramesses II, culminating in the Battle of Kadesh around 1274 BC — the earliest recorded battle for which both sides left detailed accounts — and the subsequent Treaty of Kadesh around 1259 BC, the world's oldest surviving international peace treaty. A clay tablet copy of the treaty is displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums; a replica hangs in the United Nations headquarters in New York. Hattusa served as the administrative, religious, and economic heart from which the empire controlled territory spanning from the Aegean coast to the Euphrates. The Great Temple (Temple I) in the Lower City is the largest Hittite temple complex known, dedicated to the storm god Teshub and the sun goddess Arinniti; it still contains massive green basalt base blocks that once supported cult statues. The Upper City preserves the ruins of at least 31 additional temple foundations arranged in a formal processional grid. The famous Sphinx Gate on the southern walls originally flanked the processional route with two large limestone sphinxes; the originals are now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums and the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, replaced at the site by replicas. The Lion Gate retains its original carved lion protomes flanking the 3,200-year-old passageway. Two kilometres east of the main site, the open-air Yazılıkaya sanctuary contains two chambers of rock-cut relief sculptures depicting the Hittite divine pantheon in procession — the finest Hittite sculptural programme known. The German Archaeological Institute has directed excavations at Hattusa continuously since 1906.