The Ham Nomads

17 Jun 2015. <TR> Hattuşa —

Today we continued on to Hattuşa. We called off on the way to a roadside resaurant, Mavi Ocak, for our usual caffeine fix — Warren with çay (tea), Suzie with nescafe sütli — in Turkish, nescafe is the generic word for instant coffee, and sütli means 'with milk'.

Another itinerant workers' camp

Then we continued on, not that far, to Boğaskale. this, apparently, is a mainly Kurdish village, and we called in to a 'free information' site on the way in — this turned out to be a place where they try to sell you Turkish carpets or Kilim. But we bought a guidebook from them, and went into the Hattuşa site.

If you are thinking that the capital of the Hittite Empire was built on flat ground, think again. This is a hilly site, and Gertie was being asked to take us up and around it.

As you enter the site, you pass a section of the city wall that has been reconstructed on the actual foundations unearthed some years ago. This was a major example of experimental archaeology, and has provided significant insights into the building methods of the Hittites. 65m of wall has been recunstructed in unbaked mud brick, representing approximately 1% of the more than 6 km of city wall.

The first part of the site that we visited was Temple One. This once had a basin at its entrance, with two lions' heads at each end. Little is left of it, but it is still recognisable. There is also an enigmatic green stone there — nobody knows what its meaning is, but it is obviously significant.

We went up the hill to the Lion Gate. This gate is basically as found, except that the more damaged of the lions has been reconstructed — the other is exactly as found. The statues here are the originals, so what you see is as true to the fact as possible. One thing we noticed here is the arches that form the gates themselves. We don't know how mathematically sophisticated the Hittites were, but what you see of the arches looks amazingly like parabolas! Were these bronze-age people familiar with conic sections?

The stones of the walls are clearly shaped to fit!

We climbed the hill (well, Gertie actually did the climbing!) up to Yerkapi, the top of the hill, where a 15m high rampart was constructed. Beneath this rampart is a tunnel, passing right through the protective wall. Whether this was used as a 'sally port', to allow Hittite soldiers to pass out and cut behind attacking forces, or whether it was simply a convenient means of access to the city, is not known. But the tunnel is still in place, some three and a half thousand years after its construction. We walked through it, and at its outer end we came across a tortoise, obviously geographically confused, trying to make its way the full length of the tunnel. we did the right thing, and put him outside where his efforts might have more success
.

Above the tunnel, we found the Sphinx gate. The sphinx statues are represented here by reproductions. The originals have had a long history, one spending a long time in limbo — both went to Germany for restoration in 1917. One was returned to Turkey in 1924, and went to the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The other was retained by Germany — later East Germany — in the Pergamon Museum. In 2011, aggressive diplomacy by Turkey succeeded in having this statue returned to Turkey, and the two are now on display in the Boğasköy Museum, where we later visited them.

Gertie at Hattuşa

At the other end of the gate are the remains of a statue.
From its headdress, it must have been another sphinx
— so the gate must have been flanked by four sphinxes!

From the outlines of the foundations of the temples in the upper city,
it's easy to see why Hattuşa was seen as 'the city of ten thousand gods'.

We then came down the hill to King's Gate. This has a reproduction of a statue of a Hittite warrior, the original of which is now in the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations — we saw it a few days ago. But Suzie took the opportunity to shake hands with a Hittite warrior!

We then went down the hill to Nişantaş (= Stone with the Signs). This is a flat stone whose hieroglyphic inscription is, unfortunately, badly weathered.

One part of Hattuşa we weren't able to visit was the Cult Room (again, with a parabolic arch entrance!) — it was locked off. But the main inscription there is reproduced on the front wall of the Boğasköy Museum. This six-line Luwian inscription is on the right-hand wall of the cult room built in Hattuşa by the last Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. In it he states that with the support of the various gods he conquered many countries, including the Land of Tarhunstassa, and had built new cities, and had offered sacrifices to the gods of many lands.The last sentence is about a 'heavenly earth path', emphasising the function and purpose of this chamber, which was to act as a passage to the underworld, central to the belief system of the Hittite peoples.

Well, after visiting the site, we went down to the village of Boğaskale and its museum. This is an incredible museum for such a small village. Many of its exhibits are reproductions — but very well presented. But as you go through the entrance, you meet the two sphinxes from the Sphinx Gate above the Yerkapi rampart — the originals, and as such, worthy of exhibition in the most eminent museums in the country. but the philosophy here seems to be that, where possible, they should be exhibited as close to the original site as possible. Refreshing!

After our sojourn at Hattuşa/Boğasköy/Boğaskale we started on our way towards Istanbul, overriding the Garmin as we drove out, to make sure we took a route through Çadıhöyük (where we noted mud brick houses), Kızılırmak (where we saw rice paddies), and through Çankırı.

We stopped off on a flat spot in the mountains, on the D-765, just short of Kesecik, where we had a great view, and a quiet stopover for the night.

Distance driven — today, 140 miles ( 225 km ); to date, 22,343 miles ( 35,958 km )