THE HATTIAN PERIOD
One of the most important cultures of early Anatolia was created by the
people of Hatti, who lived in the central and southern parts of the peninsula during the
second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The language of the Land of Hatti,
preserved only in fragments and differing from all other Asian, Near Eastern and
Indo-European languages, is chiefly recognizable in its extensive use of prefixes.
Magnificent works of art in gold, silver and electrum, dating from between 2500 and 2000
BC. and found in Alacahöyük and some other places in the northern part of Central Asia
Minor, may be considered as achievements of the people of Hatti. These Bronze Age finds
now form a splendid collection in the Ankara Museum.
Some of the objects found in the royal tombs of Alacahöyük include
metal drinking vessels executed in a highly accomplished technique, various articles of
jewelry and works of cast bronze inlaid with gold and silver. The ritual standard, a
bronze stag with a silver head and antlers and silver inlay patterns on its body, must
have made a deep impression on the worshippers at their religious ceremonies. As we can
deduce by analogy with the succeeding Anatolian period, the stag was a theriomorphic
representation of Wurusenu, the chief goddess of the land of Hatti. Her
consort, the weather god, was worshipped exclusively in the shape of a bull, just as at
Çatalhöyük four thousand years earlier. Several bull statuettes were found at Alacahöyük which were produced in similar form and by
means of the same process as the stag standard mentioned above. These theriomorphic images
were presumably fixed to a baldachin or throne-like seat. Typical features of these animal
figures are the sloping shoulders, elongated hindquarters and long tapering muzzle.
Although the body has a stylized, abstract form, the rendering is essentially
naturalistic. The attractive ornamental decoration gives these works a naive charm and
fascination.
From the same tombs at Alacahöyük curious standards in the form of
solar discs were brought to light. These discs, mounted on poles and fixed by means of
straps or cords, were carried by priests at religious ceremonies. With their impressive
aura of mystery these standards are symbols of the cosmos which still cast a strange and
powerful spell on the beholder. Large bulls' horns frame and support the standards in
exactly the same way that bull-men carry the celestial sign on the Yazılıkaya reliefs.
These bulls' horns recall the Turkish legend which says that the world rests on the horns
of an ox. According to the legend, the earth trembles whenever the ox shakes its head. The
precious standards of the Hattian priest-kings may be the earliest symbolic
representations of this belief.
The royal tombs of Alacahöyük and the recently discovered tombs at Mahmatlar
and Horoztepe have yielded an abundance of excellent art works which can
be regarded without doubt as the most beautiful products of the prehistoric age. These
precious treasures were made of gold, silver and bronze. It is astonishing to find that
over a thousand years before the Iron Age one of the sword blades found was made of iron.
This proves that during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium Central Anatolia enjoyed a
highly developed and homogeneous civilization which, although it did not yet have a
writing system, played a leading role in the mining and working of precious metals.
|
