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Valorisation of the Geological Values (Future Geosite Candidates) Around the UNESCO World Heritage Asset of Hittite Capital Ḫattuša, Türkiye

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Abstract

The ancient city of Ḫattuša, which is already in the UNESCO World Heritage List, is one of the most attractive cultural tourism spots in the central Anatolian landmass. The city is located in the Boğazkale district of the Çorum province and is one of the most important settlements in the Hittite history. The city had served as the capital of the Hittites approximately for 500 years. The oldest archaeological findings in this ancient city start from the Chalcolithic Age and extend to the Byzantine period; however, the city reached its golden ages during the reign of the Hittite Empire. Especially the construction of the monumental structures has been considered to be initiated during the old Hittite Kingdom, in the mid-sixteenth century B.C. Besides the famous cultural tourism attractions, the city and its surroundings host important geological structures. In this aspect, we propose twelve potential geosite candidates, which are quantitatively evaluated. These potential geosites are evaluated in basis of their stratigraphic, volcanic, sedimentological, structural geological value and historical significance. Especially, six of these geosite candidates are already located within the archaeological protection area and have an important potential to be registered as future geosites. A quantitative assessment of these geosites and the region for its scientific value (SV), potential educational use (PEU), potential touristic use (PTU) and degradation risk (DR) has shown that the study area has moderate high regional SV, PEU and PTU scores (288, 279 and 278, respectively) and low moderate (213) DR score. The results of the quantitative assessment show that the region has an important potential for geology education and geotourism activities.

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Acknowledgements

The subject of this paper was first partially presented as an oral presentation in the 10th International ProGEO Symposium held in Spain, as an online meeting, in June 7–11, 2021. We express our special thanks for families in the Hittite Handicrafts Cooperative and the village people for their warm hospitality during the fieldwork. The authors are also grateful to Dr. José Brilha for his fundamental guidance on the evaluation of the quantitative assessments for the suggested geosites.

Funding

Prior inventory work for some of the potential geosites presented here was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye-TÜBİTAK via Grant Number ÇAYDAG-106Y043. The development and current maturation of the study became possible via the field work during the summer of 2018. Besides the personal resources of the co-authors, especially the field studies were supported by Geoim Ltd. and DAI (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Istanbul).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, Tınaztepe Campus, 35390, Buca, İzmir, Türkiye

    Ökmen Sümer, Mehmet Akbulut, Hülya İnaner & Semih Eski

  2. JEMİRKO-The Turkish Association for the Conservation of the Geological Heritage, 06570, Ankara, Türkiye

    Nizamettin Kazancı, Hülya İnaner, Yaşar Suludere, H. Yavuz Hakyemez, Necip Sabri Mülazımoğlu, Sonay Boyraz-Aslan, Hamdi Mengi & Sevim Tuzcu

  3. Department of Geological Engineering, Ankara University, 06830, Gölbaşı, Ankara, Türkiye

    Nizamettin Kazancı

  4. Department of Geophysical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Dokuz Eylül University, 35160, Buca, İzmir, Türkiye

    Mahmut Göktuğ Drahor, Meriç Aziz Berge & Atilla Ongar

  5. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Gümüssuyu, İnönü Cad. No:10, Beyoğlu/Istanbul, Türkiye

    Andreas Schachner

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  1. Ökmen Sümer
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Correspondence to Ökmen Sümer.

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Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on X International ProGEO Symposium: Building connections for global geoconservation

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

12371_2022_786_MOESM1_ESM.kml

Supplementary file1 Supplementary material 1, KMZ file for georeferenced geosite candidate locations and other assets (KML 32 KB)

12371_2022_786_MOESM2_ESM.xlsx

Supplementary file2 Supplementary material 2, excel spreadsheet for quantitative assessments of the geosite candidates and the study area (XLSX 34 KB)

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Sümer, Ö., Akbulut, M., Kazancı, N. et al. Valorisation of the Geological Values (Future Geosite Candidates) Around the UNESCO World Heritage Asset of Hittite Capital Ḫattuša, Türkiye. Geoheritage 15, 17 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-022-00786-6

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