Two Days from Ankara into Hittite Country

Two Ottoman buildings below Ankara Castle in Ulus: the Mahmut Paşa Bedesten and the Kurşunlu Han. The museum opened in 1921 as the Hittite Museum in the castle's Akkale bastion, at Atatürk's wish for a museum of Hittite works; after spells in the Temple of Augustus and the Roman Bath the collection moved to the bedesten with a restoration begun in 1938, the central hall opened in 1943 and the work finished in 1968. In 1997 it was chosen European Museum of the Year, the first in Turkey to win it.

For this route, walk the Hittite cases deliberately. Follow the chronology from the Palaeolithic to the Hittite section: the sun discs and the bronze standards with stags and bulls from the royal tombs of Alacahöyük; the orthostats of the Sphinx Gate at Alacahöyük, with the king and queen worshipping before the altar, sword-swallowing and ladder-climbing acrobats, musicians and hunting scenes; the original warrior relief from the King's Gate at Hattusa; and from Boğazköy, the letter an Egyptian queen wrote to the Hittite king. Tomorrow you will see the copy or empty socket of each of these in place, so look at the detail now: the openwork of the standards, the direction the figures walk on the orthostats, the stance of the gate warrior.

Practical: Gözcü Sokak No 2, on the road up to the castle, a walk from Ulus. Open every day, audio guide, Müzekart valid. Halls go into maintenance now and then; check the official page. Give it two hours, at least half an hour of it in the Hittite section; enter near opening time to be ahead of the group tours, then take the Haymana road.

Source: Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (muze.gov.tr); Wikipedia, Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi; Hittite Monuments, Alacahöyük.

Sixty kilometres south-west of Ankara, twelve from Haymana, two kilometres north-west of Dereköy. A rocky hill rising sixty metres above the narrow valley of the Babayakup stream, known locally as Gavur Kalesi. Three figures are carved into a flattened rock face on the south side of the summit: two large male gods striding to the left and, facing them, a smaller seated goddess in a pointed headdress. Horned headdresses, short tunics, upturned shoes and belted swords are textbook Hittite style; one god is bearded, the other not. The goddess is hard to make out today with the naked eye; look when the light comes from the side.

Above the reliefs stands a cyclopean wall of huge stones, and behind it a stone-walled chamber whose purpose is still debated; royal tomb, sanctuary and lookout have all been proposed, but no inscription has been found. The hill was used in the Hittite and Phrygian periods. Travellers saw it in the 1860s, H. H. von der Osten of the University of Chicago excavated it in 1930 at Atatürk's wish, and Bilkent University surveyed it in 1993-1998. Ali Özcan's 2014 Belleten article, reading the reliefs against Hittite texts, is the current reference.

Practical: from Haymana towards Dereköy, the hill is on the right on the road to the Mandıra neighbourhood. Sources give no ticket office or regular visiting hours; the climb is short but rocky, so wear solid shoes. In 2021 the municipality announced a project with an asphalt road, fencing, a walkway and lighting; ask the municipality how much of it is done. Do not touch or climb on the relief. Be down in forty-five minutes and start the long drive to Boğazkale.

Source: Belleten, Ali Özcan (2014); Hittite Monuments; Haymana Belediyesi; Wikipedia, Gavur Kalesi.

Just above Boğazkale, 190 kilometres from Ankara. Made the capital by Hattusili I around 1650 BC, the city remained the centre of the Hittite state until about 1180 BC and the Bronze Age collapse; then it burned and was left. Charles Texier recognised the ruins in 1834; Hugo Winckler began digging in 1906 and found the cuneiform archive; Kurt Bittel took over for the German Archaeological Institute in 1931, followed by Neve, Seeher and, since 2006, Andreas Schachner. The archive holds around thirty thousand tablets; the Treaty of Kadesh tablet was found here and is now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. World Heritage since 1986; the archive joined the Memory of the World register in 2001.

Tour it from the bottom up: the Great Temple in the Lower City, then the gates of a wall over six kilometres long, the lions of the Lion Gate still in place. At Yerkapı, go through the seventy-metre stone tunnel out beyond the rampart; above is the socket of the Sphinx Gate, whose originals are in the Boğazköy Museum. The King's Gate warrior is a copy; the original was in Ankara yesterday. Büyükkale is the royal citadel where the archive was found; Nişantaş carries a rock-cut hieroglyphic inscription. In 2005 a sixty-five-metre stretch of mudbrick wall was rebuilt in the original technique, the one place to grasp a Hittite wall at full size.

Practical: the site is big enough to tour by car, so drive and stop between the gates; the Yerkapı tunnel and Büyükkale climb still need good shoes. No shade; bring water. Müzekart valid; check the official page for hours. Give it three hours, then Yazılıkaya, two kilometres on.

