A New Book, A New Very Old City
I’m drafting the fourth book in my Tesha series, a year off schedule because of our move to a new home in a new state. Now I’m finally digging in. This book takes place in part, for the first time in the series, in the capital city called Hattusa. Hattusa is both the historical name and the one I use in my fiction. In contrast, I use the fictional name “Hitolians” for the historical “Hittites.” I do that, because, no matter how accurately historical I make my novels, they are fiction and a slight shift of names keeps the process honest in my readers’ minds. Or at least, that’s my goal. So now that my Tesha and Hattu (historical names Puduhepa and Hattusili III) are coming and going in Hattusa, I am deep in the research weeds of this archaeological site.
Hattusa
The site, known in Turkish as Boğazkale, lies north and east of Ankara. The drama and importance of the site won it World Heritage status. I’ve read about the archaeology of the site and visited it twice. However, like teaching something, writing fiction forces me to delve in on the subject of Hattusa on a whole new level. And, to be honest, the specific needs of the last three books distracted me. I neglected the giant topic of the major site in the Hittite world. So now I’m discovering how out of date my understanding is. As it turns out, the historical/archaeological realities I’m just now loading into my thinking are excellent for my fiction.
Hattusa is an enormous site with several built-upon rocky high places, as well as valleys etc. in between. It has an upper and lower city, but not with the “typical” mound arrangement of citadel/temple/noble dwellings at the top and a lower city of residences and markets etc. Hattusa is way more complicated and intermixed, not the least because its topography is all over the place. It has a “palace” quarter on top of one of the largest high rocky parts, huge fortification walls and gates, thirty-plus temples, places of ancestor worship, administrative and archival buildings, workshops, etc.
A Change of Scholarly Thinking
To summarize the key idea that I’ve gathered from my recent reading–at the inevitable risk of oversimplification–when my two major characters, Tesha and Hattu, walk into Hattusa in my current manuscript, the city is in much worse shape than the old research assumptions had indicated. For example, the immense temple quarter of the upper city and its areas of ancestor worship had probably been largely abandoned and taken over by pottery and metalworking workshops.
Muwatti’s fault
The logical explanation for this neglect of temples arises from the abandonment of the capital by Muwattalli II (my Hattu’s older brother, Muwatti in my fiction). Muwattalli took the gods and ancestor worship with him to a southern capital. No longer needed when the gods weren’t “home,” the empty buildings fell into neglect. But Muwattalli’s son moved the capital back to Hattusa. Then what?
In Of Kings and Griffins, I show Muwattalli’s southern capital and reference the return of the capital north to Hattusa. But I hadn’t realized the dramatic toll the shifting capital took on Hattusa. I get to portray that in this new book. Fortunately, much of the capital remained active, especially the palace area.
Elusive Period of Greatness in Hattusa
I hadn’t focused on the lasting effects of Muwattalli’s move because until recently the archaeological discussions of Hattusa indicated great growth and building at the end of the 13th century and beginning of the 12th, especially the years of my Tesha and Hattu and following. Previously the directors of the Hattusa site had concluded that much of the upper city was built and in florescence only in the last part of the empire’s history, the period I write about.
Radiocarbon dating now changes that picture. The growth started centuries before, happening in an organic, sporadic fashion. The construction “florescence” at the end focused on very specific buildings in an effort to reestablish the legitimacy of the royal ancestor worship and by extension the living rulers. That’s such a different story than “the great period of the empire’s grandeur.”
Perfect for Fiction
I have to say, troublesome decay makes more sense with this period’s major stressors economically and politically. And trouble is definitely good for fiction, so I’m happy. For those of you who know my Tesha and Hattu, they valued their gods and goddesses. (As did their actual historical counterparts.) Abandoned temples and ancestor worship will not thrill Tesha at all. This situation will provide one more reason in her mind that things are not being handled properly in Hattusa. So, suffice to say, while I sift through a lot of scholarly research to get myself mentally loaded for this book, I’m adding plot threads and conflicts.
Homework
In case anyone wants to dig into this subject in detail, here’s the link to a scholarly article that has nudged my rethinking about Hattusa, written by the archaeologist currently directing the German Archaeological Institute’s work at Hattusa: Andreas Schachner, “The 14th and 13th Centuries BC in the Hittite Capital City Hattusa: A (Re-)Assessment” published in Anatolia between the 13th and the 12th century BC, Stefano de Martino editor, 2020. I have a lot of catching up to do with Schachner’s work in general, but this is an engaging if challenging piece.
Here for a post about Hittite funerals and Hattusa (research for my last book, Of Kings and Griffins).