Hattusa

Hattusa is one of the highlights of the trip for us. We know of it as the capital of the Hittite empire from around 1700 BC to 1200BC when it was destroyed and the Hittites "disappeared ". But we have now learned that it was much more than that and the Hittites didn't disappear but moved south towards Syria and were no longer significant.
Hattusa was the capital for a tribe called the Hattians who were indigenous in Anatolia before the Hittites moved in ( probably from central Asia) and took over. They were fierce warriors ( eg. Fighting Ramses to a draw at Kadesh) and built their capital with strong defensive walls. But they adopted the gods and practices of those that conquered or allied with and ended up with a pantheon of hundreds of gods.
The site was both wonderful and disappointing. Wonderful in the size, location and scale of the place but disappointing in that most of the sculptures and carvings have been removed to museums.
We toured the site in the minibus as its so vast stopping at temples (of which the are 32), gates (we visited 3) and the Royal acropolis. The site has a small museum but the best bits are in Ankara that we saw yesterday.
We spent the night in a simple rural hotel with a view over the site.Read more