Sumatar
Coordinates: 36 ° 59 ′ 36 ″ N , 39 ° 20 ′ 15 ″ E
Sumatar , also Eski Sumatar ( Turkish for Old Sumatar ), Sumatar Harabesi (ruins of Sumatar) or Soğmatar was in ancient times a watering place and residence of governors of the rulers of Edessa, today's Şanlıurfa in south-east Turkey. Today, among other things, remains of seven buildings have been preserved, possibly representing a planetary sanctuary consisting of several celestial temples of the religious community of the Sabier . The now insignificant place seems to have flourished in the first two centuries AD.
investment
Sumatar is located in the middle of the almost vegetation-free stone desert of the Tektek Mountains in northern Mesopotamia near the village of Yağmurlu in the central district of the province of Şanlıurfa , about 60 kilometers southeast of Şanlıurfa and 40 kilometers east of Harran . The ancient complex consists of a central hill with inscriptions and reliefs, which rises about 50 meters above the site, and seven hills with temples or tombs that extend over a semicircle with a radius of more than one kilometer to the west and north-west of the village . In the middle of today's village, which is inhabited by Arabs, there is also a large tell , on which a castle stood in the Middle Ages. More or less preserved remains of buildings can be seen on the hills, some of them cylindrical, some of them round on a square base and some of them rectangular. In six of the buildings there is an underlying cave with arched tombs ( arcosolia ) in the walls. The entrance to the grottoes is oriented towards the central hill.
On this, below the summit plateau on the north side, there are two reliefs. One shows a bust of a man in a niche with Syrian inscriptions on both sides . These say that the image of Šīlā was created for Tiridates, son of Adonā, and shows the moon god Sin of Harran . This identification is confirmed by a crescent moon visible behind his shoulders. The right relief is the full body representation of a male figure with a round headdress and a knee-length robe. It is also in a niche, here equipped with pilasters on the side and an archivolt . According to the adjacent inscription, it was created for the god by order of Maʿna on Adar 13, 476. This date of the Seleucid era corresponds to March 165 AD. The god is very likely Sin again, the person depicted is either the client Maʿna or Sin again. Other inscriptions on the summit mention a deity named Marilaha, Lord of the Gods , for whom the aforementioned Tiridates built an altar here. This text is also dated to the year 165. Tiridates is a typical Parthian name.
About 500 meters north of the central hill, in the area of today's village of Yağmurlu, there is a cave that opens to the east, named Pognons cave after the discoverer . Reliefs and inscriptions are incorporated into it on three sides. On both sides of a niche there are two poorly preserved figures that reveal a horned, oval column. This figure is known from a coin from Harran as a symbol of Sin, with the horns probably representing the ends of the crescent moon. The other reliefs show various governors of the king , named in the inscriptions , whereby it can be assumed with certainty that either the king of Osrhoene residing in Edessa, today's Şanlıurfa , or (less likely) the Parthian is meant Great King on whom the Osrhoene was dependent. The names Tiridates, Maʿni, Abgar, Waʿel are mentioned. A function of governor of Arab (ʿRB) is mentioned several times, although the concrete meaning of Arab remains unclear, it is probably only a region in the vicinity, not a larger area. Presumably the "governor" controlled nomadic tribes on behalf of the king. It is noteworthy that in the inscriptions in Pognon's cave there are references to both Roman and Parthian rulers: Sumatar was in the 2nd century on the border between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire . After the Parthian War of Lucius Verus from 162 to 166, the place seems to have come under Roman control.
On another hill, about 250 meters north of the central mountain, the remains of a fortification as well as various walls and enclosed wells can be seen. They have not yet been determined; they may be of medieval origin.
Relief on the central hill
Relief on the central hill
More hills with buildings
Unknown structure below the so-called Temple of Venus
Yağmurlu village with a medieval fortress hill or tell
Research history
The Arab philosopher and traveler al-Mas'udi visited the site as early as the 10th century and described temples for each of the seven planets, each in a special shape; obviously the ruins were much better preserved then. In more recent times, the French ancient orientalist Henri Pognon was the first to travel to the Tektek Mountains in 1901 and 1905, discovering the Sumatar cave that is named after him and describing its reliefs and inscriptions, although he made mistakes. The British Semitist Judah B. Segal researched the ruins of Sumatar in depth in 1952 and published his description in 1953. The Dutch religious historian Hendrik JW Drijvers examined the buildings in 1977.
interpretation
According to al-Mas'udi's description, JB Segal interpreted the ruins as a cult facility of the Sabian religious community, which is also located in neighboring Harran. He assigned the buildings on the hills to the celestial deities Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the sun, Venus, Mercury and the moon, who are revered in the planetary cult. Drijvers, on the other hand, sees above all the worship of the moon god Sin of Harran in Sumatar, but does not interpret the buildings as shrines, but as family graves of the governors of Arab and other high-ranking people.
literature
- Henri Pognon: Inscriptions sémitique de la Syrie, de la Mésopotamie et de la région de Mossoul. Paris 1907
- Judah B. Segal: Pagan Syriac Monuments in the Vilayet of Urfa. In: Anatolian Studies 3, 1953, pp. 97-119
- Hendrik JW Drijvers: Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Leiden 1980, pp. 122-145 ISBN 90-04-06050-2
- Jürgen Tubach: In the shadow of the sun god. The sun cult in Edessa, Harran and Hatra on the eve of the Christian mission . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1986, ISBN 3-447-02435-6 , pp. 200f.
- TA Sinclair: Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey, Volume IV , London 1989, ISBN 0907132529 . Pp. 186-189.
