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Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
How Greece and Germany helped make the marvels of archeology modern
Watching an American icon like Indiana Jones battle Nazis in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' it's hard to believe that it was actually a German cultural institute which played a pivotal role in transforming reckless Jones-style treasure hunting into the modern science of archaeology we know today. That institute, the German Archaeological Institute at Athens (DAI Athens), has just completed the year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary — just as Greece welcomes record numbers of summer tourists to marvel at the archaeological wonders the institute helped unearth. Widely regarded as one of the birthplaces of modern archaeological science, the DAI pioneered the transition from indiscriminate digging at archaeological sites to the systematic excavation and meticulous study that continues to inspire researchers and amateur archaeology buffs across the globe. Until the mid-19th century, archeology was often more about treasure hunting and indiscriminate looting than detailed research and science. Take Lord Elgin's controversial removal of sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, between 1801 and 1812. Although Elgin claimed to have obtained permission from Ottoman authorities — a claim recently refuted by the Turkish government — his sale of the sculptures to the British Museum remains a major cultural and diplomatic dispute between Greece and Britain. Many view Elgin's deeds as one of the most notorious colonial-era lootings, alongside famous antiquities brought to museums around the world like the Rosetta Stone. Even Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the first director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, was accused of looting classical treasures from Cyprus, where he served as US Consul General in the mid-1860s. Many of the artifacts di Cesnola was said to have plundered were sold, ironically, to the Met itself. During this period, Greece, newly independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, was rich in history but in economic decline owing to decades of war. But it was finally possible for the philhellenists (lovers of Greek culture) to travel to Greece and study its ancient remains. In the later part of the 19th century, Greece's ancient ruins also became magnets for the era's great expansionist powers like the United Kingdom and France. Their ultimate goal? Securing rights to excavate Greece's most coveted archaeological sites while bolstering diplomatic ties through what we now call 'cultural diplomacy.' Germany was just one of the many countries aspiring to gain excavation rights in Greece. 'The oldest foreign archaeological institute in Athens is the French School of Athens, founded in 1846,' explains Katja Sporn, director of the DAI Athens. 'But Greece's allure was such that many countries fought to establish archaeological institutes at the time. Today, there are 20 foreign institutes based in Athens.' The DAI Athens was founded in 1874, just three years after German unification, during a period of growing German nationalism. Part of the German Archaeological Institute based in Berlin, the DAI Athens' creation reflected the importance of Greek history to Kaiser Wilhelm I and the close political ties between Germany and Greece, whose first king, Otto, hailed from a Bavarian royal family. Many Germans at the time saw parallels between Greece's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire and their own aspirations for national unification. In the same year the DAI Athens was founded, Sporn explains, the 'DAI became subordinate to Germany's Foreign Office 'as a permanent base for internationally active research.' Today, the DAI Athens is housed in a neoclassical building in downtown Athens where an exhibition for its 150th anniversary showcases its storied history. Among the figures featured is Heinrich Schliemann, an 'amateur' archaeologist and businessman who promoted archaeology to a wider public by his emblematic excavations in Troy and Mycenae. The figure who truly transformed archaeology was the institute's fourth director, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who arrived at the DAI Athens in 1887. An architect trained at the excavations in Olympia, Dörpfeld pioneered stratigraphic excavation and both archaeological and architectural documentation methods. These revolutionized the field by allowing archaeologists to piece together detailed site histories while preserving them for future study. 'Dörpfeld's work was a turning point,' says Sporn. 'Archaeologists then worked methodically rather than destructively.' Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, the Doreen C. Spritzer Director of Archives at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), agrees. 