gorge or stand atop Büyükkaya. So too will you understand the
name of the modern village Boghazkale–‘Gorge Castle’(formerly
called Boghazköy,‘Gorge Village’) which lies adjacent to the site.
When combined with its impressive built fortifications, Hattusa’s
natural defences made at least its citadel area reasonably secure
against enemy attack.
The city had other important natural features as well. In that
period, the region within which it lay was thickly forested –
essential in the provision of the large quantities of timber required
both for the construction of Hattusa’s defences and its palace,
temples and residential buildings as well as for the manufacture of
its tools, weapons and transport vehicles. A further feature was the
seven springs that provided the city with an abundant all-year-
round supply of water. Hattusili may also have believed he would
be better placed to assert and maintain control over the volatile
northern part of his kingdom by moving his capital to the region–
though Kussar continued to hold a revered place in Hittite royal
tradition as the ancestral home of the royal family.
But there were a number of negatives to locating the royal
capital at Hattusa. Firstly, lying as it did on top of the Anatolian
plateau, it was subject to extremely harsh environmental
conditions – hot, dry summers and winters so cold that the
capital was regularly isolated by heavy snow from the rest of
Hatti’s extensive territories and subject-lands through Anatolia
and northern Syria. Given too the homeland’shighdegreeof
dependence on its farm produce, droughts and severe storms in
the region could cause serious crop failures on the one hand or
wipe out the season’s food supplies on the other. Secondly, though
a combination of natural and built fortifications gave the capital
itself reasonable protection against its enemies, the whole region
within the Marassantiya basin, the Hittite homeland, was highly
vulnerable to enemy invasions. It did in fact suffer such invasions
on a number of occasions, notably from a people called the
Hurrians of northern Mesopotamia and northern Syria, but from
other peoples as well.
The relocation of the capital may have helped Hattusili reassert
his control over the northern part of his kingdom, which hefinally
THE DAWN OF THE HITTITE ERA 27