Hattusha

Hattusha , today Boğazköy in the province of Çorum in Turkey, was the capital of the empire hittite. Located in Anatolia, on a loop of the river Kızılırmak (Halys), it succeeded Nesa under the reign of Labarna which took the name of Hattushili {{Ier}} to mark the event, towards -1650.

The site of Hattusha was discovered by the explorer C. Texier in 1834, close to the village of Boğazkoi. 1894 had to be waited until so that the archeologist E. Cantor does not come on the site, and explore the hill of Büyükkale, where he exhumes shelves. They were then German archeologists who carried out the majority of the excavations with Boğazkoi. In 1907,1911 and 1912, H. Winckler excavated the hill of Büyükkale (where the ruins of the royal palace are), and the shelves which it brought back made it possible to identify the site like that of the old capital hittite. In 1931, K. Bittel conducts its first campaign of excavations on the site. It will be him which will carry out the major part of work of excavations in Hattusha. It will remain there until 1939, until the war does not push it to stop. Then it will return in 1952, and starting from there the excavations on the site of Hattusha took place quasi-continuellement.

History

Before being a city hittite, it was a city Hatti E which named it in their language, Hattoush . The first dwellings of the site appeared in the Old city at the end of. The site became a prosperous city, in the middle of the country hatti. At the beginning of, the merchants Assyrie NS established a karûm there (counter). To the XVIII E, Anitta, the king of Kussar has, seizes the city and destroys it. The city is then abandoned.

In the middle of the XVII E, Labarna, second king of the first kingdom hittite, made rehabiter this city, and the pupil even with the row of capital. It then takes the name of Hattushili, which means " the man of Hattusha". This city becomes a large city then, but few monuments have summers found for the period of the Old Kingdom. This time is very unstable, with in particular several revolts of palates which shake the town of Hattusha.

It is at the period of the empire hittite that Hattusha will know its apogee. However, the period starts badly, with in particular the bag of the city by the Gasgas at the beginning of the XIV E. The city is especially prosperous under the reign of the large king Suppiluliuma {{Ier}}. After, the situation becomes difficult in Hatti, and in front of the pressure exerted by Gasgas, which again plunder Hattusha at the beginning of the XIII E, Muwatalli {{II}} transfers its capital to Tarhuntassa. His/her brother Hattushili {{III}}, after having évincé its nephew and taken the throne hittite, having remade of Hattusha its capital.

In second half of, the empire hittite sinks under the attacks of its neighbors and new arrivals (the " People of Mer" Egyptian ), in particular Phrygian . However, they are Gasgas which still takes Hattusha at the beginning of the XII E, thus destroying the kingdom hittite. The city is then occupied by the Phrygian ones until the beginning of, after which it is abandoned.

Monuments of the capital hittite

The major part of the buildings found in the excavations of Hattusha goes back to its rebuilding to the XIII E: its enclosure, of more than six kilometers, contains a territory of more than 176 ha. It is the decision-making center of a military empire, equipped with a citadel with rampart and important reserves, located at the ground floor of the buildings. The old city, towards the west, and the low city, more recent, towards the south, are surrounded by powerful walls. They are divided into protected districts them also by walls, which reinforces the military character of the city. The citadel (Büyükkale), perched at the top of a rock piton of 250 m out of 150 m, includes/understands the palate, royal residence and center of the administration of the empire. It is compartmentalized by four courses of variable importances, often bordered of gantries, around whose the principal monuments of the administration are distributed, the files, the room of reception to column, the royal residence at the highest level. The ramparts of the citadels are high on a fill which can reach more than 60 m thickness and whose slope is transformed into an increasingly sloping glacis. The base is made hardcores of beautiful size, and the cyclopean bond is sometimes used; to approximately 9 m above the embankments, the wall continues out of believed bricks, punctuated of rectangular turns all the 30 Mr. the doors are flanked turns and are closed by bronze leaves.

The old city includes/understands an enormous temple (260 m out of 160 m) dedicated to Teshub, god of the storm and with the goddess of the Sun, Arinna or Hebat, organized around a central court rectangular and equipped with two concealed very withdrawn, of stores and dependences. Other smaller sanctuaries are located in the new city.

One found in the library of Hattousha the epic philosopher's stones mésopotamiennes and the poems written in Akkadien, of the anthems in Sumérien, akkadien and Hourrite, of ritual and the anthems in Louvite. The historical account is a kind in which Hittites are particularly illustrated. They are the first to have had a comprehension of the history. Their annals have the direction of the anecdote, analyze the reasons for which such or such action was undertaken and, in the prologs of the treaties, recall the former relations which justified the agreement. The first treaty of horsemanship, written by Kikkuli also comes from this site.

External bonds

Descriptive UNESCO

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