'Dörpfeld's techniques were taught to archaeologists from Germany, Britain, France and the United States, who then applied and passed them on worldwide,' she says. This shift — from looting the ancient world to rigorous excavation and research — became the gold standard, paving the way for discoveries such as the tomb of King Tutankhamen by Howard Carter in 1922 and inspiring the swashbuckling tales of Indiana Jones. Some 150 years ago, in 1875, the German Kaiserreich began excavating the ancient sanctuary of Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games — and the place from which the Olympic torch is now lit 100 days before the start of the modern Olympics every four years. Olympia wasn't just another dig; it was governed by a bilateral treaty between Greece and Germany, setting unprecedented levels of oversight for excavation and preservation. Funded by the German government and backed by King George I of Greece, the dig benefited from both financial investment and diplomatic backing. 'Olympia remains one of the most important archaeological sites in Greece,' says Sporn. The excavation uncovered iconic treasures like sculptures from the Temple of Zeus and the statue of Hermes by Praxiteles, but mainly the actual buildings and places where the famous Olympic games were held in antiquity. Yet the dig — partially overseen by Dörpfeld before he led the DAI — is not only important for what it found, but how it was conducted. An interdisciplinary team, including archaeologists, architects, historians and conservators, ensured a holistic approach to the study of the site and created a global model for archaeological collaborations that remains the gold standard to this day. Starting from the old excavations in Olympia, the DAI Athens sought to preserve the fragile remnants of Olympia's past by systematically recording findings and by publishing results in a series of reports. The approach facilitated scholarly research across Europe, shaped future standards for transparency and data-sharing and established archaeology as a rigorous academic discipline. Crucially, the collaboration with the Greek state ensured that artifacts remained in Greece rather than being shipped off to a museum or private collection abroad, as was common practice at the time. This led to the creation of a dedicated museum at Olympia financed by a Greek patron as early as 1886 — the first on-site museum in the Mediterranean — where the site's most important finds could be studied and displayed in their original cultural context. Today, museums aligned with excavation sites have become common across the globe. Ultimately, the dig established 'responsible excavation' standards and early conservation techniques that remain in practice to this day. Back then, Olympia's success sparked fierce competition among nations vying for other important Greek sites. 'A rivalry developed between Germany, France and the United States over the most significant excavations,' says Vogeikoff-Brogan. They became a battle for prestige among great powers, fueling political alliances between Greece and other countries. For the first time, economic considerations, like trade, would be factored in by Greece to determine who would get the rights to dig the most coveted archaeological sites. Archaeology became an expression not just of Greek national culture — but its newly emerging political might. The French secured Delphi, aided by trade negotiations involving, of all things, Zante currants, while the Americans started excavations in Corinth and eventually the Agora in Athens, leveraging political alliances and personal relationships. 'Social capital and political connections were just as important as archaeological merit in these decisions,' Vogeikoff-Brogan adds. The positive relationship between the Greek state, its people and the DAI Athens faced a severe setback during WWII. The institute's ties to Nazi Germany through its director being leader of the German Nazi party in Greece deeply damaged its standing in the country — underscoring the entanglement between DAI Athens and Germany's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 'After WWII, it took time for the DAI Athens to regain the trust of the Greek community and reopen,' Sporn explains. The war left lasting scars, and Greeks remained wary of German institutions due to the atrocities committed during the occupation. Meanwhile, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) gained prominence in Greece by deliberately distancing itself from politics, establishing itself as another of Greece's most prominent foreign archaeological and historical education and research institutes. Today, the DAI Athens has long embraced modernity, digitizing its vast archives for global access and integrating new technologies into its research, particularly in the context of past human-nature relations, ancient land use and climate change. Like all Greek foreign archeological institutions, the DAI works in close collaboration with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. And by studying how ancient communities adapted to environmental shifts, the institute aims to offer insights into resilience strategies relevant today. 'By examining the past, the DAI Athens continues to research important topics of the present, which may offer perspectives for the future,' Sporn says. Cheryl Ann Novak is deputy chief editor at BHMA International Edition — Wall Street Journal Publishing Partnership
National Geographic
15-04-2025
- General
- National Geographic
The ancient empire that civilization forgot
