Archaeologists working at Kayalıpınar, a mound in the Yıldızeli district of Sivas province in central Türkiye, have recovered 131 cuneiform tablets and fragments during the 2026 season, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on social media in early October.
The new pieces join 53 tablets and fragments found at the same spot in 2025, which researchers believe belong to the same royal archive. Together the two seasons have produced 184 texts. The minister and the excavation team describe the collection as the most extensive Hittite-language archive uncovered in the 21st century. Ersoy said the archive "opens a new door in many fields."
Kayalıpınar is identified with Šamuḫa, a city that appears in both Old Assyrian and Hittite records. The tablets date to roughly 3,400 years ago, to the reign of the Hittite King Tudhaliya II, and are written in Hittite and Hurrian. Digging at the site has been carried out since 2021 by a team led by Associate Professor Çiğdem Maner of Koç University's Department of Archaeology and History of Art, under a permit from the ministry.
A fever that struck the young
Several texts concern a disease that moved from city to city and brought on a high fever. According to the ministry's summary, it appears to have hit children and infants hardest, and diviners kept close watch on the health of royal children and the offspring of senior officials by consulting oracles.
One strand of the archive follows a princess who was still being breastfed. A diviner wrote to the king that she had fallen ill in a city called Ziulila, whose location is still unknown. A separate tablet records her death and the funerary rite performed for her.
Generals beg for reinforcements
Another document is a letter sent to the king at Šamuḫa by Hittite commanders in western Anatolia. They report that enemies have surrounded Hittite territory and ask for soldiers, horses and chariots, warning that the army could be wiped out if help does not arrive and disclaiming responsibility for what might follow.
The archive also contains a kind of travel log kept by bird-omen specialists who went out from Šamuḫa. It lists the towns where they stopped, the routes they took and the birds they saw, and is said to contain previously unknown detail on how such signs were read.
Beyond these highlights, the collection includes oracle reports, omens, letters, rituals and prayers touching on state administration, military affairs, religion and the royal household. Researchers expect the texts to shed new light on Hittite history and belief, as well as on the development of the Hittite language and the work of its scribes.
Sources
- Hittite royal archive with 184 tablets unearthed in central Türkiye – Daily Sabah
- Cuneiform tablets from Hittite King unearthed – Hürriyet Daily News
- Yeni Bulunan Hitit Tabletleri Salgını ve Bebek Prensesi Anlatıyor – Arkeofili
Photo: Bernard Gagnon / CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
