Büklükale

Kimiyoshi Matsumura JIAA

About the Site

Büklükale is located about 100 km from Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, where the route from Ankara to Kaman crosses the Kızılırmak, the longest river in Turkey. This location has been a key transportation crossroads since ancient times, and Büklükale has controlled it.

Büklükale (2008)

Büklükale (2008)

In 1991 and 2006, Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology investigated the site and conducted a surface collection of artifacts as part of its annual general survey of Central Anatolia. On a rocky promontory overlooking the river is a huge architectural remain and below the promontory the remains of a settlement surround this structure. Based on the pottery shards collected from the surface, Büklükale is a city belonging to the last half of the 2nd millennium B.C., or the Hittite Empire Period.

At Kaman-Kalehöyük, the layer belonging to the Hittite Empire Period is not very thick and is destroyed by later buildings belonging to the Iron Age. Büklükale appears to belong to this period that is not well preserved at Kaman-Kalehöyük, and so may fill gaps in our knowledge and help to reconstruct a more complete, continuous cultural history of Central Anatolia. For this reason, the site was chosen for further investigation.

In 2008, a topographic survey, a magnetic survey, and a surface collection survey were conducted, and the site was photographed from the air using a balloon. The magnetic survey revealed that a structure with huge foundation stones covers the area on top of the promontory. During the topographic survey, a line of huge stones over 2m high was found on the side of the site that faces the river.

Line of large stones near the top of the site

Line of large stones near the top of the site

Among the artifacts collected on the top of the rocky promontory are some pottery shards that look like gray wares belonging to the last half of the Iron Age and many shards belonging to the Hittite Empire Period. It is thought that overlying the immense architectural remain belonging to the Hittite Empire Period is a thin occupation layer belonging to the last half of the Iron Age. A pottery shard decorated with a bird design distinct to Sardis, the capital city of Lydia, supports this Iron Age date.

Based on the typology and distribution of the collected pottery shards, the city surrounding the rocky promontory is thought to be a single-period city belonging to the Hittite Empire Period and having a diameter of 500 m.

From the research conducted to date, it has become clear that Büklükale is an immense site of the Hittite Empire Period that is likely to provide information on a period that is present but less well preserved in the stratigraphy of Kaman-Kalehöyük.