Yazilikaya

HATUSAS & YAZILIKAYA

Hatusas was once a great and impressive city, well defended by stone walls over 6 km length. Today the ruins consist mostly of reconstructed foundations, walls and a few rock carvings, but there are several more interesting features. The first site you come to is the great temple of the storm god, a vast complex that's almost a town in itself, with its own water and draining system, storerooms and ritual altars. It dates from the 14th century BC and it seems to be destroyed  in around 1200 BC. There is much more to see as Sari Kale a fort, the Lion gate, Sphinx gate, a 70 metre tunnel beneath the walls, and the kings gate.

Yazilikaya is an other site just under three km from Bogaskale, it was always a naturalistic religious sanctuary open to the sky, but in later times monumental gateways and temple structures were build in front of the natural rock galleries. There are two natural rock galleries. In the large gallery, the low relief's of numerous cone head gods and goddesses marching in procession indicate that this was Hittites holiest religious sanctuary.