Excavations at Büyükkale in Boğazköy-Hattuscha

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Jörg Becker
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 526189356

Chance finds during securing measures (2014-2015) and work on the north-western foot (2018-2019) have surprisingly yielded the first indications of previously unknown building layers on the Büyükkale Plateau, which was investigated in stages over a large area between 1906 and 1966. Systematic work by the applicant confirmed this in 2021 and 2022. Larger areas in the northwest and south of the strategically favourable castle rock and the Hittite royal castle lying on it must ultimately be considered unknown. The investigation of these features makes it possible to add to the known building structure both in the Middle and Late Iron Age and especially in the Hittite period. It will thus be possible to clarify essential unanswered questions concerning the structure of the Hittite palace and the partly monumental, large-scale buildings of the Late Iron Age. The work is being carried out with regard to the Hittite epoch against the background of the chronological and structural development of the city, which has been completely reworked in recent decades. The clarification of hitherto unknown Hittite buildings in the northwest of the plateau changes the view of the connection between the upper court and the postulated private buildings of the kings (E and F). At the same time, radiocarbon dating will make it possible for the first time to place the palace complex in a direct functional and structural relationship to the development of the rest of the city. So far, the end of Iron Age settlement in Boğazköy is as chronologically unclear as the reasons for it. The unexpected discovery of structures of this period not only allows a chronological determination of this important caesura for the cultural-historical development of Central Anatolia, but, in view of the apparently good state of preservation, allows conclusions to be drawn about the reasons for the abandonment of the settlement. As far as is known, layers of this period can only be examined in the unexpectedly discovered area. Through fine-stratigraphic excavations, during which archaeobotanical and archaeo-zoological material will be obtained for the first time in this area of the city to analyse the socio-economic foundations, it is possible to draw exemplary conclusions for the whole of Büyükkale in Hittite times and in the Iron Age.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants