This 📷 is the ruins of Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire in the #BronzeAge. Tax collectors there amassed a fortune in grain, hundreds of tonnes of which are still inside!

Here's an #AntiquityThread on what the largest find of its kind tells us about ancient politics 🧵 1/ Image
Hattusa was established as by Hattusili I ~1650BC. The Hittite Empire would go on to rule most of Anatolia within a few centuries, coming into conflict with Assyrians and the New Kingdom of Egypt. 2/

📷: Map of the Hittite Empire at its greatest extent by Ikonact / CC BY-SA 3.0 Image
A big empire needs a big granary and archaeologists uncovered one at Hattusa in 1999. It's over 100 metres long and could hold ~6,0000 tonnes of grain - enough to feed a population of 20 000–30 000 for one year! 3/

📷: Plan of the grannery. Image
What makes this find especially incredible is hundreds of tonnes of this grain was still in place, preserved as a charred mass >1 metre thick 4/

📷: A mass of carbonised cereals above the stone floor of the granary Image
This charring was the result of a fire that appears to have taken place shortly after the silo was built and the structure was abandoned.

But whilst this was bad news for the Hittites it's great for archaeologists, as it preserved the grain for study 5/
The rulers of Hattusa likely filled this giant granary with taxation. People would have to give a portion of their produce, calculated from their agricultural output and
labour force.

Except for the elites, they were exempt. 6/
Thanks to this granary, we can see how the regular folk under Hittite rule fulfilled their demands.

The secret? Focusing on low-effort cereals that produced reasonable returns, even under marginal conditions. 7/

📷: Wheat & barley recovered from the silo. Image
But there was some variation in this strategy, likely dictated by the land farmers had access too.

The ability of the royal administration to tax such a range of people across a wide area suggests the tax collector had a long reach even back then. 8/8
Read more about the analysis of the largest archaeobotanical assemblage in the world in the original research in Antiquity 👇

Diffey, Neef, Seeher & Bogaard. The agroecology of an early state: New results from Hattusha (£) doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2… Image

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More from @AntiquityJ

28 Apr
Stonehenge is a magnificent monument, so we've put together a special collection of research into the site spanning nearly 100 years of study! 🪨

Here's an #AntiquityThread on some highlights from it (🆓) buff.ly/2NlXiag 1/ 🧵 Image
One of the biggest recent discoveries about Stonehenge is that some of the monument's bluestones were originally part of Waun Mawn - another stone circle, over 200 km away in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿. 2/

📷: Remains of Waun Mawn Image
Most of the stones of Waun Mawn have been removed, but excavations of the empty stone holes was still able to identify key links with Stonehenge. 3/

🔗 to this research (🆓) doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2…
📷: One of the stone holes Image
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15 Apr
🆕 #archaeology: A 'missing link' in alphabet history has been discovered, as archaeologists working in 🇮🇱 have found an ancient bit of writing that helps fill a gap in its early history.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on the find, published today (🆓) buff.ly/2Q2HTNR 1/🧵
Researchers had previously found evidence of the alphabet developing in the Sinai peninsular, around 1800 BC and eventually spread to the Levant around 1300 BC. 2/

📷: An early example of the alphabet from Sinai
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📷: A lovely bit of ancient Greek alphabet, by Marsyas / CC BY 2.5
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14 Apr
It's #DolphinDay so of course we have to share this amazing Roman mosaic of Cupid riding a dolphin from Fishbourne @romanpalace

📷 by Tony Hisgett / CC BY 2.0 Image
The palace is the largest residential Roman building discovered in Britain and has a massive number of amazing mosaics to match.

📷: Some of the wide-spanning mosaic floors, by Nigel Richardson / CC BY-SA 2.0 Image
Many of the mosaics - including the delightful dolphin - were discovered during excavations in the 1960s, after a trench for a water-main exposed building material.

🔗 to the excavations being reported in Antiquity (£) doi.org/10.1017/S00035…
📷: One of the mosaics being dug up Image
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12 Feb
🆕 #archaeology: Some of Stonehenge appears to have originally been part of a Welsh stone circle that was dismantled & moved 280 km to Salisbury Plain ~3000 BC.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on research published today in Antiquity (🆓) buff.ly/3rFcVsf 1/🧵
The discovery was made at the Waun Mawn site in the Preseli Hills of Wales, close to the quarries some of Stonehenge's bluestones came from. 2/

📷: Excavations at Waun Mawn
The researchers had previously identified that some of Stonehenge's bluestones came from those nearby quarries.

However, they found the stones were extracted before construction started at Stonehenge. 3/

📷: One of the quarries under excavation
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1 Dec 20
🆕 #archaeology: It has been suggested a devastating tsunami submerged Doggerland ~10,000 BC. However, new analysis reveals the lost landscape survived this catastrophe.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on research published today in Antiquity (🆓) buff.ly/3mpoPnV 1/ 🧵
This event, known as the Storegga tsunami, was triggered by a giant submarine landslide in the North Sea ~8,150-years-ago. Over 3200 km3 of sediment was displaced. 2/

📷: The location of the landslide, by Lamiot / CC BY-SA 3.0
The resulting gigantic waves were a catastrophic natural disaster of a scale the region has not seen since – evidence of the tsunami has been found up to 80 km inland in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 3/

📷: Tsunami sediment (grey upper layer) from Maryton on the Montrose Basin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 by Stozy10 / CC BY-SA 3.0
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11 Nov 20
🆕 #archaeology: A previously unknown elite Viking ritual centre - including a feast hall, cult house, and ship burial - has been found in 🇳🇴 using ground-penetrating radar.

Here's an #AntiquityThread on the find, published today in Antiquity 🆓 buff.ly/35iDY4C 1/ 🧵
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📷: Archaeologists carrying out GPR analysis in front of the Jell Mound
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📷: Colder archaeologists carrying out GPR analysis in front of the Jell Mound.
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