OI Armchair Travelers: Hattusa, a Journey to Central Turkey

Social distancing have you hungry for world travels? Join OI professor Theo van den Hout from the comfort of your home as he embarks on a discovery of the site of Hattusa in Central Turkey. This UNESCO site, once the ancient Hittite capital, boasts impressive rock carvings, reconstructed city walls, and the famous Lion Gate.

Join us next week as Emily Teeter takes you on an at home journey through Luxor, Egypt.

Please excuse the audio and video, this podcast was recorded at-home.

2020, Oriental Institute

[Phorquieu]

Fascinating glimpse of the ancient city! And well done, too!

[monakw]

I never can get enough of Hattusa... Thank you!✌

[barbstapleton]

Really great thanks! enjoyed in Australia xxx

[Rossion]

This is great! Ive been interested in the Hittites since childhood

[otooleger]

Great narrative and photographs, Thanks

[JaredKJames]

This was so cute. Thank you for putting this together.

[cetintekin]

This video really helped me with my research. Thank you and keep up the great work!.

[mziskin]

Love the concept of these armchair traveler videos

[chke]

Many thanks for the very entertaining tour.

[cccbb]

Well done.. I enjoyed the walk through Hattusa .. no only a good alternative in these corona times but also afterwards if people can’t afford to travel to Hattusa

[donbrown]

Wonderful. I doubt that I will ever get to go there and this tour was absolutely fantastic.

[marymackenna]

Thanks so much-really well presented and interesting

[chubbymoth]

Nice drone footage and interesting topic. Thanks!

[chalinofalcone]

"Another interesting ceremony is described in a fragmentary document.
In the morning a decorated chariot stands ready in front of the temple; three ribbons - one red, one white, and one blue - are tied on it...."
[The Hittites, O.R. Gurney, 1966]

[christianstahl]

Vielen Dank, das ist sehr schön. Gerade weil man angesichts der derzeitigen politischen Lage die Türkei ja nicht bereisen kann.

[idgeofreason]

Hattusa's site may have a bit more to do with the Cilician Gate from the steppe, which is the main gate outside the Dzungarian gate in China, from the Steppe. They didnt have a problem with water here and water sources are unlikely to be why the site was chosen. That area will have been part of a route down to as far as Ebla since neolithic times and in Ebla there are artefacts representing Chinese neolithic beliefs. Its the mountain gate to the Steppe and the route between West and East and the only place to get over land to Armenia without going through the fertile crescent.

[xanetas]

Fascinating lecture, as usual. But please, next time make the laser or the mouse mark a bit larger becasue i couldn't saw any of the places he was pointing out.

[bhavens]

somehow reminds me of the Minoans a bit

[chrisrhodes]

Very odd, usually the most important areas of the city are on the high ground. Wonder why they didn't start the city on the higher area for defensive purposes

[chalinofalcone]

16:32
THE histories of Mexico and Peru, and the traditions of the Iroquois and other tribes of North America, have been found to illustrate early Hittite history. The American continent was originally peopled from two different directions, the one being the north -eastern coasts of Asia, the other, the Malay and Polynesian archipelagos. To decide the question of derivation, the first question to ask is philological : does the tribe or people make use of prepositions, and generally prefer the abstract term to the concrete, in language ? If it does, it is of Malay - Polynesian origin ; if not, of northern Asiatic. Another question relates to habits and tradition : is the people maritime or fluviatile, and is its heaven an insular one ? Again if the answer be affirmative, the people is one that has come from Polynesia ; if negative, it is of continental origin. Consulting the ethnographic map, it appears that the American tribes of insular derivation have everywhere been displaced, for they are found in the eastern parts of the continent as Algonquins, Mayas and Quiches, West India Islanders, and Mbaya -Abipones. Who displaced them from their original seats on the western coast ? The answer is the more warlike tribes of continental origin, that, through many ages, poured southward from the arctic limits of Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. There is no reason for supposing the Algonquins to have been very ancient colonists of America, for remnants of the same oceanic migration still occupy the western coasts, but the traditions of the Mayas and Quiches of Yucatan and Guatemala indicate that they were the primitive tribes of Central America.1 It is quite possible, as some writers have asserted, that they arrived in the New World before the beginning of the Christian era, bringing with them their strange system of conventional hieroglyphics that has puzzled so many investigators, and which betrays relationship to the characters found on Easter Island and to the most ancient Chinese symbols. These tribes also brought with them traditions relating to the ancient period of Hittite supremacy in Egypt, Palestine, and Chaldea. Some of these traditions have been referred to in these pages, but this is not the place to consider them in detail. [THE HITTITES : THEIR INSCRIPTIONS & THEIR HISTORY, JOHN CAMPBELL, M.A., LL.D., CH. XXII: THE HITTITES IN AMERICA, 1891]