Research Information System
International meeting of the International Council for Archaeozoology “Future of Past Animals: Perspectives in Zooarchaeology”, Stockholm, Sweden, 15 - 19 June 2022
“Animal sacrificial
offerings at Sapinuwa, a religious center of the Hittite empire, Late Bronze
Age, Turkey”.
In the Late Bronze age, the Hittites established the first state –
empire in Anatolia. It was a feudalistic and theocratic state in which religion
and rituals had outmost importance for consolidating the power of the kings. A
study of animal bones recovered from Sapinuwa excavations was initiated with
the aim to reconstruct the rituals for which the site is famous. Hittite
rituals are studied to date through the textual evidence where a large amount
of information is given. The remains of actual animal sacrifices are rarely
uncovered in archaeological excavations and studied. In Şapinuva, we have a
large area, called Ağılönü, devoted exclusively to religious activities. There
many sacrificial pits were excavated and almost all of them contained animal
bones from these sacrifices. An appraisal of these findings is presented.