Hattusa and the Hittite royal archives

Record summary

Excavations at Hattusa, ancient capital of the Hittite Empire, began in 1906 under the German Oriental Society and continued through the interwar period. They uncovered monumental gates, temples, fortifications, and tens of thousands of cuneiform tablets, including treaties, laws, rituals, myths, and correspondence. The site is central for comparing imperial administration and religious textual traditions. Dating, tablet joins, translation, and the relationship between excavated findspots and archival deposition remain specialist matters requiring published excavation and philological sources.