The tombs of typical shaft design, about 1.5 meters in depth, sealed by wooden beams, They contained the dead with folded legs facing west.

The heads and legs of bulls were placed on platforms and the dead were richly adorned with gold fibulae, diadems, and belt buckles and repoussé gold-leaf figures.

[3] Many of the artefacts discovered at Alacahöyük, including magnificent gold and bronze objects found in the Royal Tombs, are housed today in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara.

Leonard Woolley[4] found that 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.

During the reign of king Tudhaliya IV (c. 1245-1215 BC) drought devastated the country leading to the construction of a series of dams throughout the Hittite Empire.

[11] The town was heavily fortified with walls and towers due to the frequent raids of the Kaska people living in the mountainous region to the north.

Excavations by the Turkish archaeologists Remzi Oğuz Arık and Hamit Koşay resumed in 1935 under the personal instructions of Atatürk who contributed from his own budget.

[16] The work, which continued until 1970, revealed considerable local wealth and achievement even before the time of the Hittites, with the earliest occupation dating from the 4th millennium BC.

Tombs of the 3rd millennium BC feature metal vessels, jewelry, weapons, and pole finials of bulls, stags, as well as abstract forms often interpreted as solar symbols.