Hattusha: The Hittite Capital
/ By Josh
The capital of one of the great Bronze Age empires, the Hittite City of Hattusha and the holy site of Yazılıkaya were the centre of this once great civilization.
The region that now makes up Çorum has been settled since the earliest stages of human civilization. It rose to prominence around 1650 BC when the Hittites, from their capital of Hattusha, raided the great city of Babylon and went on to make themselves one of the great bronze age empires ranking alongside the Egyptians and Babylonians. Then suddenly in 1250 BC, for reasons only guessed at, it all collapsed and what would become Çorum was left by the wayside for millennia until the Hittite capital was re-discovered.
Aside from the historical fame Çorum is home to leblebi (a snack of roast chickpeas, normally plain, but in Çorum you get them in all sorts of flavors) and a rich cottage industry of leather workers, coppersmiths, weavers, and other traditional crafts.
With loads of ruins, lost cities, rolling prairie, and craggy hills this mostly agrarian province is the quintessential Central Anatolian city.
