Sarıveliler rock reliefs
Coordinates: 36 ° 31 '36.9 " N , 34 ° 0' 35.8" E
In the hamlet of Sarıveliler in the village of Ovacık in Rough Cilicia in southern Turkey, there are two ancient rock reliefs and a columnar altar.
location
The reliefs can be found on the courtyard of a house in the hamlet of Sarıveliler, about 2.5 kilometers northeast of the village of Ovacık in the Silifke district of the Mersin province , 15 kilometers northeast of Silifke. The location is about 400 meters from the western edge of the Şeytan Deresi valley , which stretches from Kızkalesi , the ancient Korykos to the northwest into the mountainous hinterland to Uzuncaburç , the old Olba and Diokaisareia . The rock reliefs of Adamkayalar lie about ten kilometers to the southeast on the steep slope of the valley . In Hellenistic times, the place was on the territory of the priestly state of Olba.
Rock reliefs
The two reliefs are placed on a free-standing rock, in two niches there is a picture of a man on the right and a smaller bust of a woman on the left. To the right of this is a pair of hands with splayed fingers, which, according to Serra Durugönül , who researched the Cilician rock reliefs in the 1980s, represents an apotropaic symbol . They should keep disturbing influences away from the place.
The male relief is about one meter high, the niche is framed by a naiskos made of pilasters with antic capitals and a gable. A lying crescent moon is depicted in the gable. The standing man is clad in a coat over his chiton , which reaches over his knees and shows moving folds. The head is badly weathered, the right arm is raised, the hand is touching the frame. With his left hand he is holding an object that is no longer recognizable in front of his stomach.
The left portrait is also framed by a naiskos, which here has simple decorative acroters at the corners and in the middle . A woman is shown up to below the breast, the figure is only 40 centimeters high, the head has not been preserved. In her right hand she is holding a coat that was pulled over her head.
Relief rocks
Male portrait
Female bust
Defensive hands
Column altar
A few meters away from the relief block is a columnar round altar about one meter high. The base of the column is a plate with a torus , above it two grooves and a hollow groove (trochili) . Above this is the column drum with three relief busts, the upper end forms a plate, to which in turn profiles lead, which, however, cannot be described in more detail due to the poor state of preservation. The three busts show a man on the left and two women next to them. The portrayal of women on the right is badly weathered, the other two figures each hold their left arm in front of their stomach. The man's right arm goes under the coat to the chest, the woman's hold the left hem of the coat, her robe is pulled over her head. The folds of the sleeves are similarly tightened in all figures.
Durugönül sees the influence of half-body busts from the 1st century AD from Italy in the type of representation. Another, comparable columnar altar in the Archaeological Museum of Silifke can be dated to the 2nd century by its inscription, which can therefore also be assumed to be the date of origin for the altar of Sarıveliler.
In the immediate vicinity is a sarcophagus cover with wreath reliefs.
literature
- Serra Durugönül: The rock reliefs in the Rough Cilicia . (= BAR International Series. 511). BAR, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-86954-652-7 , pp. 55-56. Fig. 55,56
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Serra Durugönül: The rock reliefs in the Rough Kilikien . (= BAR International Series. 511). BAR, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-86954-652-7 , p. 112
- ↑ Serra Durugönül: The rock reliefs in the Rough Kilikien . (= BAR International Series. 511). BAR, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-86954-652-7 , pp. 70-71