Randy and Alice Live in Turkey: Hittite Wonders

Yesterday was a mammoth day trip to see the most outstanding wonders of the Hittite civilization in situ. Quite early (around 8 AM) Randy and I set up and picked up Claudio Arbib, a visiting professor in my department at Bilkent from Italy, and then Mehmet Gulsen for an expedition to the three locations of Hittite splendors. These are (in order of our visit) Alacahuyuk, Hattusas and Yazilikaya.

We chose to visit Alacahuyuk first as it is the furthest (and least visited). If you go to this area you will find little reference to this site or if you do, it will say don't visit it unless you have a lot of spare time. Wrong! This is a tremendous site that far exceeded our expectations. We took a good road from Ankara (four lane divided all the way) and passed through some beautiful countryside including a stint along Turkey's biggest (or longest) river Kizilirmak (literally, Red River). We arrived to Alacahuyuk around 11 AM. The entrance to the site from the main road was impressive with huge fake statues and a good paved road that led from the main road to the site about two miles away. We parked easily (there was no other visitors for the whole duration of our visit) and entered the complex. This consists of small but very well stocked gift shop, a snack bar and bathrooms, a medium sized museum and the historic site itself. After the admission (five lira) and a visit to the bathrooms we viewed the museum. It was well laid out on two floors and ordered the site from pre-Hittite (the Hatti people) through the Hittites, and on to Roman times. It had the usual pottery, implements and idols. Nothing spectacular but some of it very old (like 4000+ years old).

Some of the ancient pottery at the Alacahuyuk museum

These two sided drinking cups are 4000 to 5000 years old

The field of huge storage jars outside of the museum

Next, we went to the site which begins with the magnificent sphinx gates. These are originals (unlike most of those at the more famous Hattusas) and it is easy to see the Egyptian influence. One of them has a very nice carved double headed eagle on it side. This site is medium sized and includes a lot of stone foundations and an interesting underground passage area (you can't actually go in this). It also has several pre-Hittite royal tombs. These are nicely displayed as found with plexiglass tops over them. You can see the remains along with the jewelery and other small treasures (presumably these are copies) which were placed with the deceased in their final resting place. Very evocative.

Relief of warriors at Alacahuyuk - these might have been copies

Claudio snaps the sights next to one of the sphinxes guarding the site for more than 3000 years

Detail of sphinx head - note the orange lichen on the stone

The double headed eagle carving. The eagle clutches a hare in each talon. This relief is found on the side of the right sphinx


Mehmet views one of the royal tombs - note the bones of human with animal skulls above. The rest of the tomb had small treasures buried with the deceased

Exterior of one of the royal tombs

A fuller interior view with bones and implements buried with the dead king or queen

The way to the underground passage

On top of the underground passage entry a perfect hole was cut for some reason

Alice at the site in the stark beauty of central Anatolia

Alice and Claudio at the right most sphinx

The impressive sphinx gate at Alacahuyuk

With Mehmet as navigator we traveled about 1/2 hour along back roads through beautiful farming country (they grow wheat and barley in this region) to the village of Bogazkale where Hattusas and Yazilikaya are. It is off season for tourists. So, even though there are about four or five good sized hotels with restaurants they were all closed. Mehmet spoke to a townsperson who said there was a small lokanta but didn't know if it would suit our needs. It turns out the village actually has two small lokantas and we ate at one - the Seker Lokata (Sugar Diner). The owner and chef was welcoming and fired up his wood burning stove for us (it was quite cold). Mehmet negotiated a meal of lentil soup and sac kebab for us (the latter cooked veal on a flat metal plan, called the sac). We were also served mountains of white bread. All very tasty and we enjoyed the local flavor. It turns out our chef had cooked for the German archeology team at Hattusas for 40 years and then retired and opened his own place.

The lovely drive from Alacahuyuk to Bogazkale - note Clive the GPS riding shotgun

The wheat fields are greening up

Claudio, Randy and Mehmet were pretty hungry by the time we reached Bogazkale

Our chef stoking his wood burner to get the place warm for us

Seker Lokanta - a good place to eat in Bogazkale - soup and home cooking!


Detail of the wood burner - the red in the center is the very hot fire

Lentil soup

Sac kebab for four

After this fortification we headed for Hattusas. The main entry is right next to the village and we paid our five lira and drove in. The site is around a one way road that takes you through the main parts of the city. There is parking at each major sight. Hattusas was the capital of the Hittite kingdom and grew from a smaller citadel to a large and apparently sophisticated city. Most of the ruins are the rock foundations of buildings. There is a reconstruction of part of the city wall. This is typical of all of their building and consists of mud bricks built on top of the rock foundations. Most impressive are the city walls which span more than a kilometer and include three large and well preserved gates. I will let the pictures show you most of the sights here instead of describing them in detail by words.

