Dexiosis stele from Sofraz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sofraz stele

The Sofraz Dexiosis Stele is a monument from the 1st century BC. BC, which can be attributed to the ancient kingdom of Kommagene . It shows the local ruler Antiochus I in dexiosis pose with Apollo and bears a Greek inscription of the king on the sides and on the back.

Find history

The stele was found in 1973 about 300 meters southeast of the village of Üçgöz (formerly Sofraz) in the district of Besni in the Turkish province of Adıyaman . It came to light during robbery excavations in a well that was at the foot of an ancient settlement hill. After it was initially stored in the Besni gendarmerie depot, it was discovered there in 1974 by the German archaeologist Jörg Wagner. It was then taken to the Gaziantep Archaeological Museum; today it is on display in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep .

In 1993 and 2001, under the direction of Fehmi Erarslan, director of the Adıyaman Archaeological Museum , the two tumuli of Sofraz with two Roman chamber tombs, which are also part of the local settlement, were excavated in the vicinity .

description

The basaltic lava stele is 1.22 meters high, 0.59 meters wide and 0.31 meters deep and tapers slightly towards the bottom. The relief on the front is up to eight centimeters high. On the left is shown King Antiochus I, who later built the Hierothesion on Nemrut Dağı . He is dressed in a gathered upper garment in the manner of a chiton , over which he wears a heavy cloak, which is held together by a clasp on the right shoulder. He is also equipped with the sacrificial dagger hanging on the belt and the king's scepter. Of this, only the point over the shoulder can be seen here - probably due to an oversight by the stonemason - but not the lower part. On his head he wears the five-pointed Armenian tiara with unfolded tabs under which the royal diadem emerges, as well as a collar. The tiara, diadem and collar show jewelry matching the god opposite, the eagle and a laurel wreath on the headgear, and further eagle figures on the collar and diadem. Next to the king is the god Apollo, who extends his hand to him. He is naked except for a cloak that covers his shoulders. A halo on his head equates him with the sun god Helios, in his left hand he holds a bundle of laurel branches.

The Greek inscription runs across the sides and the back of the stele. The author introduces himself as

"I, King Antiochus, appearing just God, friend of the Romans and friend of the Greeks, son of King Mithridates Kallinikos , founder and benefactor and first who created the Kitaris ..."

The Kitaris refers to the Armenian royal tiara, which Antiochus took over from Tigranes II of Armenia after he was in 69 BC. Was defeated by the Roman Pompey . In the rest of the text, the king reports on the establishment of Temene in the entire kingdom , as does other known royal inscriptions from Kommagene, including those of Samosata, Adıyaman, Arsameia on Nymphaios and the large Nomos inscription on Nemrut Dağı . These cult areas were intended for the worship of the gods and the divine king. Here, too, he gives precise instructions as to when and how the cult celebrations should take place and stipulates that the surrounding places and lands are responsible for supplying the sanctuaries and carrying out the cult activities. He dedicates the Temenos of Sofraz to Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollon is given the nickname ῾Έπήκοος (the helpful, supporter), while Artemis is called with the epithet Δικτύννα , by which she is known in Crete as the goddess of the wild. At the end he promises his descendants that as long as they carry out the celebrations properly, the gods will please them and treat them graciously. But whoever does not give the places the appropriate veneration or even desecrate or damage them, the opposite of it should happen to them, and what happens to the wicked will happen to them.

background

The Kingdom of Kommagene was in a field of tension at that time between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire . Antiochus describes himself as a friend of the Romans and the Greeks. He owed his friendship with the Romans that he was after the defeat of the Armenians at Tigranokerta in 69 BC. With the consent of the Romans, he was able to keep his domain, which was previously dependent on Armenia, and was allowed to adorn himself with the Armenian tiara as Tigranes' successor. The friendship with the Greeks is based on his assumed descent from the Macedonian Alexander . The fact that in this inscription, in contrast to most of his other royal inscriptions, he describes himself as king (βασιλεὺς) and not as great king (βασιλεὺς μέγας) , proves that it must be one of the first of these inscriptions. However, he had already laid the foundation stone for the royal cult he founded with sanctuaries spread across the empire, which was to culminate with the monumental hierothesion on Nemrut Dağı. However, nothing can be seen here of the later syncretism , the union of western and eastern religion and descent. Apollon is only the Greco-Roman god here, the later identification with Mithras has not yet taken place. Also, the god is not dressed as a mithras, as in later reliefs, but is depicted naked in Greek tradition. He holds laurel branches in his hand, unlike the old Persian Barsom later on . Hence the significance of the stele for science. It can be seen as evidence that the syncretistic royal cult of Antiochus was not already introduced by his father Mithridates, as was assumed by Helmut Waldmann, for example, but only by Antiochus himself. Waldmann's assumption that on the earlier dexiosis reliefs, for example in Arsameia that not Antiochus, but the father Mithridates is depicted, is hereby refuted, since the present stele is older than the depictions in question and the one shown is clearly designated as Antiochus in the text.

literature

  • Jörg Wagner, Georg Petzl: A new Temenos stele of King Antiochus I von Kommagene , Journal for Papyrology and Epigraphy, Vol. 20 (1976), pp. 201-223
  • Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin: Iran and Greece in the Kommagene Universitätsverlag Konstanz 1984 ISBN 3 87940 240 X
  • Friedrich Karl Dörner: The throne of the gods on the Nemrud Dağ . 2nd edition, Gustav Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1987, ISBN 3-7857-0277-9 , p. 212
  • Michael Blömer, Engelbert Winter : Commagene, The Land of Gods Between the Taurus and the Euphrates Homer Kitabevi, Istanbul 2011, ISBN 978-9944-483-35-3 , pp. 168-172.
  • Georg Petzl: The royal inscriptions from Kommagene In: Jörg Wagner (Hrsg.): Gottkönige am Euphrat. New excavations and research in Kommagene. Von Zabern, Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-8053-4218-6 , pp. 61-70

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, where the stele is placed, the place of origin is incorrectly indicated as the place of origin on the sign provided
  2. ↑ a b Translation after Georg Petzl : The royal inscriptions by Kommagene In: Jörg Wagner (Hrsg.): Gottkönige am Euphrat. New excavations and research in Kommagene. Von Zabern, Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-8053-4218-6 , pp. 61-70
  3. ^ Helmut Waldmann: The commagenic cult reforms under King Mithradates I. Kallinikos and his son Antiochus I. Brill, Leiden 1973, ISBN 90-04-03657-1