Hattusa

Hattusa (also Ḫattuša or Hattusas or Hattusha) was the capital, during two periods, of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, (originally Boğazköy) within the great loop of the Kızılırmak River (Hittite: Marashantiya; Greek: Halys). Hattusa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1986. History The earliest traces of settlement on the site are from the sixth millennium BC during the Chalcolithic period. Toward the end of the 3rd Millenium BC the Hattian people established a settlement on locations that had been occupied even earlier and referred to the site as Hattush. In the 19th and 18th centuries BC, merchants from Assyria, centered at Kanesh (Neša) (modern Kültepe) established a trading post there, setting up in their own separate quarter of the lower city. A carbonized layer apparent in excavations attests to the burning and ruin of the city of Hattusa around 1700 BC. The responsible party appears to have been King Anitta from Kussara, who took credit for the act and erected an inscribed curse for good measure: