DETAILS FROM THE STONES AT HATUSHA IN TURKEY - A PHOTO ESSAY

 

"The first development period in Hattusha ended with a great fire, which was believed to have been caused by King Anitta of Kushshara. Based on the documents, Hattusha was resettled around 1700 BC immediately after its destruction and became the capital of the Hittite state in the 1600s. The city was founded by Hattusili I, who, like Anitta, was of Kushshara origin. As the capital, Hattusha became one of the most magnificent cities of its time, with impressive palaces, temples, walls, and neighbourhoods. After the collapse of the Hittite state during the reign of King Shuppiluliuma II in 1190 BC, Hattusha remained abandoned for four centuries. In the mid-8th century BC, the Phrygians settled in the area. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods (3rd century BC to 3rd century AD), Hattusha served as a principality centre surrounded by a small city wall, and during the Byzantine period, it was a village."

                                            From: muze.gov.tr

https://muze.gov.tr/muze-detay?SectionId=BGO01&DistId=MRK

Wheels, prayers, lanterns, a collage of cities in the valley of overdue soon. No use for time pieces. The stones sail at dawn.

Discussions begin about making hope travel. The crazy cow? Nobody has seen her. 

"The population at the height of power was possibly between 10,000 and 12,000, based on the size of the available arable land and the agricultural possibilities at the time, as estimated by the archaeologist Andreas Schachner. The place was inhabited from the late 3rd millennium BCE to the 4th century CE, and again in Byzantine times in the 11th century CE."

                                            From Turkish Archaeological News

https://turkisharchaeonews.net/site/hattusa

"Hattusha, which is mentioned as the 'city of a thousand gods' in the tablets, was the capital of the Hittite Civilization. Witnessing the most glorious and powerful times of the Hittite Empire, this city was one of the largest centers of the ancient world with its advanced urban structures. Hattusha was first visited by Charles Texier in 1834 and introduced to the world."

                                            

From: Turkish Museums

https://turkishmuseums.com/blog/detail/turkiyes-unesco-sites-hattusha-the-city-of-a-thousand-gods/10027/4

Nowhere serves best those who get there together. 

"The city was found to have been defended by a monumental wall that was more than 8km (4.97 miles) in length. Additionally, the upper city was further fortified by a double wall with more than a hundred towers. This wall is known to have five gates, including the famous Lion Gate and Sphinx Gate. Apart from these defensive structures, many temples have also been uncovered in Hattusa. The best preserved of these is the Great Temple, which is located in the lower city."

                                            From: Ancient Origins

https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/hattusa-cursed-city-hatti-and-hittite-empire-005670

I walked around with my friend taking photos. Only a few people there. Naturally, it's different during tourist season, but it was winter, windy but not very cold. I felt transported, awed, dwarfed by the scale of the settlement, the idea of the Bronze Age, of the Phrygians and before them the Hittites considered by the pharaonic Egyptians as a powerful civilizational force to be respected and feared along with the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and Mitanni. It's still agreed among scholars that the origins of these people remain a mystery.

I'm sure there are many better photos out there, and some can be found online, but I wanted to share my own taken with a digital Nikon. They don't really capture the size of what remains and of what my imagination was able to create while wandering the site. I thought smaller details would serve most effectively as a way to share. I remember harboring the ridiculous thought that Roman history, in relation to this, felt modern. 

Here is a link to Unesco World Heritage: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/377/

This provides maps, some excellent photos, a brief history and the legal reasons and explanations regarding why Unesco campaigned and continues to protect this site. 

I felt like a bit of puss and moo, an invisible ship worm, a vending machine in the temple of wind, the nephew of a tiny cherry, a gutted lenght of twine unravelling from a ball of blue moon. 

Split tongues on fire. Tongues forked and snow surging head arrangements, clods, cotton scribblers sojourners autodidacts, the frankenstein effect, equality, blowback, covert ingestions. 

Unleash the malware. Destroy after transmitting. Lock every door to every opened vault. Cultivate a target into an asset. Research the target while remaining anonymous. Those who enter are obliged to conceal, lie, dissimultate and dissemble. Spy techniques equal tradecraft. 

25 IMAGES FROM THE BOTANICAL GARDEN IN BATUMI, REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA - A PHOTO ESSAY

 

I'm not good with dates -- what happens does so as a movement in time. Dates are numbers, somehow to me not ingredients, my memory preferring larger canvasses, clouds moving as thunderous curls toward ghosts and their heliotropic flashes.

For too long I took my father's glacial periods of thoughtfulness as his fear, indecisiveness, and awkwardness when it came to the immediate word. Some of us are just slower deeper thinkers. Yet it's taken me this long, eleven, ten, maybe nine months after his death to accept this.

The patch job on the sidewalk. Numbers stand still. They refuse to rise.

Stand up. Just stand. There is no up with individuality, with digits. The prime numbers, say, the power of two alone, how it's so much more than one. What does that mean? One?

But not quite as much as three, and so on.

There it was. No cut. No out. All references direct. A lesson in humility.

You think he knows? Best we stay in the key of B-Flat.

Sometimes I think the only reason why I was put here on earth is to make people who meet me for the first time help me feel better about myself.

A Russian saying: Without a document, you're rubbish, but with one you're a person.

No indemnity. All the useless eaters are going to be culled.

Live up to the moment you are born.

On this day as I walk in this garden in the Republic Of Georgia, I learn from the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah that foreign-born visitors to Turkey droped 71.7 percent throughout the year 2020. Revenues dropped 65 percent to 12.06 billion dollars or 101.14 billion Turkish lira. Why do I need to be informed of this? I am unsettled now. The journalists have done their job.

Imago hominus. The image of a man. A sigh at the end of summer. You have no rights, not really, so be happy among the flowers.

No serial numbers here. Shadows and hills and expanding pools of silence.

Night finds us. Night will bury us. 

You now need an app to cheat on your spouse.

The word "travel" comes from the French word "travail" which means "work." 

Electronic envelope. Alienated. Make sure to file online before claiming you're dead. 

Where does the word vacancy come from? Where does a vacancy go?

You cannot breathe. You show your E-passport. You still cannot breathe.

Masks unfolding turn into skin.

Nature begs a question of not knowing how can you be like all the others, but how you can be unique and survive.

I have no answers. I suffer an elitism of curiosity, irrelevant neccessary and guardedness within.

Grinding the riddle I say to myself death to the mono culture, hierarchies, centralization and homgenization. I say be still and discover. 

A Review of Answer Only, A Novel By John Michael Flynn, In The 2025 Summer Issue Of Rain Taxi

 

Here is a link to Rain Taxi, the summer issue, 2025, where you can find a review by Ben Sloan of my novel, Answer Only. This is only available in the paper issue. 

https://raintaxi.com/rain-taxi-review/print-edition/

A big thank you to editor, Eric Lorberer.