They fought the Egyptians, sacked Babylon, and built elaborate cities. Then the Hittites vanished. Today, new discoveries are restoring the legend of a forgotten superpower. A procession of gods marches across the wall of what may have been a royal mausoleum near Hattusa, capital of the lost Hittite Empire. The ancient city—in what is today central Türkiye—was abandoned around 1180 B.C. Modern researchers are trying to find out why. At its height, the ancient city of Hattuşa, capital of the Hittite civilization, must have been awe-inspiring. Built into a steep hillside in what is today central Türkiye, the city was ringed by tall brick walls. It was home to as many as 7,000 people, vast temple complexes, and an imposing stone rampart visible from miles away. Today the hillside is home to a mystery. No pillars or high walls mark the ruins of the palace and temples that once stood—just stone foundations half-covered by dry grass. Some of the city's gates still stand, guarded by statues of lions, sphinxes, and an axe-wielding god. But much is gone. The mud-brick walls have crumbled over the centuries; floods and snowmelt have eroded the original hillside, sending buildings full of clay tablets cascading down the slopes. Fainter still are the clues that might explain what happened to the powerful Hittite people—a lost empire that researchers are now beginning to understand with greater clarity. The Hittites' selection of a capital in an inhospitable location, known for scorching summers and frigid winters, has long puzzled archaeologists. The disappearance of the Hittites, around 1180 B.C., was a vanishing act with few parallels in history. For at least 450 years, the Hittites controlled much of modern-day Türkiye and beyond—from close to the shores of the Black Sea to the rivers of Mesopotamia and the waters of the Mediterranean. They built sophisticated cities, impressive temples, and an elaborate palace in the rugged countryside of Anatolia. They authored massive archives of cuneiform tablets containing numerous ancient languages and sacred rituals. Their kings benefited from trade routes that reached far beyond the Hittite armies once even penetrated deep into Mesopotamia. Their tangle with Egypt's Ramses the Great at the Battle of Kadesh resulted in the world's first peace treaty. (3,200-year-old trees reveal the collapse of an ancient empire.) 'They were able to fight the Egyptians, and the Babylonians and Assyrians had to treat them as equals,' said Andreas Schachner of the German Archaeological Institute, which has been carrying out digs at the Hattuşa site for nearly a century. Yet 'the Egyptians, the Assyrians—they were all part of historical memory. The Hittites were extinguished completely.' Hattusa's vaulted gates were flanked by statues of fantastic figures, such as sphinxes, and these carved lions. Today little is left but their stone foundations. Visitors, traders, and foreign delegations entered the thriving city through several monumental gates. Scholars didn't register the Hittites' existence until 3,000 years later, when carvings at ancient Egyptian temples and diplomatic correspondence discovered on clay tablets set off an international hunt for the location of their capital. Little remained at the suspected site besides monumental foundations, but digs there in the early 1900s unearthed a trove of clay cuneiform tablets confirming suspicions that Hattuşa was the lost Hittite capital. From what they've continued to unearth at Hattuşa—a once vibrant center of commerce, culture, and conquest—researchers have compiled an eloquent record of life in the empire. They have assembled details on everything from royal squabbles and religious ceremonies to the proper punishment for killing a dog. Yet the causes for the empire's collapse remain mysterious. How did the mighty Hittites vanish without a trace—and what can their sudden end teach us today? In their effort to unlock the Hittite Empire's secrets, archaeologists are studying thousands of clay tablets found at Hattusa. This one, written in two languages, contains instructions on a purification ritual performed by the king and queen using precious materials like lapis lazuli, silver, and cedarwood. Hittite kings often made sacrifices to their gods, from simple libations to elaborate gifts like this bronze sword, found near Hattusa in 1991. Its Akkadian inscription dedicates the offering to the storm god in honor of a military victory. Between early June and late October, Schachner spends seven days a week crisscrossing Hattuşa and overseeing a team of Turkish and German archaeologists, as well as scores of local workers. He traverses the city's hills in a battered passenger van, his black dog, Nox, routinely at his side. As director of the German Archaeological Institute's excavations, he's been making sense of the site's jumbled ruins since 2006. 'Nothing is in its original place,' Schachner said with a sigh. 'There's so much destruction.' One day not long ago, I joined him at the city's Great Temple complex, a hub of ritual spaces, courtyards, storerooms, and secret chambers not far from what were Hattuşa's northern gates. I followed him as he wound his way through waist-high stone blocks, gesturing upward now and again to refer to the plastered and possibly painted walls that would have towered 30 feet above our heads. He took me to a space once considered the center of the Hittite universe: the Great Temple, dedicated to the storm god Tarhunna and his partner, the sun goddess of Arinna. Foundations surrounding the temple preserve the outlines of 80 storerooms that previously contained vessels full of wine, water, and grain. Researchers have discovered inventories hinting at the riches stored in the temple's treasury. 