Gölpınar weather god stele
The weather god stele of Gölpınar is a late Hittite monument from the area of Şanlıurfa in south-east Turkey . It is exhibited in the Şanlıurfa Archaeological Museum .
Location
The stele was found in a field called Garipoğlan in the north of the village of Gölpınar, which belongs to İlçe Karaköprü in the province of Şanlıurfa , a municipality in the provincial city. The site is about 14 kilometers north of the city center. A stylistically similar stele of the patron god was found in the same place .
description
The basalt stele has the shape of a halved cylinder . The dimensions obtained are 1.16 meters in height, 0.42 meters in width and 0.30 meters in thickness. The semicircular back is roughly smoothed and otherwise unprocessed. An indeterminable part is missing at the top, about halfway up there is a break through the stone block. The obverse shows in relief a male person standing on a bull, the well-known representation of the weather god. He is turned to the right, the body above the chest is missing, only the extended left arm can still be seen. He wears a smooth skirt that ends above the knees and hemmed at the bottom, as well as pointed shoes with pointed tips on his feet. At the upper break point a belt can be suspected, in which there is a sword, the point of which is unusually pointing forward.
In contrast to the rather flat and simple representation of the god, the bull is more naturalistic and carved out in higher relief. He stands on a pedestal and also moves to the right. The bent, forward stretched left front leg as well as the left hind leg with anatomical details can be clearly recognized. Due to the weathering, not many details are visible on the head, the dewlap is clearly visible. Muscles are indicated on both the legs and the front part of the body. The long and broadly fanned tail falls down between the hind legs.
The motif of the weather god standing on a bull dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. Known from images of the Hittite god Tarḫunna . It persists in Anatolia and Northern Syria until the 1st millennium BC. Chr. Continued with the Luwian weather god Tarḫunz and also survived in Roman times with the soldier god Iupiter Dolichenus . Examples of such representations from the 1st millennium are known from Djekke / Cekke and Til Barsip in Northern Syria ( weather god of Aleppo ) and from Adıyaman in Central Anatolia ( Adıyaman 1 stele ). The reliefs there show similarities in structure with Gölpınar, but the style indicates a local tradition. Due to iconographic and stylistic details, the Turkish archaeologist Fikri Kulakoğlu dates the stele to the beginning of the 9th century BC. Chr.
Web links
Gölpınar at hittitemonuments.com
literature
- Fikri Kulakoğlu: Late-Hittite Sculptures from the Şanlıurfa Region. In: Prince Takahito Mikasa (Ed.): Essays on Ancient Anatolia . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04204-4 , pp. 167-168.