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Yerkapı and the Sphinx Gate

BoğazkaleHittites & ArchaeologyArchaeology

Yerkapı is an artificial rampart with stone-clad slopes at the southern end of the city of Hattusa. In the middle of the city wall running over it stands the Sphinx Gate, and beneath the gate runs a postern (underground tunnel). The structure is one of the components of the Hattusa World Heritage property.

The rampart and its dimensions

According to UNESCO, the Sphinx Gate stands on top of a high artificial bastion with stone-plastered slopes; two staircases lead to the gateway and an arched stone tunnel runs underneath. According to a 2022 statement of the German Archaeological Institute, this pyramid-like artificial mound lies at the city’s highest point, up to 40 metres high and nearly 250 metres long. The Institute writes that the Hittite name of this structure, visible from afar, is not known, that it was not used for defence, and that it was most probably part of cult ceremonies connected with the temples in the north of the city. The Hittite Monuments website describes it as the fortified zone in the southern city walls, clad with stone blocks and rising as a ramp.

The first topographic plan of the city, which Heinrich Kohl drew in a few weeks in 1907, also covers Yerkapı (Atila, 2026). For the overall course of the excavations see the history of the Hattusa excavations.

The Sphinx Gate

The German Archaeological Institute writes that the pedestrian gate in the wall crossing the mound was decorated with four sphinxes. According to the Hittite Monuments website the two sphinxes on the inner side, carved from reddish limestone, were found badly damaged: the one from the east wing was taken to Berlin, restored and displayed in the Pergamon Museum until it was returned to Türkiye in 2012, while the more damaged one from the west wing was displayed for many years in the Istanbul Museum. The same source writes that the originals of both are now in the Boğazköy Museum and copies have been placed at the gate.

The postern

According to the Hittite Monuments website the postern, which gives a shortcut into the city under the walls, is 71 metres long and 3 metres high. UNESCO writes that the tunnel runs directly beneath the Sphinx Gate; the German Archaeological Institute adds that, unlike all the other monuments and buildings in the city, Yerkapı has always been visible and the tunnel at least partly accessible.

2022: painted hieroglyphs in the postern

According to Schachner’s statement, excavation team member Bülent Genç noticed, at the beginning of August 2022, signs painted in reddish-brown root dye on the roughly worked stone blocks of the unlit tunnel. The team has identified traces of Anatolian hieroglyphic signs on at least 249 different blocks in the Yerkapı postern; some are too worn to read, but most are well preserved.

  • Before this, painted Anatolian hieroglyphs were known only from Kayalıpınar (Sivas) and Suratkaya (Muğla), and the number of signs there is very small.
  • According to the first assessment by the philologists M. Alparslan and M. Marazzi, at least eight different sign groups are repeated in the postern; one group has been identified 38 times. The text is not a long narrative inscription but short notes in the manner of graffiti.
  • The team says it is too early for a definitive assessment, but supposes that the notes may contain names of persons or gods, perhaps also the name of the underground passage in the Hittite period.
  • The hieroglyphs are being modelled in three dimensions in cooperation with the Federico II University of Naples (DiSTAR).

The Hittite Monuments website likewise records that in 2022 hundreds of hieroglyphic signs painted on stone blocks were noticed in the tunnel.

According to the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism

The Directorate’s 2017 book on Hattusa gives Yerkapı as 250 m long, 80 m wide and 35 m high, covered entirely with limestone, and says its pyramidal form shows Egyptian influence and that it is the first pyramidal structure built in Anatolia. The height varies by source: the German Archaeological Institute gives up to 40 m. According to the same book, a 71 m tunnel built entirely of piled stones runs through the middle of the complex and was one of the city’s entrances.

The book names the four sphinxes that guard the gate (human-headed, lion-bodied, eagle-winged; two facing the city and two facing outward) as the first sphinx examples in Anatolia. It says the gate was uncovered in the 1906 excavations and that two of the four sphinxes survive standing. One sphinx taken to Germany in 1907 for restoration was returned in 1924 and displayed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum; the other was recovered from Germany after long efforts, and the two were reunited at Hattusa in 2011. The sphinxes are also counted among the works of the Boğazköy Museum.

Further sources: dimensions, sphinxes and inscriptions

For the dimensions of Yerkapı the sources stand side by side as follows. The German Archaeological Institute’s 2022 statement and the excavation report by Schachner and colleagues (Archäologischer Anzeiger 2023/1) give the artificial mound as “up to 40 m high and almost 250 m long”. The 2025 article by Repola, Varriale, Marazzi, Morra and Schachner (Heritage 8/8) describes it as an artificial rampart 250 m long, up to 80 m wide and about 40 m high, and cites Peter Neve’s 1996 book (Ḫattuša – Stadt der Götter und Tempel) for the figure. The Çorum Directorate’s book gives 250x80x35 m. According to the Hittite Monuments website the postern is 71 m long and 3 m high.

For the Sphinx Gate, Schachner’s 2015 DAI conservation report says that the sphinx figures have been displayed in the museum since November 2011, after returning to Boğazköy from Berlin and Istanbul, and that copies of the two sphinxes were set up on Yerkapı in 2012 and 2013 where they were found in 1907, to show the original situation; according to the report the narrow, asymmetrical passage clearly marks the gate as a pedestrian gate. For the date of the return the sources differ: the Hittite Monuments website says the east sphinx stayed in the Pergamon Museum until 2012, and the Çorum Directorate’s book says the sphinxes were reunited at Hattusa in 2011.

The number and content of the inscriptions also vary by source. The DAI’s 2022 statement reports sign traces “on at least 249 different blocks”; Repola and colleagues (2025) count 249 painted inscriptions in total, 122 on the east wall and 127 on the west wall, usually one inscription per stone; Marazzi and Schachner (2024) speak of more than 250 inscriptions, and the Hittite Monuments website of about 250 blocks. As to content, the DAI’s first statement mentioned at least eight sign groups and possible names of persons or gods; later reports (Schachner et al. 2023; Marazzi and Schachner 2024) distinguish six inscription types (A-F): most consist of a personal name and an occupational title, while two types on the west wall near the southern entrance are a place name and a sign combination whose meaning is not yet clear; the inscriptions are said to have been written most probably at the time the complex was built. According to the Hittite Monuments website, of the six writings two are personal names (Ari-Šadu, Innara), two are stoneworker titles and two are location labels (“Donkey Gate Road” and “The Path of Mt. Tuthaliya”); from the second label the site suggests that Mt. Tuthaliya may be the name of the Yerkapı hill. According to the analyses of Repola and colleagues, the red paint is a haematite-based ochre.

Nearby structures

For the city’s other monuments see Hattuşaş, for the green rock in the Great Temple area see Hattusa Green Stone, and for the rock sanctuary to the north-east see Yazılıkaya.

Sources

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