'When the king came back from a campaign, all the booty was for the storm god,' Schachner told me. 'He would have brought it here.' One question that Schachner hopes to resolve is why the Hittites situated their capital here. There are worse places than central Anatolia to base an empire, but not many. Halfway between the Black Sea and the deserts of Syria, Hattuşa sits in a land of unlikely extremes. Freshwater springs are abundant in the rocky, virtually unfarmable mountains nearby. The region's few plains, on the other hand, are bone-dry most of the year—unless they're submerged by seasonal floods. Close reading of Hittite texts, combined with environmental data, shows that droughts gripped the region every few decades, regularly pushing populations to the brink of starvation and beyond. Archaeologist Bülent Genç, who works with Schachner at Hattuşa, frames the mystery of why the city was built here with bemused admiration. 'Considering the climate and surroundings, it's mind-blowing that they had all this here,' said Genç, who teaches at Türkiye's Mardin Artuklu University. 'The real question is, how did they build an empire in the middle of this central Anatolian hell?' The Hittites carefully constructed four miles of mudbrick walls to protect the palace and temples of their mountainside capital in the heart of Anatolia. The answer: a combination of resilience, adaptation, and planning. For the centuries that they reigned, the lords of Hattuşa managed to squeeze just a little more out of the land than anyone before or since. Based on what we know of herding practices—and the myriad animal bones found at Hattuşa—Schachner thinks the surrounding hills supported tens of thousands of sheep and goats, providing a four-footed alternative to the irrigation-dependent farms that supported Egypt and Mesopotamia. To supply water for industrial and agricultural uses, the Hittites cut storage ponds into Hattuşa's hillsides. Dug into clay soil to be filled by groundwater, some were longer than an Olympic swimming pool and up to 26 feet deep. Immense, airtight underground pits, meanwhile, contained enough grain to feed their animals in periods of drought. Looming above Hattusa is Yerkapi, a massive pyramidal rampart that served as an entrance to the city. Archaeologist Bülent Genç points out the hieroglyphs he found in 2022 in a tunnel beneath Yerkapi. All of this infrastructure was surrounded by strong walls that ran for an astonishing four miles along the city perimeter, engineered to contend with the hilly terrain's steep slopes and deep ravines. Between 2003 and 2006, a 71-yard-long segment of it was reconstructed using only materials that would have been available to the Hittites, including wood, rock, and 3,000 tons of mud brick. Based on this experiment, researchers calculated that building just a half mile of wall would have taken a thousand men a year, a stunning feat of logistics. Touring the site with Schachner, I rode along as he piloted his van up a twisting, one-lane road to reach Hattuşa's highest spot. Here, the city's most impressive building project survives: Yerkapı, an elongated rampart standing 130 feet high and 820 feet long. The white stone embankment features a narrow gate decorated with sphinx statues. Adding to its imposing visual impact, a portion of the city's protective wall ran across the top. On a clear day this monumental structure is visible from 12 miles away, gleaming white amid the green and gray mountaintops. 'Imagine the ambassador of Babylonia, who's seen everything,' said Schachner, 'and then he turns this corner and sees this building that's as spectacular as anything in Mesopotamia or Egypt. I've seen a lot of sites and can't think of any that are as spectacular from a long way away as this one. This is how they executed control over the landscape.' Ruins of temples honoring a pantheon of gods cover the upper slopes of the Hittite capital. Amazingly, Hattuşa is still yielding new discoveries. The day after my trip up the mountain with Schachner, I returned to the summit to meet Genç at Yerkapı and found him at the mouth of a tunnel that passes underneath the rampart. He stood in an arched passageway that's about nine feet tall, 230 feet long, and wide enough to accommodate two people walking side by side. As I entered the unlit tunnel, I became acutely aware of the hundreds of tons of dirt and rock above our heads. Genç, the grandson of a stonemason, wasn't worried. 'This all interconnects, like a tapestry made of stone,' he said, gesturing to the tunnel walls. 'It takes really fine masons to make this.' Halfway down the passageway, we stopped. Bending low, Genç showed me a pinkish, palm-size painting on the stone wall—a symbol, one of 249 that he discovered in the tunnel in 2022. With each glyph representing a word, the symbols had somehow gone unnoticed by the hundreds of archaeologists—and hundreds of thousands of curious tourists—who have passed through the tunnel since it was rediscovered in 1834. Since Genç's find, made with the light of his cell phone, Schachner has worked with imaging specialists to scan the tunnel's interior, creating a 3D model that might help scientists fathom the symbols' significance. For example, some marks appear in threes, like the glyphs for 'mountain' and 'path' and the symbol representing the holy mountain Tudhaliya, as well as the god by the same name. 