The Hittite /

Luwian The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fa ...

Karabel relief is a

rock relief A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found as part of, or in conjunction with, ro ...

in the pass of the same name, between

Torbalı Torbalı is a district of İzmir Province of Turkey. An ancient Ionian city, Metropolis, is found in the district. It was famous for its wines and religious sites, and had three sanctuaries in marble dedicated to the Roman Emperor Augustus and hi ...

and

Kemalpaşa Kemalpaşa is a large town and the center of the district of the same name in İzmir Province, Turkey. Its district area extends immediately to the east of İzmir's easternmost metropolitan district, Bornova, and Kemalpaşa town being at a distan ...

, about 20 km from Izmir in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Rock reliefs are a prominent aspect of

Hittite art Hittite art was produced by the Hittite civilization in ancient Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, and also stretching into Syria during the second millennium BCE from the nineteenth century up until the twelfth century BCE. This period falls under ...

Description

The monument originally consisted of four parts: two ruler figures carved into the cliff (Karabel A and B) and two inscriptions on boulders (Karabel C₁ and C₂). During the construction of a road through the pass between 1977 and 1982, all the reliefs except for Karabel A were destroyed. Karabel A shows a warrior marching to the right with a bow in his right hand and a spear in his left. There are

Luwian hieroglyphs Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous logographic script native to central Anatolia, consisting of some 500 signs. They were once commonly known as Hittite hieroglyphs, but the language they encode proved to be Luwian, not Hittite, and the ter ...

inscribed above his left arm. The relief is 1.5 m wide and 2.5 m high The Karabel relief was damaged by unknown persons, presumed to be treasure hunters, in early 2019.

Research history

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

interpreted the figure as the Egyptian

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

Sesostris Sesostris ( grc-gre, Σέσωστρις), also transliterated as Sesoösis, or Sesonchosis, is the name of a legendary king of ancient Egypt who, according to Herodotus, led a military expedition into parts of Europe. Tales of Sesostris are pro ...

. The relief was visited by the French traveller

Charles Texier Félix Marie Charles Texier (22 August 1802, Versailles – 1 July 1871, Paris) was a French historian, architect and archaeologist. Texier published a number of significant works involving personal travels throughout Asia Minor and the Middle Eas ...

in 1839 – he published a description in 1862. After him,

Karl Richard Lepsius Karl Richard Lepsius ( la, Carolus Richardius Lepsius) (23 December 181010 July 1884) was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist, linguist and modern archaeologist. He is widely known for his magnum opus ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien'' ...

visited it in 1840. Both accepted it as Egyptian.

Heinrich Kiepert Heinrich Kiepert (July 31, 1818 – April 21, 1899) was a German geographer. Early life and education Kiepert was born in Berlin. He traveled frequently as a youth with his family and documented his travels by drawing. His family was friends wit ...

disproved this in 1843 by comparing it with the reliefs of

Yazılıkaya :'' Yazılıkaya, Eskişehir, also called Midas City, is a village with Phrygian ruins.'' Yazılıkaya ( tr, Inscribed rock) was a sanctuary of Hattusa, the capital city of the Hittite Empire, today in the Çorum Province, Turkey. Rock reliefs ar ...

. Subsequently, when the relief was accepted as Hittite, the place was visited and described by several scholars, including Kurt Bittel,

Helmuth Theodor Bossert Helmuth Theodor Bossert (September 11, 1889 – February 5, 1961) was a German history of art, art historian, philology, philologist and archaeology, archaeologist. He is best-known for his excavations of the Hittite fortress city at Karatepe, Tur ...

Hans Gustav Güterbock Hans Gustav Güterbock (May 27, 1908 – March 29, 2000) was a German- American Hittitologist. Born and trained in Germany, his career was ended with the rise of the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage, and he was forced to resettle in Turkey. ...

