The Hattusa Green Stone is a roughly cubic block of what is believed to be nephrite standing in the remains of the Great Temple at Hattusa, capital of the Hittites in the late Bronze Age. Now on the hill above Boğazkale, in the Turkish Province of Çorum, Hattusa is a World Heritage Site.

The original purpose is unknown, but serves as a tourist attraction today.

The stone measures 69cm (27in) per side, and weighs about 1,000 kilograms (2,200lb). It is supposed by some to have had a religious use or purpose, but what that may have been is unknown. The suggestion has been made that it may have been merely the base of a statue, however the stone is the only one of its kind found at Hattusa. --WP, with some JE edits

So, not quite the Voynich Manuscript, but an interesting object nonetheless. And quite a bit heavier(!)

In the Lebanese city of Tyre, I visited the ancient ruins & saw an identical stone --u/Msqueefmaker

  • Pennomi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    6 days ago

    Surely it was a tourist attraction back then too.

    “Hey guys look at our cool green rock! Bet you wish you had a cool green rock too.”

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      15·
      6 days ago

      I’m daydreaming that giants once walked the earth, and those giants liked to game. One time a die fell of the table and rolled itself far enough that it got lost…

      Years later the Hittites came along.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      “MoooOOOM! Why can’t we get cool green rock?”

      Then by the time everyone else has cool green rock, you finally get one for Christmas.

      • Yosmonkol@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        I’m no expert either I just vaguely remember it from a class years ago. There are multiple translations of Ḫuwaši it can be refering to the ritual object and the place of ritual. As far as I can tell the only extant examples are the Huwasi temples and not the objects. While Huwasi has been translated as ‘standing stone’ there is no criteria for their size or shape, with portable stones also being attested. They aren’t always stone either.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      Interesting thought, but such a measure didn’t get invented until well over two millennia later, by the English. Not that it couldn’t have been a weight measure of some sort of another.

      • Vinylraupe@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Ancient cultures get underestimated all the time because we have smartphones and computers now which makes us cool and advanced.

        Edit: The old way of measuring 1 kg was 1 Liter of water. You would get something like that i guess since its not precise.

        • Uruanna@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          6 days ago

          The liter, kilo, meter all come from the metric system, which didn’t exist in the time of the Hittites. It’s not about underestimating them, they had other units of measurement, but that obviously wasn’t metric.

          • Vinylraupe@lemmy.zipEnglish
            3·
            6 days ago

            The Egyptian “Elle” was 50 cm, so 1/2 a meter. So they could have measured 125 Liter using 1x1x1 “Elle”.

            I dont know the density of the material, that would be interesting to know. The cube looks like it was important to them. Maybe it was to measure big shipments of wares. Since they probably used scales back in that time.

            Long story short: Seems like quite the coincidence, even more so if you consider the work that had to be put into carving the stone.

            But well, maybe it was a doorstopper?

          • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
            1·
            5 days ago

            Interesting, thanks for explaining.

            I’m going to lightly assume that such cross-connection is one of those things that can accidentally create slight Fediverse hiccups, as (far as I can tell) one can’t directly choose that little symbol as a reaction via the standard FV interface.

            TBH, it’s kind of cute, though. I’m a fan of obscure symbols, so me like. 🙂