'Maybe it's meant to say 'the path through Mount Tudhaliya,' ' Schachner said. This same bronze sword, photographed at Istanbul Airport Museum, was found near Hattusa in 1991. Far from the tunnel, symbols on a very different wall have provided critical information on the reach and power of the Hittites. When archaeologists in Egypt uncovered the funeral temple of Pharaoh Ramses II—also known as Ramses the Great—they found references to a battle that remains perhaps the Hittites' most enduring contribution to history. In his temple complex along the Nile River, Ramses, one of Egypt's strongest rulers, documented the most memorable moments of his reign, including his 1274 B.C. battle with the forces of Hittite king Muwatallis II at Kadesh, an ancient city not far from modern-day Damascus. A floor-to-ceiling relief depicts the pharaoh's heroics in the face of what he claimed were nearly 50,000 Hittite warriors. Egyptian and Hittite chariots wheel and charge as a larger-than-life Ramses surveys the bloody chaos. (The Hittites' fast war chariots threatened mighty Egypt.) Stone reliefs at the open-air sanctuary of Yazilikaya, near Hattusa, show a king (at right) and a Hittite god. Today many historians consider the Battle of Kadesh the biggest chariot battle ever fought. Rather than a resounding victory for Ramses, though, the clash was probably more of a stalemate: In the aftermath, the frontier separating the two empires barely shifted. Relations between the two powers remained unresolved for 15 years, until Ramses and Muwatallis's successor worked out the world's oldest known parity treaty. Inscribed on tablets of silver, with copies made in clay, the 1259 B.C. accord promised mutual assistance against invaders and 'a good peace and a good fraternity between the land of Egypt and the land of Hatti forever.' The agreement marked a pivotal shift in the annals of statecraft. 'Up until that moment, the rule was winner take all. Peace treaties were the winner dictating to the losers,' Schachner pointed out. 'The Hittites and the Egyptians decided not to continue that way.' The Treaty of Kadesh describes the two rulers as equals and peace as an end in itself. It's the beginning of modern diplomacy—one reason a copy of the agreement hangs at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. (A fragmented clay original, found at Hattuşa in 1906, is on display at the Istanbul Airport Museum.) A century before the Hittite Empire vanished, its forces fought the Egyptians in what is believed to be history's biggest chariot battle. It ended in a draw; 15 years after the conflict, the empires settled their differences with one of the world's oldest known peace treaties. Illustration by Fernando G. Baptista and Patricia Healy Diplomacy and religion were crucial tools for the Hittites, who referred to their empire as the Land of a Thousand Gods. When they conquered or took control of a group of people, they permitted the subjugated to keep their religious practices. Rather than wiping out local deities, they folded them into the Hittite Empire and pantheon. Holy statues from temples, thought to embody the gods themselves, were transported to Hattuşa's temple district and worshipped there the way they were at home. (These pharaohs' private letters expose how politics worked 3,300 years ago.) Temple archives record the problems with this approach, like gods who didn't speak Hittite. In one example, after a new god was brought from the island of Lesbos, the Hittites realized that no one knew how to talk to it. A sheep was sacrificed, and its innards were examined to determine if the new god could accept being worshipped Hittite style (yes, was the answer discerned in the sheep's intestines). 'They didn't want to anger the gods,' Willemijn Waal, a Hittitologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told me. 'But at the same time, they're very pragmatic. It's kind of adorable.' It was also a key to their success. 'They were able to bring people together not by brutal despotism but by persuasion, using religion and beliefs,' Schachner said. 'That is unique. That is what makes them so special.' What we know about the Hittites is, by the standards of ancient history, incredibly new. Hittite writing wasn't unlocked until 1915, when a linguist in Prague named Bedřich Hrozný realized that the unearthed tablets were written in an Indo-European language—the earliest known example of a family that today includes everything from English to Sanskrit. Over the past century, more than 30,000 remnants of clay tablets have been recovered from Hattuşa and other Hittite cities. More are found every year. That constant flow of brand-new information makes Hittitology one of the most dynamic, fast-moving fields of ancient history. In the village of Karakiz, some 50 miles east of Hattusa, Ferhat and his grandson live steps from an unfinished lion sculpture, made by Hittite artists 3,200 years ago. Late one afternoon, I found Daniel Schwemer, a researcher from Germany's University of Würzburg, seated at a table in the German Archaeological Institute's 'dig house' in Boğazkale, the village next to Hattuşa's ruins. Schwemer is part of a small community of scholars who specialize in reading and translating Hittite texts. Every autumn he comes to Hattuşa to see what's been found during the summer's excavations. 