Statuette of a male deer with 12 branched antlers. Ornament on top of a royal (or cult) staff.
From the Hatti-culture, c. 2200 BC. Excavated in Alaca Höyük (Royal tombs).
Bronze, with silver plating and inlays of silver. Height: 52½ cm.

The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the ‘Land of Hatti’ (present-day central Anatolia). The group was documented at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BC). The Hattians were organised in city-states and small kingdoms or principalities. These cities were well organized and ruled as theocratic principalities, until they were gradually absorbed c.2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. The latter became identified with the ‘Land of Hatti’, although they had nothing in common with their precursors, neither ethnographically nor linguistically.

Correspondent: J.M.Criel, Antwerpen.
Sources: ‘Museum of Anatolian Civilisations’ (catalogue) & Wikipedia.