The Excavations at Boğazköy-Ḫattuša in 2010

Abstract

The excavations concentrate on the southern section of the Lower City. Enlargement of the excavation area has allowed us to establish more precisely the chronological and struc­tural development of this section. Central to our interest in this connection was the explo­ration of a well preserved building level of the late Karum Period, the finds from which are deepening our knowledge of the period of transition to the Hittite epoch. Within the area of the recently resumed excavations it is becoming increasingly clear that the monumental architecture in the vicinity of the Great Temple, excavated until into the 1970s, does not continue southwards. By contrast, initial sondages in what is known as the South Sector (Südareal) indicate the existence of architecture on a large scale predating the erection of the surviving monumental buildings. To the south­east of Kesikkaya, the existence of a large building closely connected with the rock has been verified through excavation. Geophysical investigations south of the excavation area suggest that this large­-scale building with a public function probably continued as far as the Postern Wall, which here may have had two phases. Parallel to the digging, work continued on the thorough restoration of the Lion Gate and on various studies of finds from the last campaigns at Boğazköy and Çamlıbel Tarlası.