'It's a bit like unpacking Christmas presents,' Schwemer said. 'You really never know what you'll get.' Each new find has the potential to change what we know about Bronze Age empires. It's 'an area where history is still in the process of being written,' Schwemer said. 'Documents are coming out of the ground nobody has seen for thousands of years.' Of course, answers to a question at the heart of Hittite research remain elusive: What happened to them? Theories abound, from political unrest to climate change, but a lone explanation seems unlikely to be found. 'There's no single reason why such a complex society disintegrates and completely disappears from history,' Schachner said. Instead, a 'perfect storm' of factors probably pushed the Hittites to the limits and then beyond. Raiders were a constant threat, for example. Tribes known as the Kaska living along the Black Sea coast show up in tablets, destroying temples and desecrating statues before dividing up 'the priests, the holy priests, the priestesses, the anointed ones, the musicians, the singers, the cooks, the bakers, the plowmen, and the gardeners, and [making] them their servants.' Natural disasters, too, strained the Hittite Empire from time to time. Recent finds from a site called Şapinuva suggest powerful earthquakes regularly rocked the Hittite heartland. About 40 miles northeast of Hattușa, at Şapinuva's palace and temple complex, excavations revealed walls and floors that rippled like waves. Archaeologists discovered buildings and storehouses consumed in a huge fire—all clues the city was hit by a devastating quake. The Hittites successfully handled these and different challenges for years—until, suddenly, they didn't. By about 1250 B.C., the tablets begin to show the strains of the empire's final century. Palace infighting and royal assassination attempts grew rampant, making it hard for Hattuşa's leaders to maintain control over their subjects. Epidemic diseases were a problem too: The tablets contain prayers to ward off plagues. And changes in language and writing styles in the empire's final decades may be signs of social strife or upheaval, signs their multiethnic state was under strain. The latest findings suggest climate change and a series of natural disasters helped accelerate the empire's decline. In a 2023 study, researchers analyzed preserved wood recovered from Gordion, a city on the western outskirts of the Hittite Empire. By measuring tree rings, they could tell nearby forests were unusually stressed between 1198 and 1196 B.C., evidence of a punishing, three-year drought right around the time the Hittite Empire was ending. The drought may have sparked famine. Archaeologists found empty grain depots at Hattuşa, Şapinuva, and other abandoned Hittite cities. Letters reflect the desperation of Hittite kings, who begged foreign leaders to send barley and wheat as 'a matter of life and death.' And invaders referred to as Sea Peoples in Egyptian chronicles caused chaos that rippled all across the Mediterranean, weakening old alliances and prompting mass migrations. 'That was the salt and pepper on the dish,' said Genç. Around 1180 B.C., the Hittites methodically abandoned their capital. There are no signs of battle or conquest; no mass graves, no toppled towers or buildings. Temple storehouses full of gold and silver vessels, gilded spears, and booty from successful military campaigns—elaborately described in festival instructions and inventory lists but missing today—must have been packed up and evacuated. Afterward, the city burned. But in a final irony, the flames that destroyed Hattuşa preserved its story: Too heavy to move from their archives, the thousands of clay tablets the Hittites amassed over the course of roughly four centuries were left behind. Fire baked them into hard bricks, helping them survive the ensuing centuries intact. 'The advantage—for us—is that all these clay tablets were left behind when everyone fled the capital,' Schwemer said. 'What remained was the paperwork.' Until a tablet emerges inscribed with an account of Hattuşa's last days, the mystery abides. The Hittites managed to adapt to a harsh environment and grow into a mighty empire despite their surroundings, until circumstances beyond their control upset their delicate balancing act. The Hittites' collapse, and their recent rediscovery, is a testament to the importance of resilience—and good recordkeeping. A version of this story appears in the May 2025 issue of National Geographic and artifacts are photographed with permission of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. For this story, Andrew Curry, who is based in Berlin, roamed the harsh Anatolian hill country. He's written for National Geographic since 2012 and is a contributing correspondent for Science. A National Geographic Explorer since 2019, photojournalist Emin Özmen has traveled the world on assignment. For this story, he returned to the area of his Turkish hometown, Sivas. His work has also appeared in Time, the New York Times, and Le Monde.
