Kel-i-Schin stele
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Location of the Kelischin Pass in Iran |
The Kel-i-Schin-Stele (also Kelišin-Stele , Kel-i-chin-Stele ; Kurdish for blue stone ) - in the dimensions 175 cm × 62 cm × 31 cm and made of blue diorite - was up to the year 1981 on the Kelischin mountain pass of the same name at an altitude of 2981 meters in the Zāgros Mountains between Oschnaviyeh ( Iran ) and Rawanduz ( Iraq ).
It was built at the end of the 9th century BC. Built during the reign of the Urartian king Išpuini and his son Menua . The text carved on the monument was written in two languages - Assyrian and Urartian - but not dated. The inscription tells of a cult trip of the Urartian king and his designated successor to the temple of the national god Ḫaldi in Muṣaṣir . It was only through this bilingualism that essential parts of the Urartian language could be developed.
Inscription and form
Part of the inscription reads, quoted from Mirjo Salvini, 1995:
“As Išpuini, son of Sarduri, great king, mighty king, king of the whole, king of Nairi (in the Urartian version: Biainili), lord of the city of Tušpa, and Minua, son of Išpuini, before Ḫaldi to Muṣaṣir (in the Urartian Version: Ardini) came, they erected a cult pedestal for Ḫaldi on the main street (?). Išpuini, son of Sarduri, placed an inscription in front of the cult pedestal. He brought beautiful weapons ... copper standards ... a copper vase ... He set up a turu in front of the Ḫaldi gates, he gave it to Ḫaldi for his life. He brought 1112 cattle, 9120 goats (?) And sheep as an offering ... "
In addition, the stele contains a curse intended to hit anyone who damages or removes the stele in any way.
The Kelischin stele is - like other Urartian steles - rounded at the top and equipped with a shaft at the lower end, with the help of which it could be anchored in a rectangular base measuring 130 cm × 140 cm × 36 cm. It marked the top of the pass until 1981 - for around 2800 years - and has been in the museum in Urmia ever since . A copy is exhibited in the National Museum in Tehran .
meaning
This monument is one of the most important sources of Urartian history in the 9th century BC. BC, since it shows aspects of Išpuini's policy of consultation. After the forays of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. Išpuini took over the military initiative, advanced as far as Muṣa undir and declared it a Urartian protectorate. This explains the decisive clash between Urarṭus and Assyria, which began with the eighth campaign of the Assyrian king Sargon II in 714 BC. Chr. Escalated. Išpuini erected the Kelischin stele to establish the Ḫaldi cult as a means of strengthening the central authority of the newly founded Urartian Empire.
Research history
Many European researchers and orientalists tried to copy and decipher the stele. In the process, some expeditions were ambushed and killed, and those who got through to the stele managed to make unusable copies.
Friedrich Eduard Schulz is considered the discoverer of the Kelischin stele . At the end of 1829 he was murdered near Başkale by Kurds who probably thought he was a Turkish spy. Parts of his notes could still be removed from the murderer; there was no copy of the Kel-i-Schin stele among them.
On October 26, 1838, the English Assyriologist, diplomat and officer Henry Creswicke Rawlinson tried to make a copy of the Kel-i-Schin stele. This attempt failed because it was not possible to copy with damp paper in winter at −20 ° C and with an icy surface. Although Rawlinson stayed in the region for a while, he managed to reach the Kel-i-Schin stele despite several attempts due to the weather. In 1849 he returned to England without having achieved anything, but not empty-handed. He donated a valuable collection of antiquities to the British Museum in London.
A few years later, the German scholar R. Rosch tried to reach the stele in the summer, but he and his 38 companions were attacked and murdered at the Kel-i-Schin stele. After these incidents, it was impossible for researchers to get guides for a while because the stone was considered cursed by the local population.
Years later, the German Otto Blau reached the stone with a small army in 1857 and was able to make a copy. But this broke on the way back and Blue couldn't go back because of more urgent matters.
Another German Waldemar Bleck wanted to go to the stele in 1891, but was attacked on the way and narrowly escaped death. A year later he reached the stele together with Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt , but could not read it because it was covered with ice. After another raid, Bleck never returned to Stele.
Jacques de Morgan made the first casts in 1893, which formed the basis of Jean-Vincent Scheil's publication . He was the first to discover that the stele was bilingual and written on both sides. In 1951, George G. Cameron from the University of Michigan was able to make satisfactory latex copies from the stele and in 1976 an Italian expedition under Paolo Emilio Pecorello and Mirjo Salvini repeated this.
The stele were then transported to Urmia by the Iranian army during the first Gulf War in 1981.
literature
- Jacques de Morgan , Jean-Vincent Scheil : La stele de Kel-i-chin. In: Recueils des travaux d'égyptologie, d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale 14, 1893, pp. 153–160 Digitized version .
- Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt : Materials on the older history of Armenia and Mesopotamia. 1906.
- Warren C. Benedict: The Urartian-Assyrian Inscription of Kelishin. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society 81, 1961, pp. 359-385.
- CJ Edmonds: Some Ancient Monuments on the Iraqi-Persian Boundary. In: Iraq 28/2, 1966, Pl.XLVI
- HF Russell: Shalmaneser's Campaign to Urartu in 856 BC and the Historical Geography of Eastern Anatolia according to the Assyrian Sources. In: Anatolian Studies 34, 1984, pp. 171-201.
- Walter Mayer: Notes on the Assyrian version of the Kelišin stele. In: Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, 21 (1988), pp. 21–24.
- Mirjo Salvini: History and Culture of the Urartians. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, p. 43.
- Mirjo Salvini: Corpus dei testi urartei. Vol. I, Istituto di Studi sulle civiltà dell'Egeo e del Vicino Oriente, Rome 2008, pp. 141–144 (scientific edition of the inscription and translation in Italian).
- Maurits N. van Loon: The Art of Urartu. In: Winfried Orthmann (Ed.): Propylaea Art History, Vol. 18, (The old Orient). Frankfurt a. M. 1985.
- Boris Pyotrovsky: Urartu. Nagelverlag, Munich 1969.
- Mirjo Salvini: History and Culture of the Urartians. Darmstadt 1995.
- Ralf-Bernhard Wartke : Urartu. The empire on Mount Ararat. Mainz 1993.
- Ralf-Bernhard Wartke: Iran-Urartu. Berlin 1987.
- Mirjo Salvini: Reallexikon der Assyriologie , Volume 5, P. 568, "Kelišin"
- Mirjo Salvini: Reallexikon der Assyriologie, Volume 8, S. 444, "Muṣaṣir"
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mirjo Salvini: History and Culture of the Urartians . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, p. 43 .
- ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Armenia, 242–261.
Coordinates: 36 ° 54 ′ 0 ″ N , 44 ° 56 ′ 0 ″ E