Yesemek Quarry
In the village of Yesemek in southeastern Turkey there is a quarry and a sculpture workshop and school from the Hittite period. Yesemek is located about 20 km southeast of İslahiye and about 60 km west of Gaziantep in the Gaziantep Province .
Coordinates: 36 ° 54 ′ 16 ″ N , 36 ° 44 ′ 45 ″ E
The workshop and the quarry date from the time of the Hittite Empire. The workshop area is open to the sky on a slope with an area of around 300 by 300 meters. This makes it the largest known stone carving workshop in the Middle East. As an open-air museum ( Acik Hava Heykel Müzesi in Turkish ) it is affiliated with the Gaziantep Archaeological Museum.
history
The establishment of the studio goes back to the reign of Great King Šuppiluliuma I in the middle of the 14th century BC. Dated. With the end of the Hittite Empire, the quarry and workshop were probably given up. In the time of the late Hittite small kingdoms, when Yesemek belonged to the Aramaic Principality of Sam'al (today Zincirli ) in the ninth century BC , production was resumed. The products of this period show Aramaic and Assyrian influences. After in the 8th century BC When Sam'al came under Assyrian rule, the area was abandoned. The stonemasons either ended their work on it or they may have been taken to Assyria to work for the rulers there.
Sculptures
There are several basic types of sculptures. On the one hand, sphinxes with female heads and lions' bodies, on the other hand, lions, some of which are shown winged, have the largest share. Sphinxes and lions were probably intended for the gates of Hittite cities, palaces and temples and are strongly reminiscent of gate figures, for example by Hattuša and Alaca Höyük . There are also groups of mountain gods with arms crossed in front of their chests, reliefs with battle scenes and a bear man. The latter is presumed to be a commissioned work. The mountain gods are very similar to those who serve as the base for the spring sanctuary in Eflatun Pınar . Sphinx, lion and god figures can be seen in all stages of completion. A remarkable sphinx was found in Zincirli and is now in the Gaziantep Museum.
Machining
In the quarry, large blocks of reddish basalt were broken by cutting a gap with a hammer and chisel at the intended breaking point. Pieces of wood were inserted into these and watered over them. Large pieces of rock were blasted out by the swelling wood. Then the outlines of the figures were drawn, chiseled out and the surface was roughly smoothed. This was followed by a finer processing, which was completed with a polishing step. The last detail work was usually not carried out in the workshop, but at the destination of the monuments. One can only speculate about transport methods.
Research history
Yesemek was discovered in 1890 by the German archaeologist Felix von Luschan during his excavations in Zincirli. Bahadır Alkım carried out the first excavations between 1957 and 1961, around 200 statues were found. The later work under the archaeologist and director of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, İlhan Temizsoy , unearthed another 100 artifacts. From 1989 to 1991 the area was incorporated into the Gaziantep Museum and expanded into an open-air museum.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hürriyet report ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Museum Gaziantep ( Memento from January 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Friedrich Karl Dörner The Throne of the Gods on Nemrud Dağ 2nd edition Gustav Lübbe 1987, ISBN 3-7857-0277-9 , pp. 130f.
literature
- Marianne Mehling (Hrsg.): Knaur's cultural guide in color Turkey. Droemer-Knaur, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-426-26293-2 .
Web links
- hittitemonuments.com (Eng.)
- Gaziantep Museum ( memorial from November 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Yesemek Open Air Museum ( Memento from March 18, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- Yesemek Quarry & Sculpture Workshop of Hittites