The city is located a little bit elevated and it was quite windy and pretty cold while we were there. Unlike Alacahuyuk there were other tourists. These included a bus full of Japanese doing a quick tour and a minibus full of nearby high school students with their teachers. These kids were very friendly and anxious to try out their English. But other than that it was just us and Hattusas. Oh, and the cows. Leave it to Turkey to have a major tourist site where the local cows roam freely to graze. It took a good eye to watch while walking both for the uneven stones and the many large cow patties.

It was thought provoking to be among a major civilization center from about 3000 years ago. The setting of views across the stern mountains and high plains added to this atmosphere.

One of the local cows who also call Hattusa home. This one was wearing a necklace (just visible below its mouth)


The lion head of the four headed lion stone trough from the lower city

The profile of the four headed (now two headed) lion trough

Alice and Randy at the first of the three city gates - the lion gate

The unrestored lion

Claudio and Mehmet also at the lion's gate. At each gate on the interior side we found matching openings to place a wooden pole through to further barricaded the doors which closed the gates

Steps to the king's gate

The king's gate goes through an artificial hill with quite a long tunnel entry. This view is from the city

Detail of the ceiling in the tunnel - it was very dark in there

The outside beckons at the end of the tunnel from the king's gate

Randy sits on what must have been a guard's seat built into the stone outside the king's gate

Claudio got adventurous and found the stairway up through the city walls outside the king's gate

The huge city walls from outside the city near the king's gate

The staircase Claudio found leading on the exterior of the city leading to the top of the artificial hill at the king's gate


The sphinx gate (this lone sphinx is actually - sigh - a copy)

Side of the sphinx


Spring has sprung. Little wild flowers like this crocus had started blooming in the Anatolian steppe of Hattusas

The side of the sphinx gate with Japanese tourist bus in the background - luckily this was the last place we saw them

A hieroglyphic rock carved into a hill side

The Hittite built their structures using joinings through the holes cut into the rocks (see three holes in the rock above)

A hole detail. It is amazing how perfect these holes are in the hard rock

A view across Hattusa

Detail of the reconstructed wall portion set on top of original stone foundations

The entire reconstruction - this was done based on a toy model of the original city walls found at the site so we know exactly how they looked!

Our last stop of Hittite wonders was Yazilikaya, literally stone with writing. This consists of two chambers in a small canyon setting about two to three kilometers from Hattusas. It is included in the same admittance. It is reached through a short walk of stone foundations of forecourts and temples. It was designed as a holy place and tribute to the king. The larger chamber's reliefs are more worn but still dazzling while the smaller chamber has a wonderful intimacy. Both made a perfect cap to the hours we spent at the capital city of Hattusas.

As a final respect to the Hittites we stopped at the free (!) Bogazkale museum nearby. It was a well displayed set of Hittite (surprise!) and Roman artifacts. The crowning glory though is the set of two original sphinxes from the sphinx gate at Hattusas. The Germans had pirated these away for "restoration" and did not return them for decades. Intense negotiation resulted in these treasures coming home to Bogazkale.

Randy and Claudio ascend to Yazilikaya

The 13 gods in the outer chamber (go ahead and count 'em!)

There are 12 gods in better preserved inner chamber

Detail of god with his standard and holding the king tightly under his left arm

Detail of the gods from the inner chamber

Another detail from god holding the king in the inner chamber

The large outer chamber tableau - a meeting of two gods say the guide books

The king with his standard from the outer chamber


The guys read about Yazilikaya outside the chambers after viewing them

The wonderful original sphinxes from the sphinx gate at Hattusas in the Bogazkale museum

Detail of one of the original sphinx - the eyes are kind of creepy

Since we adhered so well to our timetable we left Bogazkale around 5 PM and noticed that the city of Yozgat was not far away. What better time to pay a call? We went on the good back road through high pastures and fields - very beautiful and arrived in the city as dusk was falling. Not a lot to see here but we parked and viewed the clock tower (from the late 19th century) and walked to dinner at Zafer Turk Mutfagi. This restaurant specialized in testi kebab. This kebab, which none of us had had before, is cooked in a sealed clay crock and then broken open upon serving. We had salad, cacik, awesome bread, an inferior kind of cold manti and lentil soup (Mehmet, a true Turk, had leg and head soup). Then the waiter insisted I break the testi. I did so and ended spewing liquid on him. The kebab was tasty (it was beef) and served with a very nice pilav. We finished with baked quince and kunefe.

We walked back to the car tired and full and peeked in the Buyuk Camii (prayers were still happening so infidels that we are we could not enter). Randy drove us efficiently home to Ankara with a brief stop near Kirikkale so Mehmet could buy melons from an outdoor stand. He was pretty pumped up about getting melons during winter and was thrilled to find a stand still open (but disappointed they did not bargain much).

What a day - it was memorable on so many levels and the four of us were perfect comrades in this expedition - curious, learned, hungry and grateful to be in Turkey!

Mehmet gets a drink of cold spring water along the road between Bogazkale and Yozgat. There are many of these springs along the back roads of central Anatolia and I have drunk their water without adverse effect