Hattusa Archaeological Site, Boğazkale, Turkey
Hattusa (Hittite: , URUḪa-at-tu-ša, read "Ḫattuša", Turkish: Hattuşaş) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of the Kızılırmak River (Hittite: Marashantiya; Greek: Halys). Hattusa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1986. Before 2000 BC, a settlement of the apparently indigenous Hatti people was established on sites that had been occupied even earlier and referred to the site as Hattush. The Hattians built their initial settlement on the high ridge of Büyükkale.[1] The earliest traces of settlement on the site are from the sixth millennium BC. In the 19th and 18th centuries BC, merchants from Assur in Assyria established a trading post there, setting up in their own separate quarter of the city. The center of their trade network was located in Kanesh (Neša) (modern Kültepe). Business dealings required record-keeping: the trade network from Assur introduced writing to Hattusa, in the form of cuneiform. A carbonized layer apparent in excavations attests to the burning and ruin of the city of Hattusa around 1700 BC. The responsible party appears to have been King Anitta from Kussara, who took credit for the act and erected an inscribed curse for good measure:
Size: 2448px × 3264px
Location: Boğazkale, Turkey
Photo credit: © Hattusa / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: archaeological, archaeology, bogazkoy, boğazkale, buildings, byzantine, capital, center, centre, city, defence, dwellings, era, excavated, excavation, fortification, gates, habitation, hatti, hattusa, hattusha, hellenistic, home, houses, kingdom, mudbrick, museum, observe, overcast, palaces, periods, phrygian, site, turkey
