An international team of archaeologists led by the University of Pisa has unearthed a mysterious circle-shaped construction, built during the Hittite era, at the site of Uşaklı Höyük, in central-northern Turkey, in the heart of the Anatolian plateau, datable to the 2nd millennium BC The find, together with other facts during the previous excavation campaigns, could help confirm that the site is truly the ancient holy city of Zippalanda, legendary cult center of a powerful Storm God, seat of a sanctuary and a royal residence. The remains of a large terraced wall that surrounded the citadel from the Iron Age and some tombs from the late antiquity have also been brought to light. “The interpretation of this circular structure – explains the professor Anacleto D’Agostino of the University of Pisa who directs the excavations – is very difficult at the moment and an extension of the works will be necessary to allow us to get an idea of what is around it”. “Its location north of what is probably the main temple of the city, not far from the river that flows near the base of the battlements – adds D’Agostino – however leads us to favor an interpretation of this find in a ritual key, whose importance is also given by the fact that similar ones are not documented in other contemporary sites». And he concludes: «If this were the case – concludes the director of the excavations – this structure, together with the other finds discovered over the years, would help to strengthen the identification of Uşaklı with the important Hittite city of Zippalanda, the cult center of a powerful Storm God, seat of a shrine and royal residence, and mentioned at several festivals attended by the king.’
In fifteen years of investigations and excavations, the work of archaeologists has allowed the remains of monumental buildings and fragments of tablets with cuneiform inscriptions to re-emerge, contributing to the reconstruction of a period of primary importance for the Near East and the eastern Mediterranean basin , when the Hittites, a population that spoke a language belonging to the Indo-European language family, made their appearance among the protagonists of great history, constituting the powerful kingdom of Hatti. Architectures and materials, those found during the excavations, whose consistency and quality, in addition to making the identification between Uşaklı Höyük and the holy city of Zippalanda more and more solid, also show how this site was occupied extensively starting from the end from the Early Bronze Age up to the Roman-Byzantine era, with sporadic more recent traces reaching up to the Ottoman period. The archaeological project of the Italian-Turkish archaeological mission in Central Anatolia (Uşaklı Höyük Archaeological Project), which began in 2008 and in which the University of Pisa is involved, is the only Italian-led one that operates on a Hittite settlement in the area that was first center of the kingdom and then of the empire.