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Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,300-year-old clay tablet depicting a catastrophic foreign invasion of the Hittite Empire in Büklükale, about 100 km from Turkey’s capital Ankara. A translation of the tablet’s cuneiform text indicates that the invasion occurred during a Hittite civil war, presumably in an attempt to support one of the fighting factions. Previously, only broken clay tablets had been found in the excavations at Büklükale, but this one is in almost perfect condition. Based on the typology and distribution of the collected pottery shards, Büklükale is thought to be a single-period city belonging to the Hittite Empire Period and...

...Excavations in Boğazköy-Hattusha have been going on for more than 100 years under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute. The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986; almost 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing have been found there so far. These tablets, which were included in the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage in 2001, provide rich information about the history, society, economy and religious traditions of the Hittites and their neighbors.Yearly archaeological campaigns... continue to add to the cuneiform finds. Most of the texts are written in Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language and the dominant language...

A seal impression belonging to Hattusili III was found during the excavations carried out near the village of Kayalipinar in Yildizeli district of Sivas province, located in the central Anatolia region of Türkiye.Hattusili III, one of the most famous kings of the Hittites, took his place in history with the Battle of Kadesh and the subsequent Kadesh Peace Treaty. Not only was Hattusilis successful in his military exploits, both before and after his assumption of the kingship, he and his wife Puduhepa, instituted religious reforms within the Hittite kingdom and engaged in extensive diplomatic relations with other great powers of...

A 3,200-year-old Mycenaean statuette has been found in the ongoing excavations at Ayasuluk Hill in western Izmir province's Selçuk district. The statuette, which reveals a possible connection between Hittites and Mycenaean civilizations in the Ephesus region, could change the perspective on the history of civilization in Western Anatolia during the Bronze Age...During the excavations carried out under the direction of associate professor Sinan Mimaroğlu of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University Art History Department, a Mycenaean figurine with a height and width of about 5 centimeters (1.97 inches), whose head and feet could not be found, was unearthed, as well as ceramics...

A Biological Dig for the Roots of Language By NICHOLAS WADE Correction Appended Once upon a time, there were very few human languages and perhaps only one, and if so, all of the 6,000 or so languages spoken round the world today must be descended from it. If that family tree of human language could be reconstructed and its branching points dated, a wonderful new window would be opened onto the human past. Yet in the view of many historical linguists, the chances of drawing up such a tree are virtually nil and those who suppose otherwise are chasing a...

It was then that Swiss scholar Emil Forrer deciphered newly discovered writings from the Hittite Empire to the east, finding two place-names—Wilusa and Taruisa—that sounded convincingly like the Hittite way of writing "Wilios" (the Greek name for the site was "Ilion") and "Troia" (Troy). He also found a treaty, from the early 13th century BC, between the Hittite king Muwatalli and a king of "Wilusa" named Alaksandu. The king’s name, Forrer added, recalls the name of the Trojan prince Alexander—called Paris in Homer’s Iliad. Critics pooh-poohed, conceding that a place named Wilusa may have existed, but where was it on...

Mysterious Collapse of a Great Ancient Empire. From his capital, Hattusa, in central Anatolia, the last-known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II (1207 B.C.-?), ruled over a people who had once built a great empire—one of the superpowers (along with Egypt, Mittani, Babylon and Assyria) of the Late Bronze Age. The Kingdom of the Hittites, called Hatti, had stretched across the face of Anatolia and northern Syria, from the Aegean in the west to the Euphrates in the east. But now those days were gone, and the royal capital was about to be destroyed forever by invasion and fire.

A monastery hewn from the rock has been found during excavations and cleaning works in an underground city that was discovered in 2014 in the Central Anatolian province of Nevsehir... Excavation and cleaning works have been continuing on an area of 400,000 square meters that includes 11 neighborhoods around Nevsehir Castle, which is situated in the city center and has been declared a third-degree archaeological area. At the beginning of the year, a historic church was discovered in the underground city. The church features frescoes depicting the ascension of Jesus to heaven as well as other important objects for the...

'Using just a small hand trowel these archaeologists are painstakingly working to unlock the secrets of an ancient kingdom. Historians believe they have unearthed tombs dating back over 2,800 years in Van, eastern Turkey. The pithos burial chambers, which are like large ceramic jars, are thought to be from the Kingdom of Uratu, which ruled the country from the mid-ninth century BC until its defeat by the Medes. Historians at work in the Turkish town of Vans, which was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom. Vans was the capital of the Urartian Kingdom until it fell early in the sixth...

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...