Ekrem Akurgal Ekrem Akurgal (March 30, 1911 – November 1, 2002) was a Turkish archaeologist. During a career that spanned more than fifty years, he conducted definitive research in several sites along the western coast of Anatolia such as Phokaia (Foça), ...

Heinrich Otten Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

and Annelies Kammenhuber.Horst Ehringhaus: ''Götter, Herrscher, Inschriften - Die Felsreliefs der hethitischen Großreichszeit in der Türkei'', von Zabern 2005 S. 90 KarabelTexier

Interpretation

According to the latest research, the relief depicts

Tarkasnawa Tarkasnawa was ruler of the Kingdom of Mira, and one of the last independent kings of Arzawa, a Bronze Age confederation of kingdoms in western Anatolia. He was probably the son of King Alantalli, and a contemporary of the later king Tudḫaliy ...

, the king of the Hittite vassal state of

Mira Mira (), designation Omicron Ceti (ο Ceti, abbreviated Omicron Cet, ο Cet), is a red-giant star estimated to be 200–400 light-years from the Sun in the constellation Cetus. ο Ceti is a binary stellar system, consisting of a varia ...

under the

Hittite empire The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centra ...

(13th century BC). In 1998

John David Hawkins John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

was able to read the inscription as follows: No traces of the name of the grandfather survive, but other evidence indicates that it was Kubantaruntija. The relief has wider historical significance as evidence that the kingdom of Mira was south of the

Seha River Land The Seha River Land was a kingdom in Western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age known from Hittite texts. Part of Arzawa, it was located north of Mira and south of Wilusa, and at one point controlled the island of Lazpa. History The Seha River ...

. From Hittite diplomatic letters, chiefly the

Milawata letter The Milawata letter (CTH 182) is an item of diplomatic correspondence from a Hittite king at Hattusa to a client king in western Anatolia around 1240 BC. It constitutes an important piece of evidence in the debate concerning the historicity of Home ...

, it is known that the Seha River Land was bordered on one side by the kingdom of Mira and on the other side by

Wilusa Wilusa ( hit, ) or Wilusiya was a Late Bronze Age city in western Anatolia known from references in fragmentary Hittites, Hittite records. The city is notable for its identification with the archaeological site of Troy, and thus its potential con ...

. The relief proves that Wilusa cannot have been south of the Gediz river, but must have been to the north of the river, in the

Troad The Troad ( or ; el, Τρωάδα, ''Troáda'') or Troas (; grc, Τρῳάς, ''Trōiás'' or , ''Trōïás'') is a historical region in northwestern Anatolia. It corresponds with the Biga Peninsula ( Turkish: ''Biga Yarımadası'') in the Ç ...

. This aids in the identification of Wilusa with the city of ''Ilion'', another name for

Troy Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

's ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

''.D. F. Easton, J. D. Hawkins, A. G. Sherratt, E. S. Sherratt "Troy in Recent Perspective" ''Anatolian Studies'' Vol. 52 (2002), pp. 75-109, at 96.

References

Bibliography

* Birgit Brandau, Hartmut Schickert: ''Hethiter, die unbekannte Weltmacht''. Piper, München 2001. * J. David Hawkins. "Tarkasnawa, King of Mira: 'Tarkondemos', Boğazköy sealings and Karabel," ''Anatolian Studies'' 48, 1998, pp. 1–31. *

Joachim Latacz Joachim Latacz (born 4 April 1934) is a German classical philologist. Latacz studied Classical Philology, Indo-Germanic languages, Ancient History and Archaeology from 1954-1956 at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. He then studie ...

: ''Troy and Homer: Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery'' Kevin Windle & Rosh Ireland (trans.). Oxford University Press.

External links

Description on www.hittitemonuments.com
{{coord, 38.3706, N, 27.4560, E, source:wikidata, display=title Hittite art Archaeological sites in the Aegean Region Hittite sites in Turkey Rock reliefs in Turkey Luwian inscriptions İzmir Province