The Yazılıkaya rock sanctuary near Hattusa is a special place in Hittite religion. Recently, an international team of researchers found out that this sanctuary, like many temples in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, symbolizes the cosmos. It depicts the deities who watch over heaven, earth and underworld and enables the transition between these spheres of the cosmos. Parallel to the extensive scientific publication which has been…
The protohistorian and linguist Frederik C. Woudhuizen, who passed away in September 2021, had stipulated that his extensive library on the archaeology and linguistic history of the Mediterranean countries should become the property of the Luwian Studies foundation. The foundation thanks Fred’s brother Douwe Woudhuizen for his generous and expeditious handling of the estate. In the meantime, the books have arrived in Zurich, where they…
According to astronomical definition, the vernal equinox marks the beginning of spring north of the equator and the beginning of autumn south of it. The direction of the sunsets at the four seasonal turning points (winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice and autumn equinox) are marked with lines in the pavement of the Lower West Terrace of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
The two equinox…
The Luwians were the focus of a 75-minute online lecture given by Luwian Studies’ President Dr. Eberhard Zangger on March 10, 2022, in the framework of the YouTube channel for the Tour Guides Academy. Professor Uğur Akdu from the Tourism Faculty of Gumushane University had invited Eberhard Zangger to speak about the current state of knowledge of Middle and Late Bronze Age cultures in western…
The lifework of archaeologist Frederik Woudhuizen, who died in September 2021, consists of 25 books and more than 100 scholarly articles. Woudhuizen has proposed decipherments for writing systems that are generally considered to be undeciphered, including Cretan hieroglyphs, the Byblos script, Linear A and the Cypro-Minoan script. Virtually all of Woudhuizen’s investigations are interrelated, so that a coherent system of the early Mediterranean writing systems…
The field of Luwian studies has lost one of its most knowledgeable and prolific scholars: Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen passed away on September 28, 2021. Fred Woudhuizen was an expert on ancient Indo-European languages, hieroglyphic Luwian and Mediterranean protohistory. He obtained a doctorate from Erasmus University Rotterdam with a dissertation on The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples. Woudhuizen has published 25 books, including The Luwians of…
The European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) met Sept. 6–11, 2021 for their annual conference in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, in the form of a combined on-site and virtual conference. “Cultural Astronomy & Ancient Skywatching” was the theme of the 28th annual SEAC meeting. The papers given covered natural and social sciences, including astronomy, anthropology, history, archaeology, architecture and mathematics. Luwian Studies’ president Eberhard Zangger…
The most recent scientific publication on Yazılıkaya has received a great response in a short period of time. After less than a week, over 100,000 people had already seen the new animation video summarizing the most important results of the study.
The publication of the latest article in JSA on cosmic symbolism in Yazılıkaya was accompanied by easy-to-understand summaries written by the scientists who contributed to the study. The online newsletter Ancient Near East Today (ANEToday) published an extensive article by E. Zangger and EC Krupp in which the core theses of the new model are presented to a wider audience. This
The Journal of Skyscape Archaeology (JSA) today published a major scientific article about cosmic symbolism at the Hittite rock sanctuary Yazılıkaya near Hattusa. Accordingly, the sanctuary in its entirety represents a symbolic image of the cosmos, including its static levels (earth, sky, underworld) and the cyclical processes of renewal and rebirth (day/night, lunar phases, summer/winter). Static levels and celestial cyclicities are emphasised throughout the sanctuary.…
