Hattusas,  near modern Boğazkale (formerly Boğazköy), Turkey) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. The region is set in a loop of the Kızıl River (Marashantiya in Hittite sources and Halys in Classical Antiquity) in central Anatolia.Hattusa was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1986.

The Surroundings
The landscape surrounding the city included rich agricultural fields, hill lands for pasture, as well as woods. Smaller woods are still found outside the city but in ancient times there were much more. This meant the inhabitants had a great supply for timber when building their houses and other structures. The fields provided the people with a subsistence of wheat, barley and lentils. Linen was also harvested, but their primary source for clothing was wool from sheep. They also hunted deer in the forest, but this was probably only a pleasure by the nobility. The source for meat was domesticated animals. There were several other settlements in the vicinity, such as the rock shrine at Yazılıkaya and the town at Alacahöyük. Since the rivers in the area are too small and unsuitable for major ships, all transport to and from Hattusa had to go by land.

Early History of the City

Before 2000 BC, a settlement of the apparently indigenous Hatti people was established on sites that had been occupied even earlier. The earliest traces of settlement on the site is from the sixth millennium BC. In the 19th and 18th centuries BC, merchants from Assur in Assyria established a trading post here, setting up in their own separate quarter of the city. The center of their trade network was located in Kanesh (Neša) (modern Kültepe). Business dealings required record-keeping: the trade network from Assur introduced writing to Hattusa, in the form of cuneiform.
A carbonized layer in the excavations records the burning and ruin of the city of Hattusa around 1700 BC.