30,000 clay tablets in eight languages document Hittite treaties, myths, and laws. Tablets were baked hard when the palace burned in 1180 BCE - destruction preserved them. Accidental archive creation through catastrophe.
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An archive forged by fire
At Hattusha, the capital of the Hittite Empire, a catastrophic fire around 1180 BCE inadvertently preserved one of the most important archives of the ancient world. The Hittites recorded their state dealings, laws, myths, and diplomatic correspondence on fist-sized pads of damp clay. Scribes used a reed stylus to impress wedge-shaped marks into the soft surface, a writing system known as cuneiform. For most everyday documents, these tablets were simply sun-dried, a temporary state that allowed the clay to be soaked, flattened, and reused. Important state records, however, were sometimes intentionally fired in a kiln for permanence.
The great fire that consumed the palaces and temples of Hattusha acted as a massive, unplanned kiln. As the blaze reached temperatures above 600 degrees Celsius, the sun-dried clay tablets vitrified, their silicate particles fusing into a hard, ceramic-like material. This process turned a working administrative archive into a permanent record, baking the clay to a brick-like hardness and safeguarding the information it held. The destruction of the city, paradoxically, ensured the survival of its records for millennia. Without the fire, many of these sun-dried tablets would have dissolved back into the earth over time.
Cuneiform conversations across empires
Excavations at Hattusha, which began in earnest in 1906 under German archaeologist Hugo Winckler, have unearthed nearly 30,000 cuneiform tablets or fragments to date. This collection, inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register since 2001, provides a detailed picture of the Hittite civilization and its interactions with neighbors like Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. The tablets reveal a complex multilingual society. While most texts are in Hittite—the earliest attested Indo-European language—the archive contains at least eight different languages. These include Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the era, as well as the local Anatolian languages of Luwian and Palaic, and the non-Indo-European Hattic.
The Hittites displayed a unique interest in documenting foreign traditions, and their scribes recorded rituals and myths from across their sphere of influence. In 2023, researchers discovered a recitation in a previously unknown Indo-European language within a ritual text, identified as the language of the land of Kalashma, located on the empire's northwestern frontier. The decipherment of Hittite itself was a major linguistic achievement, accomplished by Czech scholar Bedřich Hrozný during World War I. Hrozný correctly identified it as an Indo-European language, related to Latin and Sanskrit. This breakthrough showed the politics and culture of the Late Bronze Age.
💡Fun Facts
The archives contain the world's first known international peace treaty, the Treaty of Kadesh, signed around 1259 BCE between the Hittites and Egyptians. A copy of the tablet is displayed at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The Hittite Queen Puduhepa's seal appears alongside that of her husband, King Hattusili III, on the Treaty of Kadesh, indicating her significant role in state affairs.
Scribes at Hattusha compiled multilingual dictionaries. These lexical lists, with columns for Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite, were important tools for training scribes and were important for modern scholars in deciphering the languages.
In 1986, archaeologists discovered the first metal cuneiform tablet from the Hittite world, a bronze tablet detailing a treaty between King Tudhaliya IV and his cousin Kurunta.
The site is open daily. Summer hours (April 1 - October 1) are 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Winter hours (October 1 - April 1) are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. It is best to check the official Turkish Museums website for the most current information as hours can vary.
Admission
An admission fee is required. The ticket typically includes entry to the main Hattusha archaeological site and the nearby Yazılıkaya open-air sanctuary. MuseumPass Turkey is accepted.
Accessibility
The site is vast, covering roughly 180 hectares with steep, uneven terrain. Visiting by car is recommended to drive between key points along the 3-4 km circular route. Comfortable walking shoes are essential.
