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LIVING AND DOCUMENTED CULTURE · 03

An archive that spoke many languages

The archives of Hattusa kept texts in several languages, used for treaties, prayers and other matters.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

Image of An archive that spoke many languages
DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis

Declared visual reconstruction; not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

History and context

Treaties and prayers show an empire administered also by means of translation.

Evidence and interpretation

Synthesis based on UNESCO · Hattusha; UNESCO Memory of the World · Hittite tablets; DAI · The Great Temple. The comparison serves to formulate questions, not to fill gaps in the record with certainties.

Catalogue facts

Civilisation or trajectory
Hittite
Scope
Writing and Orality
Main area
Hattusa and the central Anatolian plateau.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

A word could combine three graphic traditions

The teaching of Hittite writing shows combinations of Sumerian signs, Akkadian complements and Hittite endings within a single word. The example EN-LUM-aš represents 'lord' by means of elements from the three traditions. It does not mean that the reader necessarily changed language three times when pronouncing it: the writing could preserve historical conventions while the reading corresponded to Hittite. Distinguishing graphic system and spoken language helps to understand why a plurigraphic tablet is not always a document that alternates three different discourses.

  • Research · University of Chicago, ISAC · Hittite Language: Orthography and PhonologyReference preserved. The original link is no longer available.Access recorded: .

Location and territory

Physical world map with routes of human evolutionPresent-day world coastline from Natural Earth in an equirectangular projection. The overlaid markers let you explore each milestone.Map base: Natural Earth 1:110m · public domain · present-day reference coastline

REGIONAL AREA

Central Anatolia and, in imperial phases, northern SyriaCentral Anatolia and, in imperial phases, northern Syria. The footprint marks the indicative center of the area, not a border or an exact point.

Sources and references

Consult the sources of this cultural synthesis

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