Explore Ancient Anatolia

It is surprising to see this ancient board game of 100 squares at Lycian Temple of Letoon, scratched on stone block floor, near Fethiye and Kas, Turkey ... More PHOTO: Ancient Board Game by ancient-anatolia.blogspot.com

Twelve Hittite gods of the underworld, rock carvings Yazilikaya (Turkish for "inscribed rock"), a sanctuary of Hattusa, the capital city of the Hittite Empire, today in the Çorum Province, Turkey.

Ancient Roman gate to afterlife at Pessinus, Ankara, Turkey. A false door is a wall decoration that looks like a door. In ancient Egyptian architecture, this was a common element in a tomb, the false door representing a gate to the afterlife. They can also be found in the funerary architecture of the desert tribes (e.g., Libyan Ghirza).

Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous logographic script native to central Anatolia, consisting of some 500 signs. They were commonly known as Hittite hieroglyphs, however the language they encode proved to be Luwian. They are typologically similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, but do not derive graphically from Egyptian script. There is no demonstrable connection to Hittite cuneiform.

Lion figure on ancient Phrygian pottery found at tumulus P at Gordium, Phrygian capital, near tumulus of King Midas, on exhibition at Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilization, one of the finest examples of ceramic art of the Phrygian period.

Castle of Namrun , originally uploaded by voyageAnatolia.blogspot.com . Namrun castle near Tarsus, Turkey. Located on the Taurus Mountains, the fortress guarded the impregnable Cilician Gates, the important crossing point on the road to Tarsus and the plain of Cilicia.

Bull figures: Detail of drawing on ancient Phrygian pottery at Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilization.