Stele from Darende
The stele of Darende is a late Hittite monument from central Turkey with reliefs and an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphics . The stele is now in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara . It is found in the 11th or 10th century BC. Dated and assigned to the Kingdom of Melid ( Malatya ).
Research history
The German Near East archaeologist Hans Henning von der Osten and the Turkish archaeologist Hâmit Zübeyir Koşay both saw the stele in the Gök Medrese in Sivas in 1931 and published pictures. The archeological finds of the area were initially kept in the medrese before the Archaeological Museum of Sivas was founded. It was followed in 1932 and 1935 by the American ancient orientalist Ignace Gelb , who was the first to describe the stele in detail. To find out the exact origin of the work, he drove to Darende , where he learned that the stone came from the wall of the minaret of the Ulu Cami in Eski Darende (Alt-Darende). The original origin can no longer be determined. The German Near Eastern archaeologist Helmuth Theodor Bossert found out that the artifact got into the Gök Medrese between 1928 and 1931. In 1954 he checked the indications of origin and found that the hole in the minaret wall was too small to have received the stone. In addition, the work did not show any traces of processing that should have appeared when it was built into a round wall. As a result, the actual provenance of the stele remains unclear. For the area around Darende, however, there are similarities with the stele from İspekçür and the rock inscriptions from Kötükale and Gürün , all of which were found on the Tohma Çayı river . Accordingly, they are all to be assigned to the late Hittite kingdom of Melid , which is also confirmed by the texts. An investigation of the reliefs on the stele was carried out by Winfried Orthmann in 1971 , publications of the inscriptions were carried out by Piero Meriggi in 1934, Bedřich Hrozný in 1937 and Bossert in 1954. The British Hethito oil logger John David Hawkins included the work in 2000 in his Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions .
The transfer of Sivas' stele to the Ankara Museum took place between the visits of Gelb (1935) and Bossert (1954).
description
Reliefs
The stele is made of basalt , rounded at the top and has a height of 0.79 meters, a maximum width of 0.30 meters and a maximum depth of 0.20 meters. It is worked on all sides, the front and the two narrow sides each have a relief, on the back an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphs is engraved. The front shows a seated goddess, turned to the left, on a chair with a high, bent back and crossed paw feet. She wears a high polo shirt , a long robe and high-pointed shoes. The feet are on a stool. To the left of the figure is an altar with offerings. Her right hand brings a bowl to her mouth, the left holds a lituus . Hieroglyphics identify her as the country's goddess Hepat . The name is in front of and behind the head, behind the seat of "des Landes". On the right is a male figure facing left. The man is beardless and has hair that falls down in a braid to his waist. He is dressed in a long fringed robe with a belt around the waist. He too is holding a curved stick on the left and a bowl at mouth level on the right. The feet with the well-known pointed shoes stand on a lying lion. According to the hieroglyphs behind his legs, it is the god Sarruma . On the left side is another male figure, to the right, i.e. facing the two gods. The clothes and hairstyle correspond to those of Sarruma. In his right (?) Hand he is holding an object that could be a double ax or a hammer. With the other hand he pours a libation liquid from a jug into a two-handled vessel in front of him. Signs in a circle in front of him identify him as the King of Melid. Hawkins sees the figure as the introductory amu-figure , where amu denotes the EGO sign ("I") of the Luwian hieroglyphs 
.
The surfaces of the reliefs are only deeply sunk into the stone, above and below it remains unprocessed or roughly smoothed. The pictures themselves are engraved very flat without any surface shaping, more like a line drawing than a relief. According to Orthmann, the illustrations also show a certain awkwardness. Orthmann suspects the reason for this is the lack of a sculptural tradition and thus a lack of familiarity with the corresponding techniques at that time.
inscription
The back of the stele bears a six-line inscription in Luwian hieroglyphics. The lines have a height of 20 centimeters and are separated by engraved lines. In contrast to the individual hieroglyphs in the images, which are executed in high relief, the text on this page is incised. It begins in the upper right corner and continues bustrophedon to the lower right end. In it Arnuwantis (II.), King of Melid, introduces himself as the grandson of Arnuwantis (I.) and son of PUGNIS-mili. He reports of the founding of a city -tumani and dedicates the stele to God. The aforementioned Arnuwantis I is known as the grandson of Kuzi-Teššub , ruler of Karkemiš in the early 12th century BC. This would mean that this stele would be created four generations later, i.e. in the late 11th or early 10th century BC. To date. The same succession of generations is mentioned on the İspekçür stele , which was found not far from Darende.
literature
- Ignace Yellow: Hittite Hieroglyphic Monuments (= Oriental Institute Publications . Volume 45). The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1939, pp. 27-28 pls. XXXIV-XXXV.
- Helmuth Th. Bossert: The late Hittite stele from Darende. In: Archive for Orient Research, Volume 17 (1954–1956), pp. 347–353.
- John David Hawkins: Corpus of hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions . Vol 1. Inscriptions of the Iron Age . Part 1: Introduction, Karatepe, Karkamiš, Tell Ahmar, Maraş, Malatya, Commagene. de Gruyter, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-11-010864-X , pp. 304–305, plates 145–146.
- Winfried Orthmann: Studies on late Hittite art. (= Saarbrücker Contributions to Antiquity, Vol. 8). Habelt, Bonn 1971, ISBN 978-3-774-91122-2 , pp. 116-117, 481 plate 6, ( online ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ignace Gelb: Hittite Hieroglyphic Monuments (= Oriental Institute Publications . Volume 45). The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1939, pp. 27-28.
- ↑ Helmuth Th. Bossert: The late Hittite stele from Darende In: Archive for Orient Research, 17th volume (1954–1956), pp. 349–351.
- ↑ each seen from the viewer