Image Details

Scala/Art Resource, NY

Two stone sphinxes (only one is visible in the photo) stand guard at the gateway to Alaca Hüyük, a Late Bronze Age Hittite site not far from Hattusa. Various processional and hunting scenes were carved in low relief on adjacent stone blocks. Alaca Hüyük’s perimeter walls once enclosed a thriving city of residential houses, shop-lined streets and a royal palace. All were abandoned by the end of the 13th century B.C., when the Hittite Empire collapsed—perhaps at the hands of marauding Sea Peoples.