Stela of Niğde
The stele of Niğde is a late Hittite monument from today's Turkish provincial capital Niğde and dates from the end of the 8th century BC. Chr.
Find
The stele was found on September 27, 1975 near the castle hill of Niğde in what was then Çelebi Hüsamettin Bey Camii (now Dışarı Camii). It lay with the machined side down as a threshold stone at the entrance to the mosque. It is exhibited today in the Niğde Archaeological Museum with the inventory number 22.1.75.
description
The stele made of black basalt is 2.18 meters high and one meter wide and corresponds to a type that has been used since the 10th century BC. Is known. It shows the image of the weather god Tarhunzas . According to his usual portrayal, he is holding an ax and a bundle of lightning in his raised hands. Vines sprout on the left and grain on the right, similar to the picture on the İvriz rock relief . A very similar representation of the same god is shown in the rock relief in the village of Gökbez, about 22 kilometers south . The figure is drawn in the Assyrian style, recognizable by clothing, hair and beard. The winged sun disk, a traditional symbol of Hittite rulers, hovers above the head .
An inscription in Luwian hieroglyphs is engraved on the narrow right side of the stone block . In it, the author Muwaharanis writes that he created the stele for Tarhunzas, and describes himself as King, son of King Warpalawas . The translation according to John David Hawkins is:
This Tarhunzas Muwaharanis [ma] de (?), The Hero, the King, loved by Tarhunzas (and) the gods, the son of Warpalawas, the Ruler, the Hero.
Muwaharanis was the successor of his father Warpalawas on the throne of the late Luwian Kingdom of Tuwana , the successor state of the Hittite Tuwanuwa , in the south of today's Niğde Province . Since Warpalawas is known to have been born in 709 BC. BC, the date of creation of the relief can be dated to the years after. This makes the stele the latest known, datable example of such a relief and a Luwian hieroglyphic inscription, only the Karatepe inscription may have been created later. With the subjugation of the small Hittite states in Syria by the Assyrians , the tradition of hieroglyphic inscriptions had disappeared there, but had still survived in Anatolia .
literature
- John Boardman (Ed.): The Cambridge ancient history. Plates to volume III: the Middle East, the Greek world and the Balkans to the sixth century BC Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1984 pp. 85-87 ISBN 978-0-521-24289-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b John David Hawkins, Halet Çambel: Corpus of hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions. 2000, ISBN 3-11-010864-X , pp. 527 ( limited preview in Google Book search).