Keben rock relief

Coordinates: 36 ° 25 ′ 59 ″  N , 33 ° 43 ′ 40.9 ″  E

Keben​

Turkey

The Keben rock relief is a Hittite monument in southern Turkey . Its exact date is disputed. It is locally called Çolak kız ( Turkish for The Crippled Girl ).

location

From Lycaonia around the city of Ikonion (today Konya ), an army road crossed the Taurus in ancient times via Karaman and the Sertavul Pass to the south to the port city of Ura , which was in the rough Cilicia , probably near today's Silifke . The road formed an important link from the Hittite heartland to the Mediterranean and thus the sea route to Cyprus. In parts it followed the course of the river Kalykadnos, today Göksu , but had to move into the mountains in some places because of the narrowness of the valley. Remnants of the ancient pavement can still be seen in the steep rock face high above the village of Keben, which lies in the Silifke district, about 35 kilometers southeast of Mut and 20 kilometers northwest of Silifke, above the Göksu valley. The modern road leads below the village along the slope. About four meters above the old road there is a relief in the rock face in a niche.

description

The rectangular picture niche is about 1.0 meters wide, 1.8 meters high and 10 centimeters deep. It shows a female figure walking to the right with arms stretched forward at different heights. It is not possible to determine whether she was holding an object in one hand, as is sometimes assumed. She wears a polo-like cap on her head , from which a veil hangs over the robe. The body is clad in a cloak that extends to the knees, including a petticoat that falls to the floor and covers both feet. The portrait is sculpted in unusually high relief, so that the face with the concise nose that continues straight on the forehead and the almond-shaped eyes are clearly recognizable. There is no inscription, which makes the interpretation difficult.

Not far from the relief are two chamber graves at the foot of the rock face, further down in front of the wall are some chamosoria and remains of a fortification. Like the ruins, the tombs date from Roman or Byzantine times. Traces of Hittite settlement have not yet been discovered in the vicinity; the next settlement hill is Kilise Tepe , about 20 kilometers to the northwest , which dates from the early 3rd to the 1st millennium BC. Was settled.

exploration

Mehmet Belen, the director of the Archaeological Museum of Silifke at the time, was the first to report on the relief in 1975 . The first publication came from the Turkish archaeologist Orhan Aytuğ Taşyürek in 1976. He suspected that it originated in the Hittite empire period 1450–1200 BC. BC, since Cilicia belonged to the Hittite domain in this period and no Aramaic influence can be seen in the representation. Kay Kohlmeyer , who visited the place a few years later, considers this argumentation to be insufficient and recognizes similarities to the monuments from Karkemiš , which is why he dated the work to the time of the late Hittite minor kingdoms 1200–700 BC. Dated. The architect Horst Ehringhaus , who researched the Hittite rock reliefs around the turn of the millennium, in turn considers the sculpture to be from the Great Empire, for stylistic reasons such as the clothing and the depth of the relief. Building on Ehringhaus' assumption that a ruler rather than a goddess is depicted, the ancient orientalist Michele Cammarosano believes it is possible that the relief shows the great queen Danuḫepa , the last wife of Muršilis II , who was also among his successors Muwatalli II and Muršili III. was in office.

literature

• Orhan Aytuğ Taşyürek: Silifke "Keben" Hitit kaya kabartması - The Keben Hittite Rock Relief from Silifke In: Türk Arkeoloji Dergisi. Volume XXIII-1, 1976, pp. 97-102.
• Kay Kohlmeyer : Rock paintings of the Hittite Great Empire (= Acta Praehistorica et Archaeologica. Vol. 15). Marie Leidorf, Rahden 1983, ISBN 3-88435-080-3 , p. 102.
• Eberhard P. Rossner: Rock monuments in Turkey. Volume 1: The Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey. An archaeological guide. 2nd, expanded edition, Rossner, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-924390-02-9 , pp. 99-102.
• Horst Ehringhaus : gods, rulers, inscriptions. The rock reliefs of the Hittite Empire in Turkey. Zabern, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8053-3469-9 , pp. 112-118.

Web links

• Keben on hittitemonuments.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ University of Cambridge - Kilise Tepe Archaeological Project 2007–2012
2. ↑ Michele Cammarosano: Tanuḫepa. A Hittite Queen in Troubled Times. In: Mesopotamia 45, 2010, pp. 47-64., Here especially p. 61.