Aug 00 - Sphynx at Alacahöyük (Hittite, 14th cent. B.C.), north-central Turkey

One of a pair of huge Hittite sphynxes which frame the southern 'Sphynx gate' (14th cent. B.C.), the entrance to the ancient Hittite and formerly Hatti city.

 

- "After Hattuşaş, Alacahöyük [Alatcha or Aladga-hooyook] is the most important Hittite site anywhere. Originally a major Hattian settlement, the Hittites took over early in the 2nd mill. B.C. The ruins that remain are primarily Hittite, but archaeological digs throughout the last century have unearthed a vast array of ancient Hatti artifacts, incl. standards featuring stags, bulls, sun-discs [I saw many bronze ritual standards from the late 3rd mill. B.C. which have become emblematic of Hattian culture in a famous collection in the museum in Ankara] and figurines of the sun-goddess, from several tombs on the site." (RG) We know little about the Hatti but their dominance of the region was such that ancient Akkadian and Assyrian records referred to Anatolia as the ‘Land of the Hatti.’ The Hittites themselves continued to refer to the region by that name well after they'd taken power.

 

- The mound or tepe at Alacahöyük was a settlement in the Chalcolithic and was at the centre of a flourishing culture in the Early Bronze Age. The habitation mound, "310 x 275 m.s, 14 m.s high, has 14 occupational layers; 9-14 are Chalcolithic, the earliest in the 4th mill. B.C., 5-8 Early Bronze Age (royal tombs), and 2-4 are Hittite. ... The [Hittite] town was heavily fortified with walls and towers to defend it from frequent raids by the Kaska people from the mountains to the north." (Wikipedia)

- 14 shaft-grave 'royal tombs', 1.5 m.s deep and sealed with wooden beams, date from 2850 to 2450 B.C. The opulence of the grave goods could indicate that "these were the tombs of Hatti monarchs. The 2 largest are set on raised platforms and the timber cladding which covered them has been reproduced." (RG). (Transparent plastic dome covers have been installed since 2000 and objects placed inside, incl. copies of pots, a 'sun standard' and other grave goods, a skeleton in repose, and the skulls of bulls, to give tourists and locals a better clue.) The interred were lain facing west, their legs folded (I've also read they were placed in the fetal position in the NE portion of each tomb), and were adorned with gold fibulae, gold diadems, belt buckles and repoussé gold-leaf figurines. The heads and legs of bulls were placed on platforms. Grave goods include the hoard of treasure on display in Ankara, with copper mace heads, axes, figurines, jewelry, vessels of gold and of clay, and of course the famous bronze and copper sun standards or pole finials, flat circles, 1/2 circles, or squares filled with an openwork network of cross bars, central crosses, and swastikas, and cast sculptures of bulls or stags on pedestals. (Wikipedia, RG, etc.) www.hittitemonuments.com/alacahoyuk/ A dagger found in one tomb, made with gold, bronze and iron is the oldest iron object ever discovered in Anatolia.

- "A dam, dating from 1240 BC, was announced to be reopened for use in Sept., 2006. The dam's construction was ordered by King Tudhaliya IV in the name of the goddess Hebat. According to ancient Hittite tablets, a drought struck Anatolia in 1,200 BC, prompting the King to import wheat from Egypt so that his land would avoid famine. Following this, the king ordered numerous dams to be built in central Anatolia, all but one of them becoming non-functional over time. [Might such a great drought, possibly the result of over-farming and resulting infertility, a problem for the Sumerians and the Maya, have at least as much to do with the fall of the Hittite empire as the arrival of the mysterious 'Sea peoples'?] The dam in Alacahöyük has survived as the water source is located inside the dam's reservoir." (Wikipedia)

 

- Copies of reliefs or 'orthostats' (the originals are in Ankara) displayed on blocks at the base of outer walls on either side of the path leading a few m.s north to the Sphynx gate, depict religious ceremonies and celebrations. The king and queen face an altar and a bull (which I've read represents or is an avatar of the god Teshuba). Libations are poured, goats and rams are prepared for sacrifice, and musicians and acrobats, incl. a sword-swallower, perform at a festival.

- A relief of a double-headed eagle at the base of the sphynx gate is an image which appears on seals found at the Assyrian trading colony at Kultepe.

 

- The gate "opens onto a walkway with excavated areas on either side. Vast irregular blocks behind the gate are the remains of the city's walls [many of which interlock, in the style of the Incas, to withstand earthquakes], followed by the foundations of storage bldg.s. Beyond the storage areas, a few m.s below ground level are the 13 [14?] tombs dating from the Hatti period". The ruins include the foundations of what might have been a palace complex, and the remains of a temple which once occupied 5,000 m.s2, with a central courtyard lined with galleries and outer rooms. "The foundations of the west gate to the site survive, as do the beginnings of a tunnel system similar to that which runs under the Sphynx gate at Hattuşaş". (RG) I explored a trapezoidal, almost triangular tunnel (again, like the one at Hattuşaş) which ran under the city wall, and which I've read was a pedestrian entrance to the city which had been entirely fortified.

