The Hittite capital, taken as such by King Labarna around 1650 BC when he renamed himself Hattusili after it, and held until the kingdom collapsed about 1180 BC. The Hittites were an empire the equal of Egypt and Assyria and they were essentially forgotten for three thousand years until this site was dug. What came out of it was the Bogazköy archive: thousands of clay cuneiform tablets holding correspondence, contracts, law codes, ritual procedure, oracles and literature. One of them is the Hittite copy of the peace treaty that ended the Battle of Kadesh with Egypt in 1259 or 1258 BC, and it is the earliest surviving international peace treaty in the world; a reproduction hangs at the United Nations. The Lion Gate guards the south, and Yazılıkaya nearby is a rock sanctuary carved with ranks of Hittite gods. UNESCO listed it in 1986. Çorum Province, Turkey.
Boğazkale, Çorum, Turkey
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