Hittite royal archive found in Turkey

Archaeologists excavating the ancient Hittite city of Samuha (modern Sivas) uncovered a royal cuneiform archive totaling 184 tablets and fragments - 131 from the latest season and 53 from the previous - dating to the reign of King Tudhaliya II about 3,400 years ago. Written in Hittite and Hurrian, the documents include a heartbreaking medical record of a nursing princess who succumbed to a fever and the funerary ritual that followed, alongside repeated attention to the health of royal and elite children. Illnesses were recorded as expressions of divine will, prompting religious specialists to perform rituals to monitor and protect the dynasty’s offspring.

The archive also contains a stark military letter from western Anatolian generals urgently requesting men, horses and chariots, warning that without reinforcements their forces would be destroyed and disclaiming responsibility for failure - evidence of long-distance logistics and of the king’s presence at Samuha. Samuha emerges as both a royal stronghold and a major religious center devoted to the Hurrian goddess Sauska. Other texts record bird-divination itineraries in diary-like form and offer new detail on omen observation and interpretation. Together the correspondence, divination manuals, rituals and prayers provide a rich new corpus for understanding Hittite religious practice, scribal culture and language development.