A team of archaeologists discovered a complex underground drainage installation at a spring in Oymaağaç Höyük, in the central Black Sea region of Turkey. This site, identified as the ancient Hittite city of Nerik, has revealed a water control infrastructure dating back to the Bronze Age, between 1525 and 1426 BCE, according to dendrochronological and […]
Hittites
Posted inBronze Age Archaeology, Culture
The Hittite Version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Discovered on Tablets in Hattusa, Has Differing Structure and Narrative Details
The Epic of Gilgamesh, considered the oldest literary work of humanity, has been studied for centuries. Its influence has spread across different cultures, and its story has been transmitted over millennia. Recently, studies on a Hittite version of the poem have opened new perspectives on its transmission and adaptation in the ancient world. Recent research […]
Posted inArchaeology
Reliefs at the Hittite Sanctuary of Yazılıkaya Could Depict a Lunar Calendar
Yazılıkaya is a site about 3,200 years old believed to have played a significant religious role in the ancient Hittite Empire. According to a new theory, the reliefs found at the site may have served as a calendar to mark days, synodic months, and solar years. Yazılıkaya, which means carved rock in Turkish, is a […]
Posted inAntiquity, Art
The monumental rock relief excavated by the Hittites on Mount Sipylus more than 3,000 years ago
When he speaks of Laconia in the third book of his Description of Greece Pausanias comments that the inhabitants of Acriae boasted of having the oldest temple of the Mother Goddess in the Peloponnese. But immediately afterwards he mentions that the oldest image of that goddess is elsewhere: The people of Acriae say that this is the […]
