Karadağ rock inscriptions

Coordinates: 37 ° 23 ′ 57 ″  N , 33 ° 8 ′ 51 ″  E

Karadağ​

Turkey

Inscription of the inscription Karadağ 1 by Benson Brush Charles, Cornell Expedition, 1911

The rock inscriptions of Karadağ are two inscriptions in Luwian hieroglyphics from the time of the late Hittite small states on a summit of the Karadağ volcanic massif in southern Turkey .

location

The two inscriptions are located on the highest elevation of the Karadağ massif, the Mahalıç (also Mihalıç) Tepesi, in the southeast of the crater at an altitude of 2267 meters above sea level. The volcano is located north of the city of Karaman in the central district of the Turkish province of the same name . They are attached on both sides in a rock corridor. Today the monument, like the nearby Byzantine ruins, is in a restricted military area and is no longer accessible.

In the south of what is now Turkey, at the time of the Hittite empire, the Tarḫuntašša region , which was part of the empire at times, was located , whose rulers referred to themselves as great kings. Around the area of ​​Tarḫuntašša arose after the collapse of the great empire - possibly as early as the 12th century BC. BC - the neo-Hittite kingdom of Tabal , whose ruler was Hartapu , who also dubbed himself the great king. The rock reliefs or inscriptions from Burunkaya , Karadağ and Kızıldağ are attributed to him. The relief on Kızıldağ is within sight of the inscription discussed here.

Research history

Photograph of the rock corridor from the west by Gertrude Bell, 1907

The inscriptions were first described in 1907 by Gertrude Bell and William Mitchell Ramsay after their trip to Asia Minor together with the Byzantine church ruins. Also in 1907, the Cornell expedition to Asia Minor and the Assyro-Babylonian Orient ( Cornell University ) visited the site and made new photographs and copies of the texts. In 1939 the German Hittitologist Hans Gustav Güterbock was at the Karadağ, and in 1972 his Turkish colleague Sedat Alp was the first to publish the inscriptions. In 1988 Eberhard Rossner described the inscriptions. In 1989, the Hittites Hatice Gonnet and John David Hawkins researched the inscriptions, the latter included them in his Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions . In the late 20th century Horst Ehringhaus finally visited the Karadağ and described the monuments in his anthology of the Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey.

description

To the north of the Byzantine church, close to the edge of the crater, lies a rock corridor that led to a place of worship that was later built over by the Byzantine buildings. The two inscriptions are placed opposite one another on its two sides. The left, longer one is called Karadağ 1, on the right side there is the inscription Karadağ 2. The latter consists only of the name of King Hartapu and his title. Only the first line of Karadağ 1 is legible. It starts on the right and is two meters long and about 30 to 35 centimeters high. It is:

In this place the Majesty, Hartapu, Great King, (the) Tarḫunza of Heaven, the Great Mountain (and) paid homage to all gods. (He) who conquered all lands has Tarḫunza of heaven and (all) gods ...

At the left end, the remains of other characters that are difficult to recognize can be seen below the writing, which presumably represent the beginning of a further, clockwise line. The mountain mentioned is certainly the Karadağ or the Mihalıç Tepesi, which was therefore the seat of a sanctuary dedicated to the gods mentioned. Over the upper edge of the inscription there is a direct view of the Kızıldağ cone north of the Karadağ, on which there is a rock relief, also belonging to Hartapu .

The dating of the inscription is uncertain. The reign of Hartapus is not known, he describes himself as the great king, so he sees himself as a direct successor to the rulers of the Hittite empire. In the Kızıldağ inscription he is mentioned as the son of Mursilis. Should this, as is assumed, Muršili III. Hartapu would be in the early 12th century BC. To date. On the other hand, the kingdom of Tabal, of which he is considered to be ruler, only became established in the 9th century BC First mentioned. Furthermore, the relief of the king on the Kızıldağ shows quite clearly Assyrian influence, according to which a later classification would have to be assumed. Hawkins, on the other hand, sees purely archaic features in the characters and no parts of more recent writing tradition, which in turn would point to an earlier date. Since the discovery of the stele of Türkmen-Karahöyük , another inscription by Hartapus, it has been used in the 8th century BC. Dated.

• 

  Rock corridor with contact paper on the inscriptions, photo of the Cornell expedition in 1907

• 

  Karadağ 1, left half, Cornell expedition

• 

  Karadağ 1, right half, Cornell expedition

literature

• Eberhard P. Rossner: The Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey. An archaeological guide (= rock monuments in Turkey. Volume 1). 2nd, expanded edition. Rossner, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-924390-02-9 , pp. 84-89.
• 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. 436–437, plates 240–242.
• 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 BC Using epigraphic texts and historical information from Frank Starke . Nünnerich-Asmus, Mainz 2014, ISBN 978-3-943904-67-3 , pp. 29–31.

Web links

Commons : Karadağ Rock Inscriptions  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• hittitemonuments.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ WM Ramsay, Gertrude L. Bell: The Thousand and One Churches. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1909, pp. 241-257, 505-512.
2. ^ Benson Brush Charles: Hittite Inscriptions (Cornell Expedition to Asia Minor). Ithaca / New York 1911, pp. 3-4.
3. ↑ Sedat Alp: A new hieroglyphic Hittite inscription from the Kızıldağ-Karadağ group from the vicinity of Äksaray and the earlier published inscriptions from the same group. In: Anatolian Studies. Festschrift Güterbock. Istanbul 1974, pp. 25-26, Plate IX.
4. ^ Translation after Frank Starke , cf. Horst Ehringhaus: gods, rulers, inscriptions. The rock reliefs of the Hittite Empire in Turkey. von Zabern, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8053-3469-9 pp. 30–31.
5. ↑ 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