Hattusas

Hattusa, near modern Bogazkale in north-central Turkey, was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the 2nd millennium BC and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. Spanning approximately 180 hectares, the city was enclosed by 6.6 km of fortification walls with monumental gates including the famous Lion Gate and King's Gate. The site contains a large temple district, the Buyukkale acropolis, and the nearby rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya with its remarkable relief carvings of gods and goddesses. Excavations since 1906 have yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets in Hittite and Akkadian that documented the empire's administration and diplomacy.