Portal Lion of Maraş
The portal lion of Maraş is a late Hittite sculpture found in 1883 on the citadel of Kahramanmaraş (formerly Maraş) , covered on one side with a hieroglyphic inscription. It is called Maraş 1 by Hawkins and Maraş B / 1 by Orthmann and is exhibited in the Kahramanmaraş Archaeological Museum .
Find
The lion figure was discovered in 1883 by Carl Humann and Otto Puchstein during their Anatolia trip to the castle of Marʿasch , today's Kahramanmaraş. A second, unlabeled lion, which was slightly larger, was left on site at a gate of the fortress, the labeled sculpture was brought to the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul . A plaster cast was made for the Berlin museums. After many years of negotiations, the lion was taken to the Kahramanmaraş Archaeological Museum on August 30, 2013, following a decision by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism ( Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı ). The sculpture has been discussed by numerous scholars, including Ekrem Akurgal , Helmuth Theodor Bossert , John David Hawkins, and Winfried Orthmann.
description
The basalt sculpture is 0.41 meters high, 0.73 meters long and 0.25 meters thick. It is in a very good state of preservation. The head of the animal and the forelegs are made as full plastic, the left side appears as a high relief through the inscribed plate between the feet and the body. The right side as well as the back side next to the left hind leg and the tail are unworked, probably because of the former installation on a goal wall or next to a second figure. This smooth surface continues in a platform on the back of the animal up to the neck. Hawkins suspects it will be a space for a statue.
The round head shows Assyrian influences. The eyes, nose and ears are clearly visible. The open mouth is surrounded by a row of teeth, the large fangs collide. The stylized mane reaches down to the shoulders and half of the front legs. Belly hair can also be seen in diamond-shaped tufts. Toes and claws are clearly developed on the front paws, and they are also visible next to each other on the hind legs.
Above the left front leg, in the area of the mane, a surface is cut out on which the severely damaged figure of a man standing on an animal, perhaps a lion, can be seen. It could represent the author of the text. Hawkins understands it as the introductory amu-figure , amu denoting the EGO sign ("I") of the Luwian hieroglyphs 
. Next to this figure begins a six-line hieroglyphic text to the right, which continues to the tail of the animal and from there runs in a bustrophedon shape over the entire body of the lion including the legs and the area in between. The text breaks off at the beginning of a seventh line between the front feet, a continuation is to be assumed on another component, either on a statue standing on its back or on a second portal lion.
In the inscription to the author as king of Gurgum, son of Laramas, grandson Halparuntiyas, the Halparuntiyas, great-grandson of Muwatalli ... before. He protests his loyalty to the gods, especially Tarhunza and Runtiya , as well as the worship of his ancestors and describes his deeds. Through the succession of ancestors, the ruler could be called Halparuntiyas III. be identified, King of the Late Hittite Empire of Gurgum , whose capital was on the site of today's Kahramanmaraş. The depiction of the ruler standing on a lion may indicate its posthumous deification, so that the time of origin was in or after the reign of Halparuntiyas, i.e. at the end of the 9th century BC. Chr.
literature
- Winfried Orthmann : Studies on late Hittite art. (= Saarbrücker Contributions to Archeology, Vol. 8) Habelt, Bonn 1971, ISBN 978-3774911222 , pp. 89, 139, 143, 205, 288, 290, 291, 360, 524.
- John David Hawkins : Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Vol. I: Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Part 1: Text: Introduction, Karatepe, Karkamiš, Tell Ahmar, Maraş, Malatya, Commagene. (= Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture 8). de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-11-010864-X , pp. 261–265 No. IV.4, plates 112–113.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The lion sculpture in the Ancient Near Eastern Museum Istanbul (1991)
- ^ Karl Humann, Otto Puchstein: Travels in Asia Minor and Northern Syria. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1890 pp. 390–391
- ↑ Labeling in the museum
- ↑ The second lion found in the citadel resembles this one stylistically, so that it is dated to the same time, but is unlabeled and is not part of this pair of lions because of the different sizes.