Sapinuwa

Sapinuwa or Shapinuwa (modern Ortaköy, Turkey) was a Bronze Age Hittite city.

Digs

In the first excavated region was a Cyclopean-walled building dubbed "Building A". Building A has yielded 3000 tablets and fragments. They were stored in three separate archives on an upper floor, which collapsed when the building was burnt.

At Kadilar Hoyuk, 150 metres southeast of Building A, "Building B" has proven to be a depot filled with earthenware jars. Another building features an "orthostat that looks like the relief of Tudhaliyas at Yazilikaya".

Findings

Identification of the site as Sapinuwa immediately corrected a misunderstanding in Hittite geography. Due to the luck of the draw in the archives at Hattusas, Sapinuwa had been thought to be a primarily Hurri-influenced city. Scholars of the Hattusas archive therefore positioned Sapinuwa to the southeast of Hattusa. Now Sapinuwa, and therefore the cities associated with it, are known to be to Hattusas's northeast.

The Building A tablets are mostly in Hittite; but also in Hurrian, "Hitto-Hurrian", Akkadian, and Hattian. In addition there are bilingual texts, not heretofore known, in Hittite / Hattian and in Hittite / Hurrian; vocabulary lists in Hittite / Sumerian / Akkadian; and seal impressions in Hieroglyphic Luwian.

Oguz Soysal, on behalf of the Ortaköy-Sapinuwa Epigraphical Research project, notes that the documents include "letters, lists of persons, tablet-catalogs, oracular texts, prayers, rituals and festival descriptions".

As of 2004, the archive had not been published. Publication of one text, a vocabulary text, along with further discussion of the site, has appeared in Aygul Suel's and Oguz Soysal's article, "A Practical Vocabulary from Ortakoy" (in Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday; eds. G. Beckman, R. Beal, and G. McMahon; Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 2003) p.349-365. The most recent publication from the excavation was Süel's ‘Ortaköy-Shapinuwa’, in Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History, Papers in Memory of Hans G. Güterbock, eds. K. A. Yener and H. A. Hoffner (Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 2002), pp. 157–65.

Dating

An unsourced 1998 report on the Hurrians has dated Building A to "1304+-37 BC". [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Labyrinth/2398/bginfo/ac/hurrians.html] The unrounded "+-37" is consistent with Kuniholm's 1993-1995 method of dendrochronological wiggle-matching upon finds of wood. Assuming that this date had held while Kuniholm's group continued their research, as of 2003 this author would likely argue for 1287-90 BC. [http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/TUBA-ARCaptured.pdf] This is consistent with an attack under Muwatalli II, likely that which forced the flight of the Hittite court to Tarhuntassa. However it disagrees with the character of the texts, which assume a time a century prior.

The Aegean Dendrochronology Project in its December 2001 progress report tentatively redated Sapinuwa's charcoal samples to that prior, 14th century BC. A few years later, those on the project wrote, "The Hittite site of Ortakoy/Sapinuwa is still giving us problems, and we are holding back on reporting dates until we determine what is going on there, but the excavator, Prof. Aygul Suel, has now reported major quantities of charcoal collected in 2002 and we will retrieve them in the summer of 2003." [http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/Bochum%202005.pdf] In December 2003, project leader Kuniholm reported that the group's research aide and 'lab boss' was "finishing off a new building ["i.e." not A] at Hittite Ortaköy, the one with the orthostate that looks like the relief of Tudhaliyas at Yazilikaya. It does not have timbers as long as one might wish, but I think she is going to be able to report a date in the very early 14th century BC." [http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/2003News/ADP2003.html] This time period is more consistent with the character of Building A's archive; however, it must be stressed that any such findings have not yet been subjected to publication or review.

History

Focus on Ortakoy writes, "The strategic location of Shapinuwa is very important. The mountains surrounding the city, the plateau ascending in terraces on the Amasya Plain, and the fortification facilities starting as far as 5 km ("sic") enable the city to be easily defendable. Since the city has a key location in between Alaca and Amasya plains, as long as the city, which is two-days distance from Hattusas, stands still, the roads to Bogazkoy - Hattusas are under control. As well as there are traces of military and religious architecture of the upper city on the hills to the west, the need for water and timber were being supplied from these hills."

The Hittites commonly invoked the Storm God of Sapinuwa alongside the Storm God of Nerik. Since Hattus [a] was to the south and Nerik likely further north, both initially Hattic-speaking; given the presence of the Hattic language in the Sapinuwa archive (and apparent paucity of the Palaic language); and given that its name makes sense in Hattic as a theophoric ("sapi" = "god"): it is likely that Hattians founded Sapinuwa as well. In that case, the Nesian-speaking people would have taken over Sapinuwa at the same time they took Nerik and Hattusa, in the 17th century BC.

The Hittites' enemy at that frontier during the 15th century BC were the Kaskas.

Oguz Soysal wrote, "The excavators of Ortaköy believe that this city was a second capital of the Hittites, or a royal residence, for a specific period, namely during the Middle Hittite Kingdom, ca. late 15th century B.C." However, "Most of the epigraphic finds are dated to the last phase of the Hittite Middle Kingdom (ca. 1400-1380 B.C.)", contemporary with Tudhaliya I and the archive at Maşat Höyük.

It is presumed that the Kaska were responsible for the 14th century BC burnings which turned some of the building materials into coal. The Hittite court moved away, probably to Samuha, and did not rebuild Sapinuwa.

Sequence of Excavation

Ortaköy was isolated in a survey in 1989, and Ankara University quickly obtained permission from the Ministry of Culture to begin excavation. This commenced in the following year.

Building A was excavated first, and then Building B in 1995. The building with the Yazılıkaya-style orthostate and 14th century BC charcoal was excavated after 2000.

Aygül Süel has been the head of excavations at this site, from 1996 to at least 2002.

External links

* [http://www.focusmm.com/civcty/ortky_00.htm ORTAKÖY - SHAPINUWA (A Hittite City)]
* [http://users.ameritech.net/osoysal/oguz.html Description of the Ortaköy-Sapinuwa Epigraphical Research project]