Hattuşa Calling

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"At night I took the city by force; I have sown weeds in its place. Should any king after me attempt to resettle Hattush, may the Weathergod of Heaven strike him down."

So says the Hittite King Anitta of Kussara.
I say - oooh - a good storyline. ;)

What you see here is the side view of a bas relief on the King's Gate of Hattusa. (It's a replica. The real one is in Ankara's Museum of Anatolian Civilizations .) He's looking like he wants to tell us something, don't you think?

Maybe it's me...

...but remember a while back I wrote a post about some sister sphinxes? Yeah. Well, they've been roaming around in my head, collecting other idea threads. This Warrior King is from the same town an now he's harping on me too.

I think it's time to start reseaching the Hittites, specifically their enormous capital city of Hattusa, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site near modern day Boğazkale.

I'll need to spend a few hours just absorbing the map because, at one point, 40,000- 50,000 people lived there. The city is sprawled out over the Anatolian plains, and that's not to mention the fields and forests supporting all those citizens. There are fortified walls, temples, palaces, a necropolis, an amazing rupestral sanctuary (more on this later), and a whole bunch of new gods to learn about.

In my head: How is it this entire, flourishing city withered away to a pile of stones?  I'm sure there are good, scholarly answers to be found, I just don't know them yet. (First clue: King Anitta)

There's also the world's oldest cuneiform peace treaty in my future:

UN website

It is concluded that Reamasesa-Mai-amana , the Great King, the king (of the land of Egypt) with Hattusili, the Great King, the king of the land of Hatti, his brother, for the land of Egypt and the land of Hatti, in order to establish a good peace and a good fraternity forever among them.

As you can see, there's a lot of material to cover, so hang on. I think I'll be posting about this stuff for a while, like, until June. I've got a character who wants me to hurry up.