Kabahaydar twin bull base
The double bull base of Kabahaydar is a late Hittite monument from the area of Şanlıurfa in southeast Turkey . It is exhibited in the Şanlıurfa Archaeological Museum under the inventory number 24.4.1959.
Location
The base was found together with another simple bull base in the hamlet of Adena (Edene) in the former Bucak Kabahaydar (today Kalecik ), about 20 kilometers north of the provincial capital. In 1959 it was taken to the Şanlıurfa Museum.
description
The basalt monument is 1.20 meters long, 0.84 meters wide and 0.60 meters high at the front. On the back of the bulls there is a hole 0.46 meters wide, 0.40 meters long and 0.20 meters deep, which was used to hold the pin of a statue. The rear side is smooth, as in several known bases from Karkemiš , which leads to the assumption that the base was not free, but placed against a wall. The heads of the two animals are made as a round sculpture, the side views in relief. The horns are missing from the heads and some protruding parts are damaged. Nevertheless, various details can still be clearly seen. An ornament ribbon was fastened between the horns. The eyes as well as the large ears are worked out in great detail, but the mouth and protruding nostrils are damaged. The bulls are shown moving with their inner front legs forward. The front legs can be seen in relief from the side, with the thigh muscles reaching up to the shoulder level of the animals. These are worked in flat relief and the lower legs in high relief. The same goes for the hind legs. The realistically split hooves are separated from the leg by a horizontal double furrow, behind which a kind of spur can be seen. Between the two hind legs, of which the outer one is presented, the tail hangs down, it ends in a tassel-like ornament. Parts of the genital organ can be seen behind it.
The region north of Şanlıurfa belonged to the Kummuh Empire in the late Hittite period , which roughly corresponds to the ancient Commagene . Similar bull bases were excavated both in Karkemiš, about 100 kilometers southwest, and in Arslantaş in Syria, not far from it . Although they have some similarities, the pieces from Karkemiš show a more advanced artistic technique. The Turkish archaeologist Fikri Kulakoğlu, who first published the Kabahaydar base in 1999, is therefore of the opinion that this is the work of a provincial workshop based on the style there. The works from Arslantaş and Karkemiš are generally classified in the Late Hittite II period , before the Assyrian influence on the Neo-Hittite states, around the 10th century BC. Kulakoğlu assumes the same for Kabahaydar.
Web links
Kabahaydar at hittitemonuments.com
literature
- Fikri Kulakoğlu: Late-Hittite Sculptures from the Şanlıurfa Region. In: Prince Takahito Mikasa (Ed.): Essays on Ancient Anatolia . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04204-4 , pp. 170-171.