Keşlik stele
The Keşlik stele is a late Hittite monument from northern Tyanitis near Niğde in southern Turkey from the 8th century BC. Chr.
Location
According to Vural Sezer, the stele was found on the Bayındır Yaylası summer pasture in the village of Keşlik, a plateau north of Altunhisar in Niğde Province , and acquired by the Museum in Niğde in 1962. The site belonged to the Iron Age Luwian Kingdom of Tuwana . After a report by the local landowner Abdullah Tanik about the discovery of a stele, a survey was carried out by the Turkish archaeologist Aykut Çınaroğlu in 1962 . The stele had probably fallen from a hill that towered over the fields about 25 meters. There was a recess in which a pedestal could be embedded. The monument is now in the Niğde Archaeological Museum and has inventory number 51.
description
The stele made of brown basalt is 1.45 meters high and 69 centimeters wide and about 27 centimeters deep. The surface is badly weathered and bumped in the edge areas. The picture shows the weather god Tarhunza walking to the right. He is dressed in a short skirt and a short-sleeved top with a wide belt. The bearded god wears a horned helmet under which his hair falls in bulk on his shoulders, as well as calf-high boots with curved tips. The angled right hand holds the grape of a vine, the left a long bundle of ears. Both the vine and the bundle of ears of corn arise from the ground on the left and right of the feet.
In the right field between the figure and the bundle of ears, John David Hawkins suspects nine lines of an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphics , possibly also on the edge of the stele. Due to the poor state of preservation, nothing could be read so far.
The depiction is very similar to the depiction of the weather god in İvriz , which is why it is dated to the time of King Warpalawas (ruled 740–705 BC) of Tuwana.
literature
- Vural Sezer: Keşlik Steli . In: Anadolu 18, 1974 (1978), pp. 133-134
- Vural Sezer: Bor-Keşlik Steli . In: Türk arkeoloji dergisi 24,2, 1977, pp. 147-148.
- Dietrich Berges , Johannes Nollé : Tyana - Archaeological-historical studies of the southwestern Cappadocia . Habelt, Bonn 2000, ISBN 3-7749-2959-9 , p. 103.
- 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 . P. 531 No. X.51 plate 305.