 

- "Alacahöyük's Hittite-period name remains undetermined, but most scholars suspect it was Arinna, the city of the Hittite Sun-Goddess, and a few that it was Zippalanda. Both cities are known from Hittite texts as major cult centers in close proximity to Hattusa." www.hittitemonuments.com/alacahoyuk/

 

- One guy in the vlog in the next link, a Masters student, has some interesting things to say re the early-20th-cent. politics at play in the excavations here at the 21:30 min. pt. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Language_Theory , something to google?) but I don't know what to make of his claim that the more opulent Hatti tombs weren't 'royal'. That their royalty hasn't been proven doesn't mean they're not, or not likely to be, what with the golden diadems, jewelry, etc. (18:43 and following). Why wouldn't there be Hatti kings and queens in the Early Bronze age, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia at that time and well before? (He might've read an article for one of his courses written by some post-modernist academic who has to question everything.) But the video gives you a feel for the site.: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXayiXYv_lc

 

- Tbh, having just toured dramatic, sprawling, semi-mountainous Hattuşaş and numinous Yazilikaya, the site of ancient Alacahöyük seemed a bit small and uninspiring with the topography of a backyard. But of course it wasn't; this Hittite city was built on the most glorious of Hatti centres. www.google.com/maps/place/Alacahoyuk+Museum/@40.2340907,3... The exceptions were these massive, impressive sphynxes, the largest sculptures that pre-date the Classical age, certainly in situ, in all of Anatolia (although of course taken together they're a fraction the size of the much older and much finer sphynx at Giza).

 

- The town has a small, 2-room museum with "some striking Hatti [ritual bronze] standards and some elegant pottery", and the obligatory ethnographic section (or it did in 2000).

 

- I recall speaking with an elderly man seated on the lower patio of his huge, new, 2-story house, a work-in-progress in concrete, with poured-concrete balustrades surrounding patios on both floors. It was easily the largest house in town, dwarfing the rest. He'd lived and worked as a cab-driver for decades in either Toronto or somewhere in the NE U.S., I forget where. (I think someone directed me to his house when I asked a question; his proficiency in English was well known.) He'd saved up over so many decades and returned with his wife to Alacahöyük, his home-town, upon his retirement to build his mansion and to enjoy the love, company, admiration and envy of the locals whom he'd dearly missed, it's fair to assume. His mansion was intended to be a base for his descendants who he expected would visit in the summer.

 

 

- From Alacahöyük, either I walked and hitched back south down the 'Alacahöyük Yolu' to the D190 (the 'Kirikkale Tokat Yolu') and east, just south of Eskiyapar and the Eskiyapar Höyük archaeological site (dating from the 19th or 18th cent. B.C. to Roman times), and past the mysterious, closed, 13th cent. Hüseyin Gazi Medresesi (neither of which I recall) to the junction with the D795 and beyond, due east along the D190, or east along the ''Alacahöyük Yolu' to the D795 and south past the town of Alaca to the D190, turning east. I passed through the hamlets of Çöplü and Karaşeyh, and close to the 'Hacıboz Köprüsü' en route, a 17th cent., single-span bridge (in the style of that at Mostar in Bosnia), just below the hwy. which I don't recall. The main misses on that stretch of @ 115 km.s, 1 1/2 hr.s of undulating, yellow steppe, include the archaeological site of Şapinuva Ören Yeri, @ 10 clicks or so north of the hwy., a military and religious centre from the Middle Hittite period where 4000 cuneiform tablets and fragments were found, incl. religious, military and fortune-telling texts in Hittite, Hattic, Hurrian and Akkadian. But I don't know what I could've seen in 2000, pre-excavations. Further NE, @ 12-14 clicks north of the hwy. as the crow flies (but much further by road) is the Kazankaya canyon with a 3 m.-high relief of Cybele near the entrance to or exit from one of the mysterious, ancient stepped tunnels which I write much about in the next 2 photo descriptions, and in a stunning setting too.

- Another point of interest is that 18 villages peopled by Beğdili Turcomans are in the vicinity of Zile. (The Beğdili were one of the 22 Oghuz Turkic tribes.)

 

- In leaving Alacahöyük, I was leaving the world of the 2nd and 3rd mill. B.C. behind, having just made its acquaintance (this trip) at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara and at Hattuşaş and Yazilikaya (and more briefly at the Pergamon in Berlin and the museum in Bucharest). I would see more of the classical world and some of that of the early 1st mill. B.C. in the coming weeks, but I wouldn't see such ancient ruins as those I'd seen here and nearby until my arrival at Susa 6 to 7 weeks later or at Tappe Sialk a couple of weeks after that.

Done