Yumruktepe

Coordinates: 39 ° 2 ′ 50.8 ″  N , 30 ° 28 ′ 22.9 ″  E

Yumruktepe​

Turkey

Yumruktepe from the south

Niche with winged sun

The Yumruktepe , also Yumrutepe , is a hill near the Turkish town of Beyköy . On it lie a fragment of a Hittite rock relief and a number of graves from Roman and Phrygian times.

location

The Yumruktepe is a rocky ridge in the southeast of the town of Beyköy, in the İhsaniye district of the central Turkish province of Afyonkarahisar . The roughly oval hill, stretching from southwest to northeast, has an average diameter of about 100 meters and protrudes about ten meters above the area. The relief is on the southeast edge of the summit plateau.

Research history

In 1884, the Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay found a fragment of a stele with an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphics on a hill "about an English mile south of Bey Keui" , which was later classified by Émilia Masson as belonging to the Great Empire . The stele is lost today. In 1965, the German archaeologist Franz Steinherr was the first to report about a winged sun disk and an inscription on the Yumruktepe. The inscription is no longer recognizable today. In 1971 the Dutch archaeologist Emilie Haspels described Phrygian and Roman graves in the vicinity of Beyköy and especially on the Yumruktepe. These were extensively researched and described from 1979 to 1982 by a French expedition under the Hittite scientist Hatice Gonnet . In 1985 Eberhard Rossner visited the place while working on his guide on the Hittite rock reliefs of Turkey and was able to see the winged sun, but no inscription. Horst Ehringhaus was on Yumruktepe in the late 20th century and saw some signs that could possibly represent the rest of an inscription.

Winged sun

On the south-eastern edge of the surface of the hill there are two rock niches facing east-south-east, each with remnants of reliefs on the back wall. A heavily weathered winged sun can be found in the left niche, part of which is missing from the left wing. Its upper edge is 64 centimeters above the floor of the niche, it is 13 centimeters high. The right wing measures 40 centimeters, the left one broke off after 30 centimeters. In the right niche you can see two geometric shapes, roughly a circle and a rectangle, 30-40 centimeters high, on the right next to them poorly preserved, indecipherable characters. They could perhaps represent the beginning of a hieroglyphic text. The winged sun is known as a motif both from the Hittite Empire and in the late Hittite states, which is why it alone cannot establish a date. Due to the stele found nearby and described by Ramsay, which could be dated to the time of the great empire through the remaining characters, it can also be assumed that the winged sun was formed during this time.

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  Winged sun

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  Niche with geometric shapes

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  Shapes and indefinable characters

Graves

On the summit, on the eastern slope and at the foot of the hill there are a large number of tombs of Roman or Phrygian origin, the majority of which are simple, rectangular depressions up to two meters deep in the rock. Gonnet gives a total of 48 grave sites. Two more chamber tombs at the southwestern foot of the mountain are worth mentioning. The one on the right, slightly larger, is the so-called lion tomb. In the pediment of the entrance there is a relief with two lions facing each other. Gonnet dates it to Phrygian times and assumes an expansion in Roman times. Haspels assumes that the lions used as grave decorations are inspired by the nearby Aslantaş monument . The second grave, further west, has a 3.5 meter deep burial chamber. Three seven-armed candlesticks are carved into the facade , which prove that the original Phrygian grave was used by Jews. An incised cross indicates a later Christian use. At the foot of the hill there are also several cavities in the ground, which Gonnet interprets as cisterns.

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  Roman tombs on the summit

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  Roman tombs at the foot of the hill

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  Phrygian chamber tomb with three menorah

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  Phrygian chamber tomb with lion reliefs

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  Lion reliefs

literature

• Hatice Gonnet: The Cemetery and Rock-cut Tombs at Beyköy in Phrygia In: Altan Cilingiroğlu (Ed.): Anadolu Demir Caglari 3 British Institute of Archeology at Ankara, 1994, ISBN 9781912090693 pp. 75-78.
• Eberhard P. Rossner: Rock monuments in Turkey. Volume 1: The Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey. An archaeological guide. 2nd, expanded edition. Rossner, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-924390-02-9 , pp. 228-232.
• Horst Ehringhaus: gods, rulers, inscriptions. The rock reliefs of the Hittite Empire in Turkey. Zabern, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-8053-3469-9 , pp. 35-37.

Web links

Commons : Yumruktepe  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• hittitemonuments.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ William M. Ramsay : Syro-Cappadocian Monuments in Asia Minor . In: Communications from the Imperial German Archaeological Institute . Volume fourteenth, first issue. Karl Wilberg, Athens 1889, 5., p. 181–182 (English, digitized version [accessed October 16, 2019]).
2. ↑ Franz Steinherr: The hieroglyphic Hittite inscription on relief A on the Karabel In: Istanbuler Mitteilungen 15 , 1965 pp. 17-23.
3. ↑ Emilie Haspels : The Highlands of Phrygia. Sites and monuments. 2 volumes. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1971, ISBN 0-691-03863-5 p. 288.
4. ^ Hatice Gonnet: The Cemetery and Rock-cut Tombs at Beyköy in Phrygia In: Altan Cilingiroğlu (Ed.): Anadolu Demir Caglari 3 British Institute of Archeology at Ankara, 1994, ISBN 9781912090693 pp. 75-78.