The Bogazkoy archives are a collection of texts found on the site of the capital of the Hittite state, the city of

Hattusas 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 ...

(now Bogazkoy in

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 ...

). They are the oldest extant documents of the state, and they are believed to have been created in the

2nd millennium BC File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his Code of Hammurabi, code of laws; The gold Mask of Tutankhamun, funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egypt ...

. The archive contains approximately 25,000 tablets.

Content

The archive contains royal annals, treaties, political correspondence, legal texts, inventory texts along with instructions, texts related to administration, mythological texts, and religious texts.''Cem'' p.1

Language

Most tablets were found to be written in the

Hittite language Hittite (, or ), also known as Nesite (Nešite/Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people of Bronze Age Anatolia who created an empire centred on Hattusa, as well as parts of the northern ...

. However, some of the tablets are written 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) ...

, and a few paragraphs of the tablets are written in Hattic. Akkadian is also a common language, though it is interspersed with Hurrian and Hittite.''Cem'' p.2 Given that the writing is mostly in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

, there are

Sumerogram A Sumerogram is the use of a Sumerian cuneiform character or group of characters as an ideogram or logogram rather than a syllabogram in the graphic representation of a language other than Sumerian, such as Akkadian, Eblaite, or Hittite. Th ...

s interspersed throughout the texts regardless of language.

Discovery

The Bogazkoy Archives were discovered in 1906 by Hugo Winckler and Theodore Makridi.

Studying

* Hans Ehelohf wrote "Hans Ehelohf and the Bogazköy Archive in Berlin" after years of studying and translating. *

Hans Gustav Güterbock Hans Gustav Güterbock (May 27, 1908 – March 29, 2000) was a Germany, German-Americans, American Hittitologist. Born and trained in Germany, his career was ended with the rise of the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage, and he was forced to re ...

studied the archive and wrote multiple books about it for over 60 years.

References

Bibliography

* 2nd-millennium BC literature 1906 archaeological discoveries Archaeological discoveries in Turkey Clay tablets Hittite texts Hattusa Mitra Indra Varuna {{Cuneiform-stub