page_title: Helmuth Theodor Bossert
section_title: Turkey years
hierarchical_section_title: Helmuth Theodor Bossert / Turkey years
caption_attribution_description: English: Hittite relief in Karatepe Museum
context_page_description: Helmuth Theodor Bossert was a German art historian, philologist and archaeologist. He is best-known for his excavations of the Hittite fortress city at Karatepe, Turkey, and the discovery of bilingual inscriptions, which enabled the translation of Hittite hieroglyphs.
context_section_description: The main purpose of his journey to Turkey was to take part at the archaeological excavations under the leadership of German Kurt Bittel in Hattusa (formerly Boğazköy, today Boğazkale), the capital of the Hittite Empire (c. 1600 BC–c. 1178 BC).
  During his stay in Turkey, he was appointed professor of "Linguistics and Art of Ancient Asia Minor" at Istanbul University in April 1934. He became later director of the newly establisher Institute of Archaeology. He authored scientific publications on the artefacts unearthed at Hittite sites, he visited in the summer breaks. Between 1939 and 1946, his scientific research work came almost to halt due to World War II.
  After 1946, he discovered the late Hittite ruins in Karatepe in southern Turkey along with the Turkish archaeologists Bahadır Alkım and Halet Çambel. The Karatepe Bilingual found there eventually led to the decryption of Hittite hieroglyphics -according to current understanding Luwian hieroglyphs or Anatolian hieroglyphs.
  In 1947, he acquired the Turkish citizenship, and remarried to Turkish woman Hürmüz. Archaeologist Eva-Maria Bossart, his 1925-born daughter from the first marriage, worked under him and Çambel at excavations in Turkey until 1956.
  In 1954, Bossert began to publish the scientific journal Jahrbuch für Kleinasiatische Forschung ("Yearbook for Asia Minor Research"), which came out for three years. From 1955 on, Bossert carried out several archaeological excavations at Mopsuestia in southern Turkey.
  In 1959, he became emeritus. He was appointed honorary professor in Freiburg, stayed, however, in Istanbul. Bossart died at age 71 in Istanbul on February 5, 1961.
caption: A late Hittite stone relief at the Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum.
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