Sapinuwa was a Bronze Age Hittite city at the location of modern Ortaköy in the province Çorum in Turkey about 70 kilometers east of the Hittite capital of Hattusa. It was one of the major Hittite religious and administrative centres, a military base and an occasional residence of several Hittite kings. The palace at Sapinuwa is discussed in several texts from Hattusa.
Sapinuwa
Golden brooch from Sapinuwa, Archaeological Museum Çorum, Central Turkey
Vase from Sapinuwa. Archaeological Museum Çorum, Central Turkey
The Hittites were an Anatolian Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of Bronze Age West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in modern day Turkey in the early 2nd millennium BC. The Hittites formed a series of polities in north-central Anatolia, including the kingdom of Kussara, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom, and an empire centered on Hattusa. Known in modern times as the Hittite Empire, it reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Šuppiluliuma I, when it encompassed most of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.
The Great Temple in the inner city of Hattusa
An Alaca Höyük bronze standard from a third millennium BC pre-Hittite tomb (Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara)
Ivory Hittite Sphinx, 18th century BC
Hattusa ramp
