A Brief Evaluation on the Plant Depictions in the Hittite Deciption Art

The Hittite Empire is one of the most important civilizations that contributed to the field of art through numerous artworks. The diversity of motifs in the Hittite artworks makes them unique. Although there are many researches about the illustrations on the Hittite depicted-artworks, the absence of a detailed study on botanical motifs has accelerated this study. A lot of subjects and motifs have been depicted on the artworks and botanical motifs occupy an important place among them. The botanical motifs on the artworks shed light on the Hittite art. In the light of these studies it has been seen that there are pretty much botanical-depicted Hittite works. The examples regarding the botanical-depicted artwork in this paper constitute only some instances of the works. Many of the Hittite Period works have been searched and analyzed and then the relation between the plant types in these works and modern-day plant types have been studied. The botanical motifs in the artworks, which have different details in each piece, take places in specific compositions in depiction fields. Those motifs have been applied sometimes on their own and sometimes with figures of people, animal and god. The plant motifs on the artworks have been used as decorative elements on occasions and they have been sometimes used as signs in the hieroglyph writing system. The plants frequently used by the Hittite people in the daily life have been imaged on the artworks and thus the Hittite social life has been depicted on the works.