"The Hittite Sun Is Rising Once Again": Contested Narratives of Identity, Place and Memory in Ankara

Abstract

This article seeks to shed light on the journey of the Hittite sun disk, a cult object from the Early Bronze Age, from the architectural, narrative and discursive boundaries of a public museum to the streets of contemporary Ankara. First, it explores the role that the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations played, through the invention of secular symbols, in (re)defining modern Turkish identity. Then it probes into the processes by which the sun disk became an increasingly popular and yet controversial political symbol. In doing so, the article examines how a state-sanctioned memory-making project heralded a "clash of imaginations": conservative and Islamist versus secular-leftist urban identities, embodying conflicting visions of Ankara's past and future.