Yazilikaya: the temple of lunar nodes

A stone temple from the age of the Hittite Empire in Minor Asia, meant for counting lunar nodes' cycles.

Located near Boğazkale (93 miles east of Ankara, Turkey's capital city), it's a 16 x 10 yd limestone sanctuary built during Tudḫaliya IV rulership (1,236 – 1,215 B.C.). It was abandoned 25 years later it was finished, when the Empire collapsed. Although its original name remains unknown, it's called Yazilikaya, a Turkish word meaning "written rock". And in 1986, it was included in UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Like the Egyptians, Hittite people were influenced by Babylonian knowledge, believes and astronomical practices that were partially symbolized in the sanctuary. For instance, the relation between the Sun and Moon, luminaries'and Earth's motions, the satellite's phases and both monthly and nodal revolutions, day - night alternation, solstices, solar years, and even the concept of the underworld.

The temple has two chambers (A and B) displaying deities sculpted on the inner walls. As chambers never had ceiling, relieves reflected interplays of natural lights and shadows, so they functioned as a calendar and a star clock.

Chamber A includes 63 deities looking at the North, an entire pantheon oriented towards the polar stars! And Chamber B seems to represent the underworld. In the Southwest area, four buildings are in the access although most of them are much older than the relieves, and two of them align their walls with sunsets during solstices. In the same Chamber A, there're 3 well-delimited areas: a Western wall, a central area and an Eastern wall.

The Western wall includes two groups of deities to count days and lunar months, from left to right (or central area). On the left side, 12 of them hold sickle-shaped swords, which may be related to agricultural practices, and they were used to count lunar months.

Next, to the right side, thirty figures represent the gods of a synodic month (relieves 13-41). Gods of the second hemicycle of the month (relieves 13-27) have names related to mountains, whereas gods of the first hemicycle (relieves 30-41) have personal names and are represented as taller winged figures, so they are more related to the sky (front in the image).

use the horizontal scrollbar to visualize drawings

The Full Moon is represented by two bull-men with a bowl upon their heads (relieves 28-29), which may be associated to the "festival of the boat of light" or "festival of the Moon's boat", of ancient Babylon roots. The beginning of the lunar month is represented by Tašmišu, the god of storms (right corner, relief 41), holding a stick to mark a new month begins.

The central area in Chamber A includes sculptures of 7 relevant gods. As you'll see later, the rest of deities (both gods from the left and goddesses from the right) are oriented towards them: relieves 42 to 46 represent the North pole's stars.

On the Eastern wall of Chamber A, a group of goddesses represent solar years (relieves 46(a)-63). Their heads and hands are oriented to the left, the central area, but the sequence has to be read from right to left (or central area). Currently, we can see only 17 of the figures although it is believed that they were 19 in the beginning and were used to count 19 years cycles, almost a lunar nodes' cycle.

use the horizontal scrollbar to visualize drawings

It's also believed that Hittite people registered days, months and years by moving markers according to light-shadow effects over deities (maybe a short piece of wood beneath them, like shelves or stone columns cut on the rock). Shelves or columns should have been moved manually, moving away from the central area each day (from right to left). Later, by the end of a lunar month, another marker was moved too, although from left to right (relieves 1 to 12). When a year passed by, two markers were moved on the Eastern wall (one in a group of the 8 deities nearest the central area, or relieves 46(a)-53 representing 8-years cycles, and another marker from relieves 54 to 63).

Chamber A. Light blue and blue figures on the Western wall. Purple and orange figues on the Eastern wall. Ref: A: gods of lunar days. B: Waxing Moon. C: Full Moon. D: New Moon. E: gods of lunar months. F: goddesses of solar years. G: goddesses of 8-year cycles.

Note
Eight Venus' sidereal cycles (approx. 5946 days) are Mercury's 63 cycles, the total number of deities!

The other Chamber in the temple (B) is 3.5 yd length, of only between .5 and .9 yd width (South-North), and 2.38 yd height. When placed in some specific position inside of it, a person looking at the sky could have seen the North pole's stars marked in the sharp borders of natural rocks (the stars of the central area in Chamber A), such as you can appreciate in the upper simulation image. Chamber B also displays Nergal's relief, the god of fire and dessert, the negative sides of the Sun in the Babylonian cosmology, which means this chamber was meant to represent the underworld.

Nergal god, usually associated to Mars. Photo: ©Klaus-Peter Simon

Like the previous chamber, the second chamber may have been used as a star clock, too. Three niches on the walls might have contained tables to take notes and measuring tools. The chamber also has 12 male figures sculpted on one of the walls, identical to those marking lunar months in Chamber A!

For setting the right time to add a month and synchronize solar and lunar calendars (365 and 354 days), Babylonians especially considered the Moon, Pleiades, Syrius and Arcturus (from the Mul.Apin, the second formal Babylon's stars catalogue, after the Three Stars Each). But it's not clear if Hittite people used a specific regular method for it. Maybe, they looked at Syrius (as ancient Egyptians did) or considered solstices from the temple's Southwest buildings.

The whole structure may have had a much deeper astronomical - astrological usage, since relieves can be associated not just to Moon's nodes but also to all inner planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus), Earth itself and even Mars, the main character in chamber B. If you know something more about it, leave a comment and share!

You may find much more about Hittite people, their writings and deities at Luwian Studies.

Sources: El antiguo templo hitita que pudo ser un mapa del universo | Código Oculto, Celestial aspects of Hittite religion: an investigation of the rock sanctuary Yazilikaya by Eberhard Sangger and Rita Gautschy, An Archaeological Mystery Reveals its Secret after 3,200 Years, Babylonian Star Catalogues and MUL.APIN.