Unpublished Bogazkoy-Fragments: Edition and Research (II)

• Applicant: Dr. Oguz Soysal
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 425899755

Despite the continuous publication process of the Hittite Cuneiform tablets there are still unpublished fragments from the capitol Bogazköy/Hattusa. Bearing the siglum “Bo”, they originated in the early German-Ottoman excavations between 1906-1912 and were sent to the Staatliches Museum in Berlin for cleaning and conservation purposes. After the World War II, the tablets continued to be held by the German Democratic Republic, and it took years until they were delivered back to Turkey in 1987. The number of these fragments is about 7,300 and some of them are published, but almost the half of them remain neither published nor studied. These tablets are available to scholars only in a severely restricted way to the extent they are cited in the secondary literature. The unpublished tablets which were returned to Turkey were to be published by a team of Turkish Hittitologists. Based on the decision of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Turkey in 2010, a new team was formed to work on the unpublished Bo-fragments. The applicant received an invitation to become a part of this project and he has been carrying on scholarly activities since 2010. As result of his research two books (Chicago Hittite Dictionary Supplements 2 and 3) and some articles have been published. As in its earlier stages, the proposed project will continue to focus on this group of epigraphic material. The utilizing of the unpublished Bo-fragments has become an essential element in the history of Hittitology in last thirty years. In this sense, the edition and research of the epigraphic material in question would be a welcome result of a joint German-Turkish scholarly effort. Moreover, the proposed project will be a unique, in fact the only opportunity to have an easy access to the Bo-fragments since the official authorities in Ankara Museum grant permission only to the Turkish scholars for using this unpublished material. The applicant and his collaborator(s), being Turkish citizens and having the publication rights for the tablets in question, will fortunately be not affected by this issue. As in the previous cases, the results of the research will be published as printed material, i. e., monographs in the series of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary Supplements, and also as the digital version of the same publication which is available as a free download from the website of the Oriental Institute. In addition to these, the applicant plans to prepare a number of articles in German which will make the most important results of the research, e. g. newly acquired philological and contextual information from the unpublished Bo-fragments regarding the Hittite language, history and culture, accessible to the scholars.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants