A 2,800-year-old ivory object from the Iron Age, depicting a sphinx, a lion and two trees of life, was found during excavations in Hattusa (located in the Boğazkale district of Çorum, the capital of the #Hitтιтes.)
The depictions on the ivory work, which is approximately 30 cm long and 10 cm wide, can only be seen under appropriate lighting.
Head of Excavation Prof. Dr. Andreas Schachner says that the work was most likely added as an ornament to a wooden box or a piece of furniture made of wood.

The right and left sides of the work are broken, while the upper and lower parts are preserved in their original form. Therefore, it is possible to think that this was actually longer.
Schachner, “This is unique for #Boğazköy. This is the first time we are faced with a work that is so intense and decorated with such a beautifully crafted scene. During the Iron Age, very extensive excavations were carried out in Boğazköy, but such a detailed work was not uncovered.”

2,800-year-old ivory carved with sphinx discovered in Turkey

The artifact is from an Iron Age settlement at Hattusa that was established after the city was abandoned by the Hitтιтes.

Archaeologists estimate that the carved piece of elephant’s tusk is about 2,800 years old. (Image credit: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Archaeologists in Turkey have unearthed an ornately carved 2,800-year-old elephant tusk in what may have once been an Iron Age “center of power.”

The ivory carving features a mythical sphinx — a human head on the body of a winged lion — as well as a depiction of a real lion and two tall plants that may represent the mythical “tree of life.” While the artwork dates to the Iron Age, it was found in an archaeological layer over a much older city — the deserted Bronze Age Hitтιтe capital of Hattusa.

According to Andreas Schachner, an archaeologist with the German Archaeological Insтιтute who has led excavations at Hattusa since 2006, the artifact shows that the Iron Age settlement at the site was an important place, although it was established after the Hitтιтes had abandoned the city in about 1200 B.C., during what’s known as the Late Bronze Age collapse.

“It is possible to say that this place was no longer a small town but a more important place, perhaps a center of power,” Schachner told the Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency.