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In 701 B.C.E., an African king marched into Syria-Palestine to defend Judah against the invasion of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Second Kings 19:9 mentions "Tirhakah, king of Cush," coming to the help of Hezekiah, who was up against the Assyrian superpower. Though the Cushites are mentioned only briefly in the biblical text, a number of scholars have argued that their involvement in the conflict against Assyria was decisive in the survival of Jerusalem at this critical historical juncture...The 25th Dynasty of Egypt, which lasted for about a hundred years, from the mid-eighth century to the mid-seventh century B.C.E., was Cushite...

Dr. Zahi Hawass, one of the most famous Egyptologists and the former Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, has criticized Netflix for its controversial decision to cast Cleopatra with a black actress in an upcoming docuseries. The new Netflix series, dubbed “Queen Cleopatra”, which is produced and narrated by the American actress Jada Pinkett Smith, has sparked fierce debate over the misrepresentation of history and representation in TV and media. Hawass, who is Egypt’s most recognizable archaeologist, decried the decision by Netflix to portray Cleopatra as being of black descent, pointing out that the historical figure “was Greek”. Zahi...

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Mysterious Collapse of a Great Ancient Empire. From his capital, Hattusa, in central Anatolia, the last-known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II (1207 B.C.-?), ruled over a people who had once built a great empire—one of the superpowers (along with Egypt, Mittani, Babylon and Assyria) of the Late Bronze Age. The Kingdom of the Hittites, called Hatti, had stretched across the face of Anatolia and northern Syria, from the Aegean in the west to the Euphrates in the east. But now those days were gone, and the royal capital was about to be destroyed forever by invasion and fire.

Devastating 'World War ZERO' destroyed ancient Mediterranean civilisations and plunged Europe into a dark age 11:41, 13 MAY 2016 UPDATED 11:44, 13 MAY 2016 BY JASPER HAMILL Controversial theory finally identifies mysterious 'Sea Peoples' blamed for cataclysmic series of events which changed the course of history It was a disaster which destroyed the ancient world's greatest civilisations and plunged Europe into a dark age that lasted centuries. Now one archaeologist think he's worked out who's to blame for sparking an event he calls "World War Zero", but which most academics refer to as the The Late Bronze Age Collapse ....

The Trojan War was a grander event than even Homer would have us believe. The famous conflict may have been one of the final acts in what one archaeologist has controversially dubbed "World War Zero" -- an event he claims brought the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age world crashing down 3200 years ago. And the catalyst for the war? A mysterious and arguably powerful civilisation almost entirely overlooked by archaeologists: the Luwians. By the second millennium BC, civilisation had taken hold throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The Egyptian New Kingdom coexisted with the Hittites of central Anatolia and the Mycenaeans of mainland...

Archaeologists have found the figure of a goddess that dates back to the early Hittite period as well as a Viking amber necklace during an ongoing excavation in the ancient city of Bathonea by Lake Kucukcekmece in Istanbul. An archaeological excavation was launched in 2009 near Lake Kucukcekmece in the Avcilar district of Istanbul to uncover the ancient city of Bathonea, which is estimated to be 1,600 years old. The excavation is being conducted under the supervision of Associate Professor Fengul Aydingun from Kocaeli University. in an earlier interview with the press, she had said the first two years of...

The excavation of a mountain castle in central Turkey has revealed a secret tunnel, built by the Hittites around 4,000 years ago. Geval Castle, on Takkel Mountain in Central Anatolia, sits over 5,500 feet above sea level and once offered a strategic 360-degree vantage point for a population that regularly faced assaults from the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Thracians throughout their history. As a result, Hittites were master underground builders, although the exciting discoveries at Takkel Mountain appear to be the first of their kind. "We have discovered secret tunnels in the castle. We have cleaned there and revealed a [328-foot...

An archaeological team excavating the ancient site of Alacahöyük, one of the most significant centers of the ancient Hittite civilization, cooked pastries belonging to Hittite cuisine that dates back 4,000 years. The foods found on Hittite tablets were cooked without modern technology or equipment. The 4,000-year-old Hittite cuisine was cooked in Alacahöyük, an important Neolithic settlement and Turkey's first nationally excavated area. Aykut Çınaroğlu, the head of the excavations and professor of archaeology at Ankara University, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that Chef Ömür Akkor, an excavation team member, prepared a special Hittite menu in light of the available archaeological findings....

Amid excavations at four different ancient sites in the Central Anatolian province of Yozgat, a cuneiform tablet has been unearthed in the Uflakle Mound at the Büyük Tafllek village. Thought to date back to around 2,000 B.C., the cuneiform tablet in the Sorgun district of Yozgat shows symbols of ishtar, known as the Hittite goddess of love, war, fertility and sexuality, more clearly than those on any other unearthed tablets. "Considering the intensity of archaeological materials on the surface and diffusion area, the mound tends to bear traces of Hittite Civilization. it is thought that the mound was affiliated to...

