Alacahöyük (höyük means hill) was an important Hattic city that predated the arrival of the Hittites.  It was the preeminent city of the Hattic culture during the Early Bronze Age.  Starting around 1800 BC the Hittites eventually took over.  It was an important city to the Hittites as well and many ruins such as the Sphinx Gate, are from the Hittite time.  

Underneath the Hittite layer, archeologists discovered royal tombs where Hattian kings were buried.  In the tombs, archeologists discovered many metal objects including royal standards that likely were displayed on wooden poles.  A very special Iron dagger was found as well which predates the Iron Age age by 1,000 years.  Some speculate it was forged from metal found in a meteorite, while others think the Hattians may have discovered the secret to iron much earlier than previously thought.

The Graves are detailed in Priester oder Handwerker?  Neues über die frühbronzezeitlichen Fürstengräber von Alacahöyük  [Priest or Craftsman? News about the Early Bronze Age Royal Tombs of Alacahöyük] By Ünsal Yalçın & H. Gönül Yalçın Könige

Click here for the Full Report in German w/ Images

Layers and Time Periods at Alacahöyük

• Layers 14-9: Chalcolithic

• Layers 8-5: Early Bronze Age (EBA)

• Layers 4-2: Hittite

• Layer 1: Mix of Phrygian, Roman, Ottoman

The Royal Tombs at Alacahöyük are found in EBA layers 7 though 5.

• Layer 7. Graves: F, K, L [8.3-9.1]

• Layer 6. Graves: A, C, E [7.65-8.7 m]

• Layer 5.

  • Graves: H, S, B, D [depth 5.35-6.35 m]

  • Graves: R, T [depth 6.65-7.35 m]

  • Graves: T1, A1 [depth 7.4-8.0 m]

Scholars date the tombs to coincide with the accepted dating of Troy II (first half of the 2nd millennium BC).  Directly above the graves is a burn layer about .5 m thick in places suggesting a natural disaster or violent conquest.  A sample from a burned-out tree in this burn layer dated to around 2450-2300 BC. 

Grave H:  (Female) Good Condition.  Wearing clothes and tiara as well as jewelry.  Significant grave goods, sun standard, plates, statues, figurines.  Contained bones of sacrificed animals.

Grave D: (Female?) Bad Condition.  Grave goods mostly in bad condition, sun standards, statures, gold, silver, ceramics.

Grave S: (Unknown) Severely Disturbed. Three human long bones were found.  Objects found in are of the grave were a sword, a sun standard, pendants, hair ornaments, gold, silver, and copper. 

Grave B: (Male) Good Condition. On the western side a clay bench contained the skeleton of a tall individual.  The skull was completely shattered.  The grave also contained three Bulls heads, one sheep, two dogs skeletons.  Grave goods consisted of a seal, six sun standards, ceramic vessels, pearls, and animal figures.

Grave R: (Male). Bad Condition.    Near the skull were clothing pins, two spiral shaped earrings, a cross-shaped pendant and agate beads.  The skull lay in a crouched position with the head pointing west.  Well preserved teeth and less preserved bones had turned green.

Grave T: Grave goods found in the area of T and T1 include a golden diadem, gilded robe, a gold bracelet, and four sun standards, a bull statue, three metal hooks and several pieces of gold, silver, copper, or bronze.

Grave T (late): (Female) Bad Condition. The newest burial in this grave.  Poorly preserved skeleton lay in front of stone rows.  The skull was flattened and shattered.  Near the skull lay a broken vessel and several pearls of gold.  

Grave T1 (early): (Male) Bad Condition.   The older of the two burials in this grave.  Three bull heads flattened with bullshanks (nose grips), bronze dagger, copper objects, remnants of leather.  Human skeleton had a skull that was cut in two.  Between the two halves of the skull were a handful of golden covered pearls, silver, and agate.  The skeleton lay on red-colored stone slabs.

Grave E: (Unknown gender) Bad Condition.  Skeleton was face down in crouched position.  Skull and bones completely weathered.  Unsalvageable. The buried person wore a gold diadem.  Also found were a pair o earrings, a bull statue, copper hatchets and numerous pearls.

Grave A: (Female). Good Condition.  This grave is considered the best preserved of all.  Bones were neatly arranged.  The grave was a rectangular pit dug and reinforced with rows of stones.  The floor of the grave was laid with adobe bricks and the corpse of the deceased woman was in the middle of the grave.  The corpse wore on gold diadem, gold earrings and pearls.  Gold belt buckles, iron needle and a piece of textile was found.  A wooden vessel decorated with silver with a copper lid.  On both sides of the body was a staff with silver knobs.  There was also a deer statue placed on a wooden stick decorated with silver.

