Boğazköy, if not Hattusha, might be Susa

 

 

by

 Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me. In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa

in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal”.

 Daniel 8:1-2

 

 With the Hittite lands newly estimated as ‘centred’ on (perhaps in an elliptical sense) “Kadesh in the land of the Hittites” (2 Samuel 24:6), that is, Kadesh on the Orontes, and no longer in Anatolia, and with:

 

Kadesh (Qadesh) as Hittite Hattush(a)?

 

(3) Kadesh (Qadesh) as Hittite Hattush(a)?

 

and, possibly, also as Kanesh:

Kadesh and Kanesh

 

(3) Kadesh and Kanesh

 

then new identifications are going to be needed for the important sites at Boğazköy (formerly Hattusha) and Kültepe (formerly Kanesh).

 

Here I am interested only in what ancient city might have stood at the site of Boğazköy?

 

Taking my cue from the geography of the vision of Daniel 8, “… I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam … beside the Ulai Canal”, it had occurred to me that Boğazköy may have been the famous capital city of Susa, the winter residence of Persian kings: Susa, Shush. Palace of Darius. Winter Capital

 

“Susa (also called Shushan, Greek Susiane), was one of the city-states of ancient Elam which later became the winter capital of the Persian Achaemenian kings (c. 675 - 330 BCE). There is evidence that Susa has been continuously inhabited from 4,200 BCE [sic] placing it among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In addition, there are traces at Susa of a village inhabited around 7,000 BCE and painted pottery dating from ca. 5,000 BCE at the site. …”.

 

Here, of course, Susa has been identified (wrongly, so I now think) as according to its conventional setting east of the River Tigris, near the Persian Gulf.

 

Daniel’s Ulai Canal associated with Susa is customarily identified today as the Karkheh River in SW Iran.

 

However, according to the explosive geographical corrections so brilliantly undertaken by Royce (Richard) Erickson) (for reference, see my above articles), the country of Elam was nowhere near the Persian Gulf. It was actually far to the NW, in Anatolia.

 

For Royce, Susa was the ancient Sis in the Cilician plain near the Mediterranean coast.

And he may well be correct in this.

 

My own preference for the right location of ancient Susa, though, is Boğazköy, which appears to share some vital elements with the prophet Daniel’s description: in Elam (newly revised); having a prominent citadel; near a river with a Ulai-like name.

 

Boghazköy | Springer Nature Link (formerly SpringerLink)

“The capital is on a rock citadel near the Halys River in central Turkey and the site had been occupied since the Chalcolithic times”. 

 

The Halys river is known today as Kızılırmak:

Kızılırmak River - Wikipedia

 

“The Kızılırmak (Turkish pronunciation: [kɯzɯlɯrmak], Turkish for "Red River"), once known as the Halys River (Ancient Greek: Ἅλυς) and Alis River, is the longest river flowing entirely within Turkey. It is a source of hydroelectric power and is not used for navigation”.

 

Daniel 8:2 may be a perfect description of this location (my emphasis):

Daniel 8:16 Commentaries: And I heard the voice of a man between the banks of Ulai, and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give this man an understanding of the vision."

“Near to which Daniel was, Daniel 8:2 and it seemed to him as if the appearance of the man was in the midst of the river, between the banks of it, from whence the voice came; or between the arms of it, it bending and winding about …”.

 

Compare this with (my emphasis):

Boğazköy | Turkey, Map, History, & Facts | Britannica

“Ancient Boğazköy occupies a section of a mountain slope at the southern end of a small fertile plain. It lies between two deeply cut streambeds, filling the angle between their converging courses”. 

 

Nor might it be surprising that abundant, multilingual records were found at this location: The Multilingual Bogazköy Archive: Over 25,000 Cuneiform Tablets Containing 8 Different Languages!

“The Boğazköy Archive, discovered amidst the ruins of ancient Hattusa [sic] (now Boğazköy), stands as a remarkable testament to the Hittite civilization, a dominant political force in the Middle East during the 2nd millennium B.C. This vast collection of nearly 25,000 cuneiform tablets is the primary source of our knowledge about the social, political, commercial, military, religious, legislative, and artistic facets of this era in Asia Minor and the broader Middle East”.

 

King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) of the Book of Esther, who was Darius the Mede/Cyrus, ruling from Susa (see my article):

 

Gouging the history out of Esther 3.1

 

(3) Gouging the history out of Esther 3.1

 

unsurprisingly kept his historical records there (Esther 6:1): “On that night the king could not sleep; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king”.