Burunkaya rock inscription

Coordinates: 38 ° 23 '7 "  N , 34 ° 9' 59.1"  E

Burunkaya​

Turkey

Burunkaya rock inscription (upside down)

The rock inscription of Burunkaya (also Mamasın ) is written in Luwian hieroglyphics and comes from the early period of the late Hittite states . It is assigned to the Tarḫuntašša region and is believed to have been in the late 12th century BC. BC, soon after the fall of the Hittite empire.

location

Burunkaya from the south

The inscription can be found upside down on a fallen stone block on the southern slope of the rock spur called Burunkaya in the south of the Mamasın Barajı reservoir in the central district of the Turkish province of Aksaray . From the D-400 highway, which connects Aksaray with Nevşehir , a road branches off to the south about ten kilometers east of Aksaray and leads into the Ihlara Valley . Soon after the junction, the road reaches the reservoir and the village of Gücünkaya . From there a path leads across fields and a stream to the rock, on the slope of which the stone block with the inscription is about halfway up.

exploration

The discoverer of the inscription was Oğuz Demir Tüzün, chairman of the local association for museums, history and monuments. In 1971 he reported to the Turkish General Directorate for Antiquities and Museums. A letter from the management to Ankara University was forwarded to the Hittite scientist Sedat Alp , who visited the site twice with his assistants in August of the same year. The first publication of the inscription comes from him. The British Hittitologist John David Hawkins was at Burunkaya in 1989 and described the inscription in his Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions . In 1988 Eberhard P. Rossner included the text in his archaeological guide to the Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey, and in 2014 the German architect Horst Ehringhaus published a detailed description with photos in his book on Luwian rock reliefs.

description

The upside-down inscription is 1.59 meters long, the height of the first line is 30 to 37 centimeters. The characters are not scratched, but chiseled with fine tools and are well preserved. You can still see a left-hand line and traces of the next line on the left-hand edge below. In the text the ruler is named Hartapu , he is called

Great King, Beloved Tarhunza , [son] of Mursilis, the Great King, the Hero

The meaning of the rest of the text is unclear. Hartapu is known from the inscriptions of Karadağ and Kızıldağ (near Karaman ), where he also appears as the great king. When his father was Mursili III for a long time . assumed that in the 13th century BC Was briefly the great king of the Hittite empire until he was met by his uncle Ḫattušili III. was discontinued. If this identification was correct, Hartapu would have had in the 12th century BC. Immediately after the end or during the existence of the Hittite empire, Tarḫuntašša ruled the country. This is also indicated by the lack of winged sun above the name - in contrast to Karadağ and Kızıldağ , which was reserved for the ruler there during the Great Empire. Since the discovery of the stele of Türkmen-Karahöyük , another inscription by Hartapus, it is in the 8th century BC. Dated.

Web links

Commons : Burunkaya  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Burunkaya on hittitemonuments.com

literature

• Sedat Alp: A new hieroglyphic Hittite inscription from the Kızıldağ-Karadağ group from near Äksaray and the earlier published inscriptions from the same group. In: Kurt Bittel (Ed.): Anatolian studies presented to Hans Gustav Güterbock on the occasion of his 65th birthday (= Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologische Instituut te Istanbul. Volume 35). Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologische Inst. In het Nabije Oosten, Istanbul 1974, pp. 17-21.
• Eberhard P. Rossner: Rock monuments in Turkey. Volume 1: The Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey. An archaeological guide. 2nd, extended edition, Rossner, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-924390-02-9 , pp. 96-98.
• John David Hawkins: Corpus of hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions . Volume 1: Inscriptions of the Iron Age . Part 1: Introduction, Karatepe, Karkamiš, Tell Ahmar, Maraş, Malatya, Commagene. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-11-010864-X , pp. 437-438, plate 243.
• Horst Ehringhaus: The end that was a beginning. Rock reliefs and rock inscriptions of the Luwian states of Asia Minor from 12. to 8./7. Century BC Chr. Nünnerich-Asmus, Mainz 2014, ISBN 978-3-943904-67-3 , pp. 31–33.

Remarks

1. ↑ The designations left and right refer to the original, non-overturned position of the inscription block.
2. ↑ Petra Goedegebuure et al .: TÜRKMEN-KARAHÖYÜK 1: a new Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription from Great King Hartapu, son of Mursili, conqueror of Phrygia In: Anatolian Studies 70 (2020) pp. 29–43