Grave A1: (Male) Bad Condition.  Only the lower jaw and some teeth remain from a badly damaged burial.  The grave had many goods, jewels, ornaments, clothing, sun standards, a broken long sword, gold diadem, iron pendants of anthropomorphic figures, etc.  It also contained the skulls and bones of sacrificed cattle.

Grave C: (Genders unknown) Very Bad Condition.  The grave was basically destroyed.  The remains of three different persons were found in a very bad state of preservation.  Distributed throughout the entire area are numerous grave goods clustered near the remains.  1st group: Several poorly preserved silver objects and vessels.  2nd group: One burial contained a bull figure, two sun standards, and other gold objects.  Iron knife with a golden handle.  3rd group: Numerous foils and sheet metal of gold and silver.  

Grave K: (Male) Good Condition.  Large and well-preserved grave. The corpse was in a crouched position with his head facing west.  A golden diadem had slipped off.  Directly in front of the corpse were several vessels made of fold and silver.  Two club heads one of gold and another of stone were found.  Also an iron dagger with a gold handle, another dagger made of silver, and a sword.  The individual was wearing a gold pendant and several robe necklaces of gold and silver beads.  At the head of a silver vessel contained a very unique snake motif.  A bull statue was found as well as two sun standards.  

Grave F: (unknown gender). Very Bad Condition.  This grave is located below grave T and experiences ground water.  The corpse and most of the metal grave goods were entirely corroded or dissolved.  The bottom of the tomb is paved with irregular stones.

Grave L: (Female) Bad Condition.  The body has been mostly dissolved due to groundwater.  There was a gold tiara on the head and a pendant made of gold on the individuals neck.  Two anthropomorphic figurines, silver spoons, gold cups, sun standards and a bull statue was found.  The grave was covered with wooden beams and compacted with tamped clay.  On it were heads and long bones of ten sacrificed bulls.

Tayfun Yıldırım of the department of Protohistory and Pre-Asian Archeology at Ankara University is currently leading further digs on the site.  It would be very interesting to see if DNA could be recovered from the remains of these royals.

For more:

THE RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS MADE ON BEHALF OF THE TURKISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY AT ALACA HÖYÜK IN THE SUMMER OF 1936 by Dr. Hamit Zübeyr Kosay

History Alacahöyük from Wikipedia:

"{Alacahöyük or Alaca Höyük (sometimes also spelled as Alacahüyük, Aladja-Hoyuk, Euyuk, or Evuk) is the site of a Neolithic and Hittite settlement and is an important archaeological site. It is situated in Alaca, Çorum Province, northeast of Boğazkale (formerly and more familiarly Boğazköy), where the ancient capital city Hattusa of the Hittite Empire was situated. Its Hittite name is unknown: connections with Arinna, Tawiniya, and Zippalanda have all been suggested.

The mound (Turkish höyük) at Alacahöyük was a scene of settlement in a continuous sequence of development from the Chalcolithic Age [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic], when earliest copper tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. During the Early Bronze Age, the mound was the center of a flourishing Hattian culture. It has been continuously occupied ever since, until today's modern settlement in the form of a small village. The standing and distinguishing remains at Alacahöyük, however, such as the "Sphinx Gate", date from the Hittite period that followed the Hatti, from the fourteenth century BC.

Thirteen shaft-grave "Royal Tombs" (EBII, ca. 2350-2150 BC) in Alacahöyük contained the dead in fetal position facing south. They were richly adorned with gold fibulae, diadems, and belt buckles and repoussé gold-leaf figures.

According to Trevor Bryce, ″There is a theory that the occupants of the tombs were not from the native Hattian population of central Anatolia, but were Kurgan immigrants from the region of Maikop in southern Russia, who spoke an Indo-European language and perhaps became rulers of the local Hattian population.″

Many of the artefacts discovered at Alacahöyük, including magnificent Hattian gold and bronze objects found in the Royal Tombs, are housed today in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. Among these artifacts are gold and electrum standing cups and other vessels. Bulls or stags on pedestals as culturally unexplained "standards" are among the most common images. The standards are cast in copper, in the form of flat circles, half-circles or squares that are in-filled with an open network of cross bars, central crosses, and swastikas. According to researcher Leonard Woolley, the Royal Tombs "seem to belong to the end of a period, as marked by a stratum of destruction and the burning of the citadel. The culture which the tomb objects illustrate does not continue into the next historical phase, that of Kültepe".  Modern assessment[5] finds that the site continued as a flourishing community to the end of the Late Bronze Age. There was also a sizable occupation in Phrygian times."