This was the temple’s most sacred area, for it housed the statue of
the temple’s deity, life-sized or larger and gleaming in the gold and
silver plating with which the statue’s wooden core was coated. The
courtyard provided a venue for rites associated with the worship of
the god. But attendance at these and indeed access to any part of the
temple was restricted to the priests in the god’s service, including of
course the king and the queen who were by reason of their office
the chief priest and priestess of the Hittite world. Many rituals and
festival events must have taken place in the temple’s courtyard,
including perhaps royal coronation ceremonies.
A total of 31 temples have been discovered so far within the city
(more may come to light). All are in the Upper City, with the
exception of the largest and most important of them, the Lower
City’s Temple of the Storm God (and probably the Sun Goddess).
In its latest known phase, the temple has been dated to the
fourteenth–thirteenth centuries, though beneath the terrace on
which it was built there are almost certainly remains of earlier phases
of its existence. The gods’statues stood on bases at the rear of their
shrines, and in contrast to the dim windowless interiors of the
Figure 21.8 Upper City temples, Hattusa.
CITY OF TEMPLES AND BUREAUCRATS:THE ROYAL CAPITAL 211