Hattusa Green Stone
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The Hattusa Green Stone is a roughly cubic block of nephrite standing in the remains of the Great Temple at Hattusa, capital of the Hittites in the late Bronze Age. Now on the hill above Boğazkale, in the Turkish Province of Corum, Hattusa is a World Heritage Site.
The original purpose of the stone is unknown, but it is a tourist attraction, as it has a magical reputation for granting wishes.
Location[edit]
The remains of at least thirty-one temples survive at Hattusa, which itself covers some four hundred acres (162 hectares). One of these, called by archaeologists "the Great Temple" and "Temple 1", stands on a raised platform and measures 215 by 140 feet (65 by 42 metres).[1][2] This is believed to have been for the worship of the Sun-goddess and the Storm-god Tarḫunna, due to their importance to the Hittites and the stone bases of statues which survive. The Green Stone was found in a small room of the temple at the southern end of the street leading from the gateway. It remains there, open to the weather.[2][3] By comparison with the door sills, the stone now sits below ground level, suggesting that this was not its original position.[4]
Description and purpose[edit]
A block of nephrite, a dark green mineral which is common in the region, and dressed into the form of a cube, the Green Stone is supposed to have had some religious use or purpose, but what it may have been is unknown.[1] The suggestion has been made that it may have been merely the base of a statue.[5] However, the stone is the only one of its kind found at Hattusa.[6]
Professor Andreas Schachner, director of archaeology at the site, commented in 2019 that he believed the stone had been used by the Hittites and all the civilizations which came after them, but why it was brought to the temple and what it was used for there remained to be discovered.[6][7]
The local inhabitants call the stone a "wish stone".[6] Its magical reputation and the mystery of its origins draw many tourists from Turkey and other countries to visit it every day.[8]
Gallery[edit]
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A view of the stone in 2016 -
The stone in context in 2018 -
From another angle
Notes[edit]
- ^ a b Clyde E. Fant, Mitchell G. Reddish, A Guide to Biblical Sites in Greece and Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 420
- ^ a b Titus Kennedy, The Essential Archaeological Guide to Bible Lands: Uncovering Biblical Sites of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean World (Harvest House Publishers, 2023), pp. 381–382
- ^ Dana Facaros, Michael Pauls, Turkey (Globe Pequot Press, 1988), p. 286
- ^ Jürgen Seeher, Hattuscha-Führer: Ein Tag in der hethitischen Hauptstadt (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 4th edition with revisions, 2011, ISBN 978-605-5607-57-9) p. 12
- ^ Damien Stone, The Hittites: Lost Civilizations (2023), p. 84
- ^ a b c "Archaeologists strive to solve mystery of giant ancient green rock in central Turkey", Daily Sabah, 27 September 2019, accessed 27 October 2923
- ^ Andreas Schachner, "Hattusa and its Environs: Archaeology", in Hittite Landscape and Geography, Handbuch der Orientalistik I: 121 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017) pp. 37‒49
- ^ Gazi Nogay. "Turkey: Big green mysterious stone lures tourists – Magical wish stone is located in Turkey's Black Sea province of Corum", Anadolu Agency, 27 September 2019, accessed 27 October 2023
External links[edit]
- "The Mysterious Green Stone of Hattusa", Ancient Architects, YouTube