Boğazkale Alaçahöyük Milli Parkı

Boğazköy-Alacahöyük Historical National Park, located within the boundaries of Boğazkale district of Çorum province, was established as a protected area in 1988 on a 2600‑hectare site.

Basic Features

It contains archaeological values left by the Hittites, one of the oldest civilizations founded in Anatolia. It includes important works that have survived to the present such as the city walls, the underground gate, the lion gate, and the Yazılıkaya, belonging to Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite state.

Excavations in the area have identified five cultural layers. Remains of Byzantine, Roman, Galatian, Phrygian, Hittite, Assyrian, and Hatti civilizations have been reached. Hattusa served as the capital of the Hittite Empire in the 14th–13th centuries BC. Since 1986 it has been on the World Cultural Heritage List. Cuneiform tablets have been on the Memory of the World List since 2001.

Resource Values

Thirty‑one temples have been identified in the ancient city of Hattusa. The largest temple is thought to have been dedicated to the greatest of the gods, the sun goddess and the storm god. Eleven underground silos dating to the 13th century BC have been found in the area. The Hittite state collapsed in the 12th century BC, but settlement continued at Hattusa. In the 12th century BC Hattusa took on the appearance of a town showing Phrygian influences. Traces of later civilizations active in the area—Persian, Hellenic, Galatian, Roman and Byzantine—are also found.

Yazılıkaya temple: Hattusa's most impressive and largest religious area is the Open Air Temple located outside the city. About ninety goddesses, gods, animals and mythical creatures are carved into the rocks here. In Hittite culture, during New Year or spring ceremonies all gods gathered in the house of the storm god. It is thought that this moment is depicted on Yazılıkaya.

Hattusa

Hattusa was founded on the rugged and steep rocky terrain that appears at the end of the Budaközü plain, where the town of Boğazkale district now stands. Its archaeological remains were discovered in 1834 by the Frenchman Charles Texier. Excavations that began in 1906 led to the understanding that the city ruins were the Hittite capital Hattusa.