Large ancient-DNA study uncovers population that moved westwards 4,500 years ago. A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago -- bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. Vestiges of these eastern emigres exist in the genomes of nearly all contemporary Europeans, according to the authors, who analysed genome data from nearly 100 ancient Europeans. ...last year, a study of the genomes of ancient and contemporary Europeans found echoes not...

More than 3,200 years ago, life was abuzz in and around what is now this modern-day Israeli metropolis on the shimmering Mediterranean shore. To the north lay the mighty Hittite empire; to the south, Egypt was thriving under the reign of the great Pharaoh Ramses II. Cyprus was a copper emporium. Greece basked in the opulence of its elite Mycenaean culture, and Ugarit was a bustling port city on the Syrian coast. In the land of Canaan, city states like Hazor and Megiddo flourished under Egyptian hegemony. Vibrant trade along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean connected it all. Yet...

Preservationists and archaeologists are warning that fighting in Syria's commercial capital, Aleppo -- considered the world's oldest continuously inhabited human settlement -- threatens to damage irreparably the stunning architectural and cultural legacy left by 5,000 years of civilizations. Already the massive iron doors to the city's immense medieval Citadel have been blown up in a missile attack, said Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, an organization that works to preserve cultural heritage sites... President Bashar al-Assad's forces have been shelling the city, and in recent days his army has taken up positions inside the Citadel, trading fire with...

University of Toronto archaeologists find cache of cuneiform tablets in 2,700-year old Turkish templeTORONTO, ON – Excavations led by a University of Toronto archaeologist at the site of a recently discovered temple in southeastern Turkey have uncovered a cache of cuneiform tablets dating back to the Iron Age period between 1200 and 600 BCE. Found in the temple’s cella, or ‘holy of holies’, the tablets are part of a possible archive that may provide insights into Assyrian imperial aspirations. The assemblage appears to represent a Neo-Assyrian renovation of an older Neo-Hittite temple complex, providing a rare glimpse into the religious...

Today, excavators at the Oymaagac mound in the Black Sea city of Samsun's Vezirkopru district are reveling in their potential find, believing the evidence is mounting and Oymaagac will be unveiled as the holder of Nerik. The geographical location of Oymaagac, the impressive representative building on top of the acropolis, and especially the tiny cuneiform writing style on the tablet fragments all suggested the excavators might find Nerik here... the tiny cuneiform writing resembled that on clay tablets from the Bogazkoy/Hattusha archives dealing with Nerik... the writings, along with several ritual texts from the Hittite period, suggested Oymaagac had to...

Inscribed on the small, pillow-shaped tablet is a 3,000-year-old warning to Idanda, king of Qatna, from the Hittite general Hanutti, telling him to prepare for war. A small Bronze Age Syrian city-state, Qatna was once under Hittite control, but had been conquered by the Mitanni people from the north. The clay tablet, like others found with it, was fired twice--once just after it was written, to preserve it, and again when the ancient city was sacked and burned to the ground in 1340 B.C. by the Hittites, who ruled an empire that stretched from northern Turkey to Mesopotamia and Syria......

French explorer's bad luck in Syria avenged at last Tue 17 Oct 2006 11:45 AM ET By Khaled Yacoub Oweis ALEPPO, Syria, Oct 17 (Reuters) - First the 1920s French archaeologist ran out of money to uncover the treasures he suspected hidden under a Syrian castle, and then he ran out of time to see others finish the work. Twelve years too late for Georges Ploix de Rotrou, a German team has now revealed the full glory of the 500 square metre (5,400 sq ft) Temple of the Storm God that lay under the vast citadel in Aleppo. Ploix de...

Ancient Hittite dam inaugurated after 32 centuries Wednesday, September 20, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News A Hittite-era dam located in the central Anatolian province of Çorum and believed to be one of the oldest in the world to have survived to date has been restored and is once again serving as a source of irrigation for local residents. The dam, located at the Alacahöyük archaeological site, was built by the Hittites in 1240 B.C. The dam's inauguration was marked with a ceremony over the weekend attended by Professor Aykut Çýnaroðlu, who heads the team excavating Alacahöyük, Ankara University Rector...

An exhibition titled "The Hittite Winds" by sculptor and ceramic artist Erdinç Bakla opened on Tuesday at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum in Topkap› Palace. The exhibition, which interprets Hittite artifacts in various materials, features 35 pieces of marble, bronze, plexiglas and fiberglass as well as a golden dinner set and silver tea set. The exhibition will run until May 28 and will also be on display in Ankara in June, reported the Anatolia news agency.

Four graves, two jugs and seven coins dating to the Hittite period were unearthed during excavations conducted in the Mediterranean province of Adana, archaeologists working at the site announced on Monday. Adana Archaeology Museum Director Kaz›m Tosun told reporters that the graves were unearthed on May 25 during the excavations in the Ceyhan village of Sirkeli. Tosun said they had found some human bones in the graves. "The excavation is still under way. The findings will be exhibited at the Adana Archaeology Museum," he said. He also said the excavations were begun at the request of Akdeniz Petrolleri Inc. prior...