BOGHAZKÖY

BOGHAZKÖY. – This is the Turkish name of a small village east of Ankara in Turkey, well known among scholars of ancient Oriental civilizations because nearby lie the ruins of the capital of the Hittite Empire, Hattušša, where, at various times and even very recently, significant remains of the archives and state library of this nation have been discovered. The writings brought to light are inscribed on clay tablets with cuneiform characters, the vast majority in the Hittite language, but many others written in other languages of the empire, such as Carian, Luwian, Palaic, Hurrian, Sumerian, and even Akkadian, i.e., Babylonian and Assyrian. These are the tablets of B., which have shed so much light on the civilization of Asia Minor from around 1800 to 1200 B.C. Among the tablets are represented almost all literary genres: from international treaties to prayers, the *Annals* of Hittite kings, dictionaries, and Hittite and Hurrian versions of the Mesopotamian epic poem of the hero Gilgameš. Most of the tablets have been published in *facsimile*, but not all have been translated or interpreted (v. dei).