Bonus 20 - Boghazkoy Tablets

Fragments of Hittite tablets from the Museum in Boğazköy.

When archaeologists found no trace of the Hittite civilization, the biblical critics made the claim that the Hittite people were imaginary.1.  In 1876 Sayce delivered a lecture to the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London making a startling claim that the Hittites were a vast empire but the capital was yet to be discovered.2.  In 1906 when the Hittite civilization was discovered by Hugo Winckler, along with the royal archive of 10,000 tablets during his excavations at Boğazköy (Ḫattuša), this brought a new zeal to archaeology and its use for defending the Bible.3.  Believers began to think that archaeology had validated their faith.

David E. Graves, Key Themes of the Old Testament: A Survey of Major Theological Themes (Moncton, N.B.: Graves, 2013), 120.

Hittite capital Ḫattuša (Boğazköy) founded in the
Old Kingdom period by Hattushili I ca. 1586–1556 BC

The author standing between the arched Lion Gate
of the Hittite capital Ḫattuša (Boğazköy) from the
New Kingdom period 1400-1180 BC

Footnotes

• 1. Francis William Newman, A History of the Hebrew Monarchy: From the Administration of Samuel to the Babylonish Captivity (London: Chapman, 1853), 179 n.2.
• 2. Trevor Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2; A. H. Sayce, The Hittites the Story of a Forgotten Empire, Classic Reprint (Charleston, SC: Forgotten Books, 2012).
• 3. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, 2.