Gökbez rock relief

37.753722222222 34.657055555556Coordinates: 37 ° 45 ′ 13.4 " N , 34 ° 39 ′ 25.4" E

Gokbez

Gökbez rock relief

In the town of Gökbez in southern Turkey there is a Hittite rock relief from the time of the late Hittite small states .

location

The relief is located on a farm in the village of Gökbez in the Bor district of the Turkish province of Niğde , about 12 kilometers south-east of Kemerhisar and 22 kilometers south of the provincial capital Niğde . Kemerhisar is the place of ancient Tyana and was the center of the Luwian small state Tuwana , the successor state of the Hittite Tuwanuwa . The ancient connecting road from Tyana to Faustinopolis to the Cilician Gate ran through Gökbez , and it was probably already in use in earlier times. The relief is on the side of the old route.

description

The rock relief lies broken and tilted in a courtyard in the village, leaning against a house wall. The stone block measures 3.0 meters in width and 2.4 meters in height, the relief 2.0 × 2.0 meters. The heavily weathered picture shows the god Tarhunza walking to the left. He holds a double ax in his raised right hand and a bundle of lightning in his left . The bearded god has long hair that falls on his shoulders. He is dressed in a robe that reaches to the knees, over which a wide belt is attached. A vine rises between the legs with vines hanging to the left of the figure. To the right of the figure is a double-arched field with a horizontal line extending over two thirds of the height. Berges and Nollé suspect that it may originally contain or should contain an inscription. Ehringhaus recognizes a Phrygian double idol, similar to those described by Dietrich Berndt in Midasstadt . The posture and decoration of the figure are very similar to the stele of the Muwaharanis found in Niğde in the local museum , which also shows tarhunzas. Thereafter, the relief is dated to the late 8th or early 7th century BC. Dated.

literature

Erol Faydalı: Gökbez Kaya Kabartması. In: Anadolu 18, 1974, pp. 135-136 ( PDF ).
Dietrich Berges , Johannes Nollé : Tyana - Archaeological-historical studies of the southwestern Cappadocia . Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2000 ISBN 3-7749-2959-9 , pp. 103-104.
Horst Ehringhaus : The end that was a beginning - rock reliefs and rock inscriptions of the Luwian states of Asia Minor from 12th to 8th/7. Century BC Chr. Nünnerich-Asmus, Mainz 2014, ISBN 978-3-943904-67-3 , pp. 61-66.

Web links

hittitemonuments.com

Individual evidence

↑ Dietrich Berges, Johannes Nollé: Tyana - Archaeological-historical investigations to the south-western Cappadocia . Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2000 ISBN 3-7749-2959-9 , p. 20
↑ Dietrich Berndt: Midasstadt: Small and smallest rock monuments. Early Settlement Considerations. In: Elmar Schwertheim, Engelbert Winter (ed.): New finds and research in Phrygia. Asia Minor Studies 61, 2006 pp. 1–32.

[1] Dietrich Berges, Johannes Nollé: Tyana - Archaeological-historical investigations to the south-western Cappadocia . Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 2000 ISBN 3-7749-2959-9 , p. 20

[2] Dietrich Berndt: Midasstadt: Small and smallest rock monuments. Early Settlement Considerations. In: Elmar Schwertheim, Engelbert Winter (ed.): New finds and research in Phrygia. Asia Minor Studies 61, 2006 pp. 1–32.