Patron god stele of Gölpınar
The patron god of Gölpınar is a late Hittite monument from the area around Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey . It is exhibited in the Şanlıurfa Archaeological Museum .
Location
The stele was found in a field in the village of Gölpınar, which is part of İlçe Karaköprü in Şanlıurfa Province , a municipality in the provincial city. The site is about 13 kilometers north of the city center. A stylistically similar stele of the weather god was found in the same place .
description
The basalt block is 1.16 meters high, 0.75 meters wide and 0.20 meters thick. It shows a male figure, turned to the right, standing on a stag. The state of preservation is good. A rectangular piece has been cut out on the head of the animal and a hole has been drilled in the stag's rear body. In the upper left part of the stele is broken off so that the head of the man above the beard is missing. As is usual in Hittite depictions, the head and legs are shown in profile, while the upper body is shown frontally. He is dressed in a short skirt and a short-sleeved top. The skirt has a fold in the middle and a wide hem at the bottom. All that remains of the head is the wedge-shaped beard, which consists of rows of curls and hangs down on the chest. On their feet, the person wears the pointed pointed shoes typical of such images. The armament consists of a sword that is stuck in the belt and the point of which points forward. The left hand holds a bow stretched out forwards, the right hand two arrows with points pointing downwards, hanging down behind the body. The deer has two-part antlers, the branches of which in turn consist of two short and one longer arms with two ends. Eyes and brows are indicated with fine lines above the long muzzle, as well as hair on the top of the neck. Muscles are shown in relief above the forelegs. A stump tail and the sex organ can also be seen.
The representation of the figure standing on the deer is from the time of the Assyrian trading posts in Anatolia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Known and is interpreted as the Hittite or Luwian patron god. Illustrations from the 1st millennium BC Are known from Malatya , from the rock relief at Karasu and from the stele of Hacibebekli , where the Luwian patron god of the corridor Runtiya is shown. The reliefs there show similarities in structure with Gölpınar, but the style indicates a local tradition. Due to iconographic and stylistic details, the Turkish archaeologist Fikri Kulakoğlu dates the stele to the beginning of the 9th century BC. Chr.
Web links
Gölpınar at hittitemonuments.com
literature
- Fikri Kulakoğlu: Late-Hittite Sculptures from the Şanlıurfa Region In: Prince Takahito Mikasa (Ed.): Essays on Ancient Anatolia . Harrassowitz Wiesbaden 1999 ISBN 3-447-04204-4 pp. 168-170