Introduction

E

verywhere you go in Ankara today, you’llfind reminders
of the Hittites. You can hail a Hittite Taxi Service cab to
take you to an eating-place called the Hittite restaurant,
or negotiate a price with the cabbie to drive you to the Hittite
capital Hattusa, some 160 km to the east. There in the modern
village called Boghazkale, you can stay overnight in a hostelry
with a‘WELCOME TO HATTUSA’signaboveit.Andonceback
in Ankara, you can check into a hotel called the LUGAL. That
word means‘King’in Hittite inscriptions. Alongside one of the
thoroughfares into Ankara’s central business district, you’ll see
a monumental image of a stagflanked by two bulls, all three

Figure I.1 Modern Hittite hospitality.