Symbols of Hittite goddess of sexuality found on 4,000-year-old tablet discovered in central Turkey

Hurriyet ^ | August 13, 2015 | Dogan News Agency

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Amid excavations at four different ancient sites in the Central Anatolian province of Yozgat, a cuneiform tablet has been unearthed in the Uflakle Mound at the Büyük Tafllek village.

Thought to date back to around 2,000 B.C., the cuneiform tablet in the Sorgun district of Yozgat shows symbols of ishtar, known as the Hittite goddess of love, war, fertility and sexuality, more clearly than those on any other unearthed tablets.

"Considering the intensity of archaeological materials on the surface and diffusion area, the mound tends to bear traces of Hittite Civilization. it is thought that the mound was affiliated to another Hittite site 'Zippalanda,' which is thought to be a center for worshiping Typhoon, the Greek god of thunder, and is two to three days' walking distance from the Hittite capital Hattusa," states the excavation report...

The remaining field is being unearthed by a team from the Yozgat Museum in the Sarikaya district, which discovered the cuneiform tablet...

Meanwhile, excavations were recently completed in Çadirhöyük, near the village of Peyniryemez in the Sorgun district, where works were first launched in 1994 by a team led by Professor Gregory McMahon from New Hampshire University in the U.S. The findings included a large number of artefacts dating back to the Chalcolithic, Bronze, Hittite, Hellenistic and Byzantine eras.

A team is continuing work to excavate a "Roman Bath" dating back 2,000 years in Sarikaya, and as part of these works artifacts dating back to Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman terms have been unearthed.

However, works at the Tavium ancient site in the village of Büyüknefes, known as the metropolis of Galatian tribes, came to a halt in 2012 amid a lack of people interested in excavating at the site.

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This doesn't end well.

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This year's excavations at the Uflakle Mound in Yozgat have unearthed two structures that may be part of "Zippalanda," an ancient Hittite center.

Last year, 4,000 year-old cuneiform scripts were found at the mound in the Central Anatolian province of Yozgat's Sorgun district.

Excavations started in 2008 in the Uflakle Mound, close to the Büyük Tafllek village, by a team headed by Florence University Professor Stefania Mazzoni. This year works at the ruins have unearthed two structures, possibly a temple and a castle.

The deputy head of the excavations, Florence University's Valentina Orsi, said they were trying to know the field with a previous surface survey and the mound had "significant historical features."

Four pieces of cuneiform script and pottery found in the field show that the mound developed in the Hittite era, said Orsi.

"The Uflakle Mound might be Zippalanda, which is mentioned in ancient Hittite documents. Its geographical location and closeness to the Kerkenes Mountain verify this estimation. Excavations that were carried out in 2013 in collaboration with Yozgat Museum and Florence University, unearthed a big public structure, which has a deep and strong foundation," she added.

Orsi said they discovered important findings every year at the site since 2008.

"So far we have found two important buildings. One is most probably a sacred place, which we think is a temple. We think the other is a castle. The findings show us that the region was a very important settlement, a big city. We also found five cuneiform scripts from the Hittite era. They are different from each other, showing that different cities had relations with each other in the Hittite era," she added. [Structures at Uflakle Mound may be ancient Zippalanda, June 27, 2016, Hurriyet Daily News, Anadolu Agency]