02 · LOWER CITY · GREAT TEMPLE

Storerooms of the Great Temple

The cult also needed inventory

The temple storerooms held resources needed for staff, festivals and offerings.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

Specific historical recreation of The cult also needed inventory, Lower city of Hattusa, central Anatolia, 16th–13th centuries BCE; successive reforms — **DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · EXISTING EDITORIAL RESOURCE · TRACEKEEPERS**
Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis
Declared visual reconstruction for museographic context; it is not a photograph of the original nor documentary evidence.

History and context

Around the Great Temple stood granaries with enormous jars set into the ground. Maintaining festivals, personnel and offerings required receiving, measuring, conserving and redistributing resources on a palatial scale.

The texts link the great sanctuary with the kingdom's main deities, but do not allow a secure label to be put on each room. The ensemble shows that religion and economy were not separate departments.

Large jars set into the granaries show the material scale necessary to sustain personnel, offerings and festivals. The complex obliges us to think of cult as logistics: receiving, measuring, conserving and redistributing.

The excavation does not preserve a label for the content of each jar nor identify with certainty the function of each room. It is advisable to separate the observable deposits from the religious assignments proposed by texts and parallels.

Evidence and interpretation

Documented fact: the monumental plan, the granaries and the large jars are excavated. Interpretation and caution: the exact assignment of the temple to the Storm God and the Sun Goddess, as well as the content of each jar, depends on texts and parallels, not on in situ labels.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date: 16th–13th centuries BCE; successive reforms
Location: Lower city of Hattusa, central Anatolia
Material: Stone · mudbrick · large ceramic jars · timber
Context: Cult, storage and administration complex
Curatorial reading: The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Date: 16th–13th centuries BCE; successive reforms
Location: Lower city of Hattusa, central Anatolia
Support: Stone · mudbrick · large ceramic jars · timber
Documentary coverage: 2 museum, heritage, primary corpus or research sources for this stop.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: September 5, 2026.

Preparing an offering also required cleaning

The instructions for priests and temple personnel regulate the cleaning of the spaces where divine bread was prepared. They require sweeping and scrubbing, and preventing dogs and pigs from crossing the kitchen threshold. Other indications refer to bodily washing, hair, nails and clothing. These rules should not be automatically translated into a modern microbial theory: they articulated practical hygiene and religious purity. They add to the inventory of provisions the daily tasks necessary for food to become an offering.

Research · Anatolian Studies · Hittite cultural conventions on hygiene (2025)Access recorded: September 5, 2026.

Location and territory

LOCATED SITE

Hattusa and Yazılıkaya · TurkeyLandscape marker of the Hittite capital.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

Did you enjoy this exhibit?

Your opinion helps us improve the museum. You can change it whenever you like.

Loading your rating…