Source: Alman Arkeoloji Enstitüsü (DAI); KVMGM, Hattuşa UNESCO sayfası; Wikipedia, Hattuşa; Wikipedia, Hattusa.

About two kilometres north-east of Hattusa, the city's sanctuary. Two roofless rock chambers lie among natural outcrops; of the temple buildings that once controlled the entrance, only the foundations remain. Most of the reliefs were made in the late 13th century BC under Tudhaliya IV and Suppiluliuma II, but the site is known to have been in use much earlier.

Chamber A is the great gallery: more than sixty deities walk in procession, male gods on the left wall, goddesses on the right. The two processions meet on the end wall: the Storm God Teshub standing on mountain gods and the Sun Goddess Hepat on a panther, with their son Sharruma and their daughters behind them. The twelve gods of the underworld and the mountain gods are in this chamber too. Chamber B is entered through a narrow passage and is more personal: winged, animal-headed guardians at the entrance; inside, the twelve underworld gods in a row, the Sword God, and the most famous relief of all, Sharruma with his arm around the king's shoulder, embracing Tudhaliya IV. This chamber is thought to be a mausoleum or memorial built for Tudhaliya by his son. The general reading is that the site was used for the spring New Year festival; a 2021 study argued that the reliefs depict earth, sky and underworld, the whole cosmos.

Practical: raking light brings the reliefs out and midday flattens them, so prefer morning or late afternoon. Do not touch the rock; crouch to knee level to see the difference in the figures' heights. An hour is enough. Check the official page for tickets; the museum in Boğazkale is a few minutes from here.

Source: Hittite Monuments, Yazılıkaya; Wikipedia, Yazılıkaya; Wikipedia, Yazılıkaya.

In the centre of Boğazkale, in the Çarşı neighbourhood, eighty-two kilometres from Çorum. It opened on 12 September 1966, was rearranged in 2011 and gained its real story that year. The two sphinxes found at Yerkapı in 1907 had been shattered in the fire that destroyed the city; the pieces were sent to Berlin for restoration in 1915-1917. One returned to Istanbul in 1924, the other stayed in Berlin. Talks on its return ran until 1938, were cut off by the war and the division of Berlin, resumed in 1974, and in 1987 the case went to UNESCO. In 2011 the two countries agreed; the sphinx came from Berlin, its twin was brought from Istanbul, and the two have stood side by side here since 26 November 2011. Limestone, carved around 1300 BC, winged, lion-bodied, human-faced.

Beyond the sphinx hall the museum tells all the city's layers in chronological order from the Chalcolithic to Byzantium: the bull-headed vessel thought to represent the storm god, cuneiform tablets and hieroglyphic inscriptions, models of Hattusa and of the Great Temple, and Roman and Byzantine grave stelae. The models let you see from above the route you walked at Hattusa, which is why coming straight after the site is the right order. The displays across the floors are backed by panels and reconstructions.

Practical: open every day, Müzekart valid; check the official page for exact hours. A small museum, an hour is enough. Take a lunch break in Boğazkale and head for Alaca; the road to Alacahöyük branches off on the Çorum side.

Source: Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (muze.gov.tr); Wikipedia, Boğazköy Müzesi; Wikipedia, Boğazköy Sfenksi.

Fifteen kilometres north-west of Alaca, in Alacahöyük village, fifty from Çorum. The mound stacks seven thousand years, fifteen building levels from the Chalcolithic to the Ottomans. Two things made it famous. The first is the Early Bronze Age royal tombs of the third millennium BC: the dead laid facing west with knees bent, beside them gold diadems, buckles, bronze figurines and the bronze standards whose purpose is still debated, the sun discs, stags and bulls. The tombs have been restored and can be visited; the originals are in Ankara. The second is the Sphinx Gate, the southern entrance of the Hittite town: between two towers, the lower two metres of four-metre monolithic jambs are carved as sphinxes, still in place. The orthostat reliefs on either side, the king and queen's offering scene, acrobats, musicians and the hunt, are copies; compare them with the originals you saw yesterday. The current consensus dates them to the 13th century BC.

The dig is Republican history too: Makridi Bey began in 1907; from 1935, at Atatürk's wish, the Turkish Historical Society dug under Remzi Oğuz Arık and then, 1936-1970, Hamit Zübeyr Koşay; Ankara University continued in 1997-2018. At Gölpınar near the mound, the Hittite dam built by Tudhaliya IV around 1240 BC was repaired in the 2000s and holds water again; a basalt fragment naming the goddess Hepat in hieroglyphs was found on the embankment.

Practical: the museum founded in 1940 moved to a new building in 1982 and was renovated in 2011; open every day, Müzekart valid. Give it an hour and a half, museum first, then the gate and the tombs. Ankara is a long way; leave before mid-afternoon.

Source: Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (muze.gov.tr); Hittite Monuments, Alacahöyük; Wikipedia, Alacahöyük; Wikipedia, Alaca Höyük.