Sapinuwa (sometimes Shapinuwa; Hittite: ''Šapinuwa'') was a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

Hittite city at the location of modern

Ortaköy Ortaköy (, ''Middle Village)'' is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 9,121 (2024). It is on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing villag ...

in the province

Çorum Çorum () is a northern Anatolian city in Turkey. Çorum is located inland in the central Black Sea Region of Turkey and is approximately from Ankara and from Istanbul. It is the seat of Çorum Province and of Çorum District.< ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

about 70 kilometers east of the Hittite capital of Hattusa. It was one of the major Hittite religious and administrative centres, a military base and an occasional residence of several

Hittite king The dating and sequence of Hittite kings is compiled by scholars from fragmentary records, supplemented by the finds in Ḫattuša and other administrative centers of cuneiform tablets and more than 3,500 seal impressions providing the names, tit ...

s. The palace at Sapinuwa is discussed in several texts from

Hattusa Hattusa, also Hattuşa, Ḫattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha, was the capital of the Hittites, Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age during two distinct periods. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey (originally Boğazköy) within the great ...

Excavations

Ortaköy was identified as the site of ancient Sapinuwa after a local farmer contacted Çorum Museum; he found two clay cuneiform tablets in his field. This led to a survey conducted in 1989, and more discoveries.

Ankara University Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...

quickly obtained permission from the Ministry of Culture to begin excavation. This commenced in the following year, in 1990, under the leadership of Aygül and Mustafa Süel, and has continued since. Building A was excavated first, and then Building B in 1995. The building with the Yazılıkaya-style orthostate and 14th century BC charcoal was excavated after 2000. Aygül Süel has been the head of excavations at this site from 1996 onward. In the first excavated region was a Cyclopean-walled building dubbed "Building A". Building A has yielded 5000 tablets and fragments, dated to the time of Hittite ruler

Tudhaliya II Tudḫaliya II (sometimes identified with and designated Tudḫaliya I) was a Hittite great king in the late 15th/early 14th century BC, ruling in perhaps c. 1425–c. 1390 BC. He was the father-in-law and predecessor of Arnuwanda I. Identity ...

(c. 1360 – 1344 BC). They were stored in three separate archives on an upper floor, which collapsed when the building was burnt. At Kadilar Hoyuk, 150 meters southeast of Building A, "Building B" has proven to be a depot filled with earthenware jars. Another building features an "orthostat that looks like the relief of Tudhaliyas at Yazilikaya".

Findings

The fire which destroyed Sapinuwa also damaged its archive. Most of the tablets are fragmentary, and must be pieced together before interpretation and translation. Identification of the site as Sapinuwa immediately corrected a misunderstanding in Hittite geography. Due to the archives so far discovered at Hattusas, Sapinuwa had been thought to be a primarily

Hurri The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeaste ...

-influenced city. Scholars of the Hattusas archive therefore positioned Sapinuwa to the southeast of Hattusa. Now Sapinuwa (and therefore the cities associated with it) are known to be to Hattusas's northeast. The Building A tablets are mostly in Hittite (1500); but also in

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

(600), "Hitto-Hurrian", Akkadian, and Hattian. In addition, there are bilingual texts, not heretofore known, in Hittite / Hattian and in Hittite / Hurrian; vocabulary lists in Hittite / Sumerian / Akkadian; and seal impressions in

Hieroglyphic Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya ...

. The Hittite texts include many letters; Hurrian was mostly used for ''itkalzi'' (purification) rituals. Several of the letters corresponded with those mentioned in the

Maşat Höyük Maşat Höyük is a Bronze Age Hittite archaeological site 100 km nearly east of Boğazkale/Hattusa, about 20 km south of Zile, Tokat Province, north-central Turkey, not far from the Çekerek River. The site is under agricultural u ...

archive. The dialect of Hittite in that correspondence was Middle Hittite, but the site was in use for centuries afterward.Oguz Soysal, on behalf of the Ortaköy-Sapinuwa Epigraphical Research project, summarizes the contents that the documents include as "letters, lists of persons, tablet-catalogs, oracular texts, prayers, rituals and festival descriptions"
Description of the Ortaköy-Sapinuwa Epigraphical Research project
The first English-language publication from the excavation was by Aygul Süel, 2002. As of 2014, the archive had not been published. The first English-language publication of any text, a fragmentary vocabulary text listing useful plants, perhaps an advanced school tablet of the 14th century BCE, along with further discussion of the site, appeared in Aygul Süel and Oguz Soysal, "A Practical Vocabulary from Ortakoy"; also published is a letter from a queen.

History

The site is divided into an Upper and a Lower City. The latter is divided into two main districts: the Ağılönü region and Tepelerarası; they are separated by a stream which flows through the area.Süel, A. and Weeden, M. (2019)
A Silver Signet-Ring from Ortaköy-Sapinuwa.
in N. Bolatti Guzzo and P. Taracha (eds) ‘And I knew 12 Languages.’ A Tribute to Massimo Poetto on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. Warsaw: Agade. Pp. 661-668 According to Erdal Atak, : "The strategic location of Shapinuwa is very important. The mountains surrounding the city, the plateau ascending in terraces on the Amasya Plain, and the fortification facilities starting as far as 5 km enable the city to be easily defendable. Since the city has a key location in between Alaca and Amasya plains, as long as the city, which is two-days distance from Hattusas, stands still, the roads to Bogazkoy-Hattusas are under control. As well as there are traces of military and religious architecture of the upper city on the hills to the west, the need for water and timber were being supplied from these hills." Northeast of Building D in the Tepelerarası district there is located Area G. A workshop has been uncovered here, featuring finds of intricately carved moulds. These moulds were used for fine silver work; large amounts of obsidian were also found nearby.

