Merging the Natural and Constructed Landscape of the Hittites

Lee Ullmann
Graduate Student, Columbia University, Department of Art History and Archaeology

The Hittite tradition of embedding images throughout the natural terrain is distinct from the surrounding cultures of Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean in the Middle to Late Bronze Age. Even after more than a hundred and fifty years since the rediscovery of the Hittites, the relationship among settlements, religious shrines, relief carvings, and the natural topography still remains unclear. To date Hittite locales have been studied in isolation, thus neglecting how the Hittites envisioned and constructed their built environment. Consequently, we fail to understand the function of space and place within the sites and the relationship between the sites. In this presentation I will discuss how the Hittites conceptually merged the natural landscape with images of their rulers and gods and thus established an imaginary network of lines that linked the settlements with the ritual sanctuaries and simultaneously demarcated the extent of their land. I argue that the built environment of the Hittites was contingent on the natural topography of the Land of Hatti; this meant that the use of space was a reflection of how the Hittites saw themselves as part of a larger triad that encompassed the gods, the human realm, and the natural terrain. Therefore, I will consider the monumental images and settlement patterns as part of an ensemble of sites purposefully placed within the Hittite landscape. This comprehensive approach aims to identify correlations between the placement of the carvings and a greater imperial network of shrines and settlements connected to these rock reliefs. Furthermore, it will be argued that the intentional construction and placement of architecture was part of the larger Hittite vision of constructed space as an extension of the natural environment. My talk will address both the significance of place and the function of space in the art, architecture, and landscape of the Hittites.