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Hattusa Büyükkale (Royal Palace)

BoğazkaleHittites & ArchaeologyArchaeology

Büyükkale (“Great Fortress”) is the name of the rocky platform on which the Hittite royal palace stood in the ancient city of Hattusa, in the district of Boğazkale. According to the 2017 Hattusa book of the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the Hittite kings ruled the country from this palace, built on steep rocks at a point commanding the whole plain. The Turkish Museums article notes that the palace stands in the area where settlement in the city first began.

Position and size

The Ankara University lecture notes describe Büyükkale as a gently uneven plateau of about 250x140 m, naturally protected on all four sides by steep rocky slopes. The notes say the first settlement was founded here in the Early Bronze Age, at the end of the 3rd millennium BC; the Hittites gradually turned the site into a large walled complex; in the 1st millennium BC Phrygians and Hellenistic settlers also made use of the position; and a large Iron Age fortress stood on the site. The Directorate’s book says a building system of 35,000 square metres existed in this area.

Parts of the palace

The book says the imperial palace contained the thrones of the king and queen, their living quarters, reception halls, cult rooms, a kitchen, storerooms, archives, inner courtyards and many other sections used for administrative and religious business. The Ankara University notes state that the palace shows an asymmetrical, scattered plan and that asymmetrical planning is dominant in Hittite buildings and cities alike.

According to the notes, a large viaduct led from the south up to the fortress gate. Only the eastern side of the palace’s main gate, the south gate, survives; it had two passages, and the outer one was decorated with lion reliefs like the Lions’ Gate. Passing through, one entered a gate courtyard, and a road paved with red flat stones across it led to the entrance of the Lower Court. This long, narrow court, the second of four, was surrounded by long colonnaded galleries; the buildings around it are taken to be the houses of senior court officials and the quarters of the palace sentries known as the “golden spearmen”. From a gate building at the far end one passed into the Middle Court, where the passage was flanked by lions on both sides, and which was also ringed by colonnaded galleries. Building D in the north-west corner of the Middle Court is the largest in Büyükkale; its upper floor is thought to have been the Hittite kings’ reception hall. Buildings E and F, at the end of the row in the north-west corner, are thought to be the king’s private rooms, and the notes write that they looked out over the city and the valley to the north. The article by Salihoğlu and Demirarslan reports that Ekrem Akurgal counted the entrance of the Great Temple and Building E of Büyükkale as two “bit hilani” of Hurrian origin.

The royal guard

According to the Hattusa book, a separate unit that took orders only from the king was stationed right next to the palace to protect the king and his family. Known as the “Golden Spearmen”, it is described as a specially trained and equipped guard made up of warriors chosen for this task, who moved with the king.

Tablet archives

The Ankara University notes say large cuneiform clay-tablet archives were excavated in Buildings E, K and A. The tablets record treaties and state correspondence as well as divination texts, cult instructions, traditional literature, court decisions and historical texts; hundreds of tablets were kept here on wooden shelves. The clay tablets survived the fire in the palace largely undamaged, while the archives of wooden tablets were lost completely. For the museum that displays the cuneiform tablets from the Hattusa excavations see Boğazköy Museum.

Recent excavation reports

The report on the 2022 season by Schachner and colleagues (Archäologischer Anzeiger 2023/1) writes that the excavations in the upper citadel courtyard of Büyükkale in 2021-2022 showed Hittite-period building to be much denser than previously thought, so that Buildings E and F on the north-west terrace are now seen as integral parts of the palace layout. According to the report, the Hittite palace complex probably arose over a long period, with additions and rebuilding, in step with the expansion of the Upper City from the end of the 16th century BCE. The same report states that 18 radiocarbon dates are now available from Büyükkale (including samples from the end of the Early Bronze Age, phase BK Vc) and that the site had a “palatial” building in the Late Iron Age (6th-5th century BCE) which proved larger than assumed.

The ICOMOS evaluation prepared for UNESCO (1986) describes Büyükkale as a palace-citadel set on the main peak and says it was already the seat of power in the pre-Hittite era. The Hittite Monuments website notes that only the stone foundations of the palace complex can be seen on the hill today, and that several sculpted works were found at Nişantepe, the small hill south-west of Büyükkale across the modern road.

Sources

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