Jordan Times
05-04-2025
- Science
- Jordan Times
'Well-preserved' Iron Age fortifications, marine shells unearthed at Tell Bleibil
AMMAN — Located in the eastern part of the southern Jordan Valley, Tell Bleibil has been researched by a team of scholars from German Archaeological Institute from Berlin. Between 2021 and 2023, scholars focused on the Iron Age fortifications and large parts of one of the structures were excavated along the northern flank of the tell, exposing an exceptionally well-preserved Iron Age IIA/B–C (middle/late 9th–late 7th/early 6th century BC) casemate wall built of mud bricks (referred to as 'Building Aˮ), of which one room (Room 3) has been excavated down to the Iron Age floor level. "Room 3 was filled with heavily burnt and subsequently collapsed debris from the upper storey, attesting to a massive conflagration towards the end of the Iron Age, most probably dating to the early 6th century BC, based on diagnostic pottery specimens found within the debris," said archaeologist Alexander Ahrens. This conflagration destroyed the entire building and settlement, and brought an end to this construction phase," said Ahrens. The archaeologist added that objects retrieved from the debris of Room 3 consist of a number of complete pottery vessels, several oil lamps, a large number of loom weights, larger and smaller grinding stones, and two door sockets, clearly coming from the storey above the actual corridor. Within this debris, also four mollusc shells were retrieved. While found within the material filling Room 3, these objects clearly were used or stored in the upper storey located above the corridor room at the time the conflagration took place. "All four specimens are bivalve shells, three single valves of Glycymeris and a fragmentary oyster," Ahrens said. Glycymeris is a cosmopolitan genus of marine bivalves, and specimens found in the Jordan Valley could thus come from any of the marine basins of the Middle East. Of the three shells found at Tell Bleibil, two are realistically too poorly preserved to be determined at species level, Ahrens elaborated. The archaeologist added that the smallest specimen has been strongly abraded and polished by wave action. "Judging from its rather sharp, steep margins, the hole near the umbo has either been artificially enlarged or is entirely artificial," Ahrens said. "The second specimen is only a valve fragment, and equally polished and rounded at its dorsal and posterior sides; breakages along the anterior and ventral sides, however, appear rather fresh. The hole near the umbo could equally result from natural abrasion or human action," Ahrens highlighted. The third valve is larger, and only its margins are slightly abraded. The ligament area and shell interior are well preserved. As in most species of Glycymeris, the combination of its shell outline and inflation is rather characteristic, Ahrens explained. The archaeologist noted that the shell is moderately inflated, slightly in equilateral, and not perfectly rounded, with an obliquely truncated posterior-dorsal margin, and a rounded posterior corner. The shell is widest at the level of this corner. This morphology is typical of the Mediterranean Glycymeris Pilosa, Ahrens underlined, noting that in the rather similar Indian Ocean species Glycymeris livida this corner is usually sharper, the posterior-ventral margin instead of the posterior-dorsal one is obliquely truncated, and the shell is generally slightly wider than high. Valves of Glycymeris are encountered at most archaeological sites in the southern Levant, particularly those from the Iron Age, but also from earlier periods. Single valves have often been used as pendants or in some other utilitarian fashion by intentionally making a hole at the umbo, or perhaps by enlarging a hole originally created by natural abrasion. "This is also the case for two of the specimens found at Tell Bleibil, which are both clearly abraded and polished by wave action," Ahrens said. "The third shell is almost entire. The differences in preservation and colour between the three specimens are due to the fact that one of the three shells – in the course of the collapse of the upper storey – was apparently deposited in heavily ash-laden debri; the other two were not, and preserve their original colour," the archaeologist noted. "It seems reasonable to assume that all three shells came from the Mediterranean coast, given that this is ascertained for the large specimen," Ahrens underscored.