Late Bronze

These finds date to the end of the Middle Hittite period; this was the time of

(also known as

Tudhaliya III Tudḫaliya is the name of several Hittite kings or royals. It is not clear how many kings bore that name, and numbering schemes vary from source to source. *Tudḫaliya (sometimes called Tudḫaliya I) is deduced from his early placement in a lat ...

according to some scholars). This Tudhaliya II also had a Hurrian name Tasmi-Sarri, in common with many other Hittite kings of that time, who also had Hurrian names. His queen was Tadu-Heba, which is also a Hurrian name. Their wedding ceremony is mentioned in many tablets from Sapinuwa, as well as from Hattusa. Sapinuwa is where Tudhaliya II resided for much of his reign, and many cuneiform tablets mentioning him were found, including international treaties. This was the time known in literature as ‘concentric invasions’, when the Hittite state was besieged by many enemies on all sides. At that time, the Kaskans repeatedly invaded Hittite territory. They also probably sacked the capital Hattusa, after which the court moved to Sapinuwa. A destruction of the capital, however, is neither archaeologically proven nor mentioned in contemporary reports. Nevertheless, Sapinuwa was burned down, after which the court moved to Samuha. Other Hittite cities in the area, such as Tapikka and

Sarissa The sarissa or sarisa was a long spear or pike about in length. It was introduced by Philip II of Macedon and was used in his Macedonian phalanxes as a replacement for the earlier dory, which was considerably shorter. These longer spears imp ...

, also suffered destruction at this time. It is at this time of Hittite weakness that

Arzawa Arzawa was a region and political entity in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. In Hittite texts, the term is used to refer both to a particular kingdom and to a loose confederation of states. The chief Arzawan state, whose capital wa ...

in western Anatolia rose to international prominence reflected in the Amarna letters of

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...

. These letters used Hittite language. Suppiluliuma I was the son of Tudhaliya II, and both of them spent much time fighting the Kaskans, as well as the

Hayasa Hayasa-Azzi or Azzi-Hayasa (, ) was a Late Bronze Age confederation in the Armenian Highlands and/or Pontic region of Asia Minor. The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the ...

ns and Arzawa.Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, D. T. Potts, eds (2022)
The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume III: From the Hyksos to the Late Second Millennium BC.
Oxford University Press - Dassow, p.574

Role of Hattians

The Hittites commonly invoked the

storm god A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of ...

of Sapinuwa alongside the storm god of Nerik. Given that Hattusa was to the south and Nerik likely further north, both of which had initially been Hattic speaking; that the

Hattic language Hattic, or Hattian, was a non-Indo-European agglutinative language spoken by the Hattians in Asia Minor in the 2nd millennium BC. Scholars call the language "Hattic" to distinguish it from Hittite, the Indo-European language of the Hittite Emp ...

is found in the Sapinuwa archive alongside an apparent paucity of the

Palaic language Palaic is an extinct Indo-European language, attested in cuneiform tablets in Bronze Age Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites. Palaic, which was apparently spoken mainly in northern Anatolia, is generally considered to be one of four primary sub ...

; and that the name of the city makes sense in Hattic as a

theophoric A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that de ...

(''sapi'' "god", ''Sapinuwa'' "

and And or AND may refer to: Logic, grammar and computing * Conjunction, connecting two words, phrases, or clauses * Logical conjunction in mathematical logic, notated as "∧", "⋅", "&", or simple juxtaposition * Bitwise AND, a Boolean oper ...

of the god"), it is likely that Hattians founded Sapinuwa as well. It is generally believed that it was

Hattusili I Ḫattušili (''Ḫattušiliš'' in the inflected nominative case) was the regnal name of three Hittite kings: * Hattusili I (Labarna II) * Hattusili II *Hattusili III Ḫattušili (''Ḫattušiliš'' in the inflected nominative case) was the regnal ...

who destroyed Nerik in the mid to late 17th century BCE.Herrmann, Virginia, et al., (2020)
"Iron Age Urbanization and Middle Bronze Age Networks at Zincirli Höyük: Recent Results from the Chicago-Tübingen Excavations"
in ASOR 2020 Annual Meeting. So it's possible that the Nesite-speaking people would have taken over Sapinuwa at the same time as well. The Hittites' enemy at that frontier during the 15th century BC were the Kaskas. Oguz Soysal writes: "The excavators of Ortaköy believe that this city was a second capital of the Hittites or a royal residence, for a specific period, namely during the Middle Hittite Kingdom, ca. late 15th century B.C." However, " st of the

epigraphic Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

finds are dated to the last phase of the Hittite Middle Kingdom (ca. 1400-1380 B.C.)", contemporary with

Tudhaliya I Tudḫaliya is the name of several Hittite kings or royals. It is not clear how many kings bore that name, and numbering schemes vary from source to source. *Tudḫaliya (sometimes called Tudḫaliya I) is deduced from his early placement in a lat ...

and the archive at

. It is possible that the Kaskas were responsible for the burnings that turned some of the building materials into coal in the 14th century BC. The Hittite court then moved away to Samuha.

References

Sources

External links

ORTAKÖY - SHAPINUWA (A Hittite City)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sapinuwa Geography of Çorum Province Hittite sites in Turkey Hittite cities Hattian cities Former populated places in Turkey Archaeological sites in the Black Sea region History of Çorum Province