Yazılıkaya sanctuary belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 1250 BCE at near Hattusa. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
An open-air rock chapel where Hittite gods walk in two processions, labelled in Luwian, meeting at a weather-god embrace.
How it was made
King Tudhaliya IV appears among the gods. The chambers use the living rock as both wall and holy of holies.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
It is theology you can walk through — a wonder of relief, not of height.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 1250 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 43 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.