There is a last-minute venue change for Eberhard Zangger’s lecture, entitled “On the Trail of Lost Civilizations: Sun, Moon, and Gods in Hittites”, originally scheduled to take place on Thursday, 21st November at 14:00 at Istanbul University. The lecture will no longer be held in the Istanbul University itself; it will now take place across the street in the conference hall of the Celal Ağa…

At the invitation of Prof. Şengül Aydingün, Eberhard Zangger will speak about astral aspects of the Hittite religion on Wednesday, 20 November 2019 at 15:00 in the Archaeological Institute of Kocaeli University. On 21 November 2019, this lecture will also take place at the Archaeological Institute of the University of Istanbul (at 14:00, Rektörlük Doktora Salonu) at the invitation of Prof. Mustafa H. Sayar and…

Luwian Studies goes on tour. On October 5, 2019, at ZAI Bodrum, Dr. Eberhard Zangger will lecture for one-hour on the Bronze Age cultures in western Asia Minor, which are still largely unexplored. His hosts are the industrialists Yunus and Derya Büyükkuşoğlu. In an ancient olive grove, they have built a cultural center with café, restaurant, library, gallery and auditorium, which…

The all-day EAA session on Western Asia Minor in the Bronze Age on September 7, 2019 in Bern confirmed Aristotle’s statement that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. When 15 speakers from different countries and disciplines present their research and reflections to an audience of luminaries such as Lord Colin Renfrew and David Anthony, a special impact unfolds: the potential of…

Did the English prehistorian James Mellaart (1925-2012) invent drawings of certain artefacts and allegedly Late Bronze Age documents? This question, open for more than half a century, can now be put to rest. An examination of his estate in February 2018 by Alan Mellaart, the son and heir of James Mellaart, and Eberhard Zangger revealed material that leaves no doubt: James Mellaart lived in a…

The 12th Symposium on Caria, the Carians and ancient Mylasa took place on 23-24 August 2019 in Milas in western Turkey. Twenty-one archaeologists working in western Anatolia, including many excavators, reported on their research on Early Iron Age cultures in Western Anatolia. Eberhard Zangger was invited to speak about the new interpretation of the Yazılıkaya rock sanctuary in Hattusa. Classical archaeologists find the relics of…

“The political geography of western Anatolia in the LBA, and the region’s interaction with its neighbours, in particular the Balkan” is the title of Session #43 at the annual conference of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), which takes place from 4 to 7 September in Bern in Switzerland. The session will be held on Saturday, September 7, between 8:30 and 15:30 in the auditorium…

The scientific publication of the new interpretation of the rock sanctuary Yazılıkaya has triggered a number of reports in international media. New Scientist online produced a substantial report including expert interviews. The astrophysicist Juan Antonio Belmonte had discovered the first indications of astronomical use at Yazılıkaya during his 30 yearlong interest in the site. He says: “I had this in front of my eyes, and…

The exceptional rock sanctuary Yazılıkaya, part of the Hittite capital Hattusa, contains all the elements required to operate a lunisolar calendar. The reliefs in its Chamber A can be divided in groups comprising 12 lunar months, a maximum of 30 days of the lunar month and 19 years – at which point, after 6940 days, the cycle repeats itself.

The archaeologist and astronomer Rita Gautschy…

The US-American actress Megan Fox is keen to get young people interested in the open questions of archaeology. She has therefore designed a television series in which she is accompanied by a camera to archaeologically particularly interesting places. Thus, she came to West Asia Minor, where she of course visited Troy and was even allowed to take the Luwian seal that was found there in…