Gemerek stele
The Gemerek stele is a late Hittite monument from central Turkey with remains of an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphs . It is exhibited in the Archaeological Museum Sivas and has the inventory number 2004/24.
Find
The stele was found in the hamlet of Kasımbeyli near the village of Hacıyusuf in the Gemerek district of the Turkish province of Sivas and brought to the Archaeological Museum of the provincial capital of Sivas on October 20, 2004 . It was broken into three parts that were put together in the museum. According to the place of discovery, it is attributed to the Late Hittite kingdom of Tabal .
description
The four-sided stele with an approximately square cross-section has a preserved total height of 1.41 meters. The width of the front is 0.47 meters, that of the sides about 0.52 meters. The base is preserved, the top is missing. The British Hittite scientist John David Hawkins assumes after his investigations that the stone was inscribed on all four sides. Only a few parts of the left side have survived, the reverse side has been completely lost. While large parts of the inscription have been preserved on the right-hand side, the front was smoothed in Byzantine times and provided with a Maltese cross in three circumferential circles. The area of the cross was sanded down particularly vigorously so that the surface there assumed a slightly concave shape. Traces of two engraved characters can only be seen on the right below the cross. On the left-hand side, which has been badly damaged, fragments of writing can only be seen in a few small areas. The inscription on the right consists of three lines separated by horizontal lines, which are well preserved, but break off at the edges. Hawkins assumes that the script, like all known Tabal inscriptions, began at the top right, on the left, and ran bustrophedon across all four sides of the stone.
From the scanty remains of the writing it can only be deduced that the text contained, among other things, the sacrifice of sheep. Like other tabular inscriptions, this one dates back to the 8th century BC. Dated.
Left side
right side
Maltese cross
literature
- John David Hawkins, Rukiye Akdoğan: A Stele from Gemerek In: Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi arkeoloji dergisi (TÜBA-AR) Volume 14 , 2011 pp. 313-315.