Ancient Assyrian tablets, dictating social arrangements including women's rights, dating back to 4,000 years have been excavated in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, a local newspaper reported Thursday. Prof. Fikri Kulakoglu of Ankara University told Dogan News Agency that the Kultepe-Kanis-Karum trade colony site where the tablets were unearthed was remarkable. He said the tablets revealed detailed information about the Assyrians, spanning from commercial trade to the nitty-gritty of the local social life. "From women's rights to the adoption of children and marriages arranged at birth, the tablets include all kinds of civilizational and social data from Anatolia 4,000...

Large ancient-DNA study uncovers population that moved westwards 4,500 years ago. A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago -- bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. Vestiges of these eastern emigres exist in the genomes of nearly all contemporary Europeans, according to the authors, who analysed genome data from nearly 100 ancient Europeans. ...last year, a study of the genomes of ancient and contemporary Europeans found echoes not...

More than 3,200 years ago, life was abuzz in and around what is now this modern-day Israeli metropolis on the shimmering Mediterranean shore. To the north lay the mighty Hittite empire; to the south, Egypt was thriving under the reign of the great Pharaoh Ramses II. Cyprus was a copper emporium. Greece basked in the opulence of its elite Mycenaean culture, and Ugarit was a bustling port city on the Syrian coast. In the land of Canaan, city states like Hazor and Megiddo flourished under Egyptian hegemony. Vibrant trade along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean connected it all. Yet...

Preservationists and archaeologists are warning that fighting in Syria's commercial capital, Aleppo -- considered the world's oldest continuously inhabited human settlement -- threatens to damage irreparably the stunning architectural and cultural legacy left by 5,000 years of civilizations. Already the massive iron doors to the city's immense medieval Citadel have been blown up in a missile attack, said Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, an organization that works to preserve cultural heritage sites... President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been shelling the city, and in recent days his army has taken up positions inside the Citadel, trading fire with...

A group of scientists and archeologists from Canakkale (Dardanelles) University have found traces of a lost city, older than famed Troy, now buried under the waters of Dardanelles strait. Led by associate professor Rustem Aslan, the archeology team made a surface survey in the vicinity of Erenkoy, Canakkale on the shore. The team has found ceramics and pottery, what led them to ponder a mound could be nearby. A research on the found pottery showed that the items belonged to an 7000 years old ancient city. The team has intensified the research and discovered first signs of the lost city...

The paving over of a 3,000-year-old tumulus, a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave, in the eastern city of Van has prompted an outcry from the Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate. Stating that the road was unnecessarily built, officials said: "We have halted the work on the road. The road and asphalt will be removed and the tumulus will be rehabilitated." Before the road was built by the municipality, the directorate had planned to start archaeological work in the historical tumulus, which dates from the Urartu period, along with work in the historical Van Castle. "A road...

University of Toronto archaeologists find cache of cuneiform tablets in 2,700-year old Turkish templeTORONTO, ON – Excavations led by a University of Toronto archaeologist at the site of a recently discovered temple in southeastern Turkey have uncovered a cache of cuneiform tablets dating back to the Iron Age period between 1200 and 600 BCE. Found in the temple’s cella, or ‘holy of holies’, the tablets are part of a possible archive that may provide insights into Assyrian imperial aspirations. The assemblage appears to represent a Neo-Assyrian renovation of an older Neo-Hittite temple complex, providing a rare glimpse into the religious...

Today, excavators at the Oymaagac mound in the Black Sea city of Samsun's Vezirkopru district are reveling in their potential find, believing the evidence is mounting and Oymaagac will be unveiled as the holder of Nerik. The geographical location of Oymaagac, the impressive representative building on top of the acropolis, and especially the tiny cuneiform writing style on the tablet fragments all suggested the excavators might find Nerik here... the tiny cuneiform writing resembled that on clay tablets from the Bogazkoy/Hattusha archives dealing with Nerik... the writings, along with several ritual texts from the Hittite period, suggested Oymaagac had to...

Inscribed on the small, pillow-shaped tablet is a 3,000-year-old warning to Idanda, king of Qatna, from the Hittite general Hanutti, telling him to prepare for war. A small Bronze Age Syrian city-state, Qatna was once under Hittite control, but had been conquered by the Mitanni people from the north. The clay tablet, like others found with it, was fired twice--once just after it was written, to preserve it, and again when the ancient city was sacked and burned to the ground in 1340 B.C. by the Hittites, who ruled an empire that stretched from northern Turkey to Mesopotamia and Syria......

French explorer's bad luck in Syria avenged at last Tue 17 Oct 2006 11:45 AM ET By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ALEPPO, Syria, Oct 17 (Reuters) - First the 1920s French archaeologist ran out of money to uncover the treasures he suspected hidden under a Syrian castle, and then he ran out of time to see others finish the work. Twelve years too late for Georges Ploix de Rotrou, a German team has now revealed the full glory of the 500 square metre (5,400 sq ft) Temple of the Storm God that lay under the vast citadel in Aleppo. Ploix de...