Hittite ornament on display at museum

ÇORUM

A nearly 3,300-year-old bone ornament found during the archaeological excavation in the ancient city of Hattusha in the Boğazkale district of Çorum is now on display at the Boğazkale Museum.

Excavations carried out last year on the northwestern slope of the Great Castle region of the ancient city under the direction of Professor Andreas Schachner on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute, it was unearthed a bone fragment, which is 30 centimeters long and 10 centimeters wide and thought to be an ornament.

Examinations revealed that the ornament, which has a sphinx (a statue with a human head and an animal body), a lion and two trees of life figures drawn on a bright background, could have belonged to a bone from the rib region of a bovine. The ornament, which was determined to be approximately 3,300 years old, was presented to visitors at the Boğazkale Museum.

Speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency, Schachner said that the piece, whose figures can be seen under light due to the layer on it, could be an ornament on a table or a box.

Schachner stated that this is the first time they found an artifact in Hattusa that clearly depicts a scene from Eastern Mediterranean cultures, and pointed out that it was made in a workshop with connections to the Mycenaean civilization and the eastern Mediterranean world, especially due to some of the artistic features of the sphinx and the lion.

Stating that based on other artistic features, they estimated that it probably came from cities in the Levantine coastline in the north of today's Syria, Schachner said, "This is very important because we know the foreign relations of that period in Hattusa very well, but we do not know the material culture very well. This was probably made in the first half of the 13th century B.C. Therefore, it is possible that it belongs to the most magnificent period of the Hittite Empire. It came here either as a gift or as an object of trade after an exchange."