Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum () is an

open-air museum An open-air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts outdoors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum. Definition Open air is "the unconfined atmosphere ... outside buildings" ...

Osmaniye Province Osmaniye Province () is a province in south-central Turkey. It was named Cebel-i Bereket () in the early republic until 1933, when it was incorporated into Adana Province. It was made a province again in 1996. Its area is 3,320 km2, and its p ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Karatepe ("black hill") is the location while Aslantaş ("lion stone") refers to the lion figure on stone sculptures. The site is situated inside a

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

with the same name.

Location

The museum is located north of the -high

Karatepe Karatepe ( Turkish, 'Black Hill'; Hittite: ''Azatiwataya'') is a late Hittite fortress and open-air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of Kadirli. It is sited in the T ...

at Kızyusuflu village in

Kadirli Kadirli, historically Kars () or Karsbazar (), is a city in Osmaniye Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. It is the seat of Kadirli District.

district of

. Its distance to Kadirli is and to

Osmaniye Osmaniye () is a city on the eastern edge of the Çukurova plain in southern Turkey. It is the seat of Osmaniye Province and Osmaniye District. It is situated to the west of

Aslantaş Dam Aslantaş Dam () is an embankment dam on Ceyhan River in Osmaniye Province, southern Turkey, built between 1975 and 1984. Aslantaş Dam is situated northeast of Adana. Built for irrigation, flood control and electricity generation purposes by th ...

resorvoir, and is part of the

Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park (), established in 1958, is a national park in southern Turkey. Situated on the banks of a dam reservoir, it contains an archaeological open-air museum. Location Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park is located in the ...

. The location is named Karatepe-Aslantaş to distinguish it from other places with the name Aslantaş, which are named by the locals after lion stone statues. The museum ground is located on a hill in a woodland landscape overlooking the Andırın Plain, and is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the

reservoir.

History

Karatepe is on the historic caravan trail, called ''Akyol'', ("white road") which connects

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

with Central Anatolia over

Andırın Andırın is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Kahramanmaraş Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,202 km2, and its population is 31,224 (2022). Composition There are 57 mahalle, neighbourhoods in Andırın District:

- Göksün. The route was used by

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

and recently by the

Yörüks The Yörüks, also Yuruks or Yorouks (; , ''Youroúkoi''; ; , ''Juruci''), are a Turkish ethnic subgroup of Oghuz descent, some of whom are nomadic, primarily inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia, and partly in the Balkan peninsula. On the Bal ...

. The site contains the remains of an ancient

fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

dating back to the 8th century BC. Originally named Azatiwadaya, the walled settlement was founded by Azatiwada, the king of Quwê, a

Neo-Hittite The states called Neo-Hittite, Syro-Hittite (in older literature), or Luwian-Aramean (in modern scholarly works) were Luwian and Aramean regional polities of the Iron Age, situated in southeastern parts of modern Turkey and northwestern parts o ...

kingdom. It was built for defense against invaders from the north. The fortification and other territory areas of the kingdom were conquered by the

Assyrian Empire Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, an indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire ** Post-im ...

from the east either in 720–725 BC term or in 680 BC. The site was accidentally discovered by sheepmen from

Saimbeyli Saimbeyli, historically known as Hadjin (), is a town and district of Adana Province in present-day Turkey. Its area is 989 km2, and its population is 13,621 (2022). The town is located at the Taurus mountains of Cilicia region, 157 km north o ...

. They informed Ekrem Kuşçu, the village school teacher, who in turn notified Naci Kum, the director of Adana Museum. The government commissioned

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

(1889–1961), German professor of archaeology at

Istanbul University Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...

, to conduct

excavation Excavation may refer to: * Archaeological excavation * Excavation (medicine) * ''Excavation'' (The Haxan Cloak album), 2013 * ''Excavation'' (Ben Monder album), 2000 * ''Excavation'' (novel), a 2000 novel by James Rollins * '' Excavation: A Mem ...

s, which began in Spring 1946. Turkish female archaeologist

Halet Çambel Halet Çambel (27 August 1916 – 12 January 2014) was a Turkish archaeologist and Olympic fencer. She was the first woman with a Muslim background to compete in the Olympic Games. Biography Çambel was born in Berlin, German Empire on 27 ...

(1916–2014) was a key figure in the archaeologists team.

Bahadır Alkım Bahadır Alkım Bayraktar (February 28, 1915 – May 6, 1981) was a Turkish archaeologist. Bahadır Alkım Bayraktar was born in İzmir, then Ottoman Empire on February 28, 1915. After his high school education, he entered the Faculty of Letters ...

(1915–1981) joined later the excavations, which were accomplished in 1952. Upon Çambel's efforts, the archaeological site and its close surroundings were established as the

with effect of September 28, 1958.

Open-air museum

The ruined inner and outer walls of the fortress are high and thick. The inside of the double stone walls without mortar were filled with rubble and soil. The fortification stretches over in the south-north direction and in the east-west direction. The wall construction is fortified at distance with 34 rectangular

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

s in total, of which only 28 could be identified. The walls in the east-west direction were restored in accordance with the original. The fortress has two gates, one in the southwest and the other in the northeast. At the southwestern gate, there are two lion stone statues. The walls of the two chambers flanking the gate are covered with reliefs on

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

stone, which depict the faith and way of life of that time. The

Karatepe Bilingual The Karatepe bilingual (8th century BC), also known as the Azatiwada inscription, is a bilingual inscription on stone slabs consisting of Phoenician and Luwian text each, which enabled the decipherment of the Anatolian hieroglyphs. The artif ...

, an inscription in

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions fo ...

and

Hieroglyphic Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian languages, Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya ...

with the same text, is situated there. Inside the gate, there is a stone statue of the Ancient Egyptian dwarf deity

Bes BES or Bes may refer to: * Bes, Egyptian deity * Bes (coin), Roman coin denomination * Bes (Marvel Comics), fictional character loosely based on the Egyptian deity Abbreviations * Bachelor of Environmental Studies, a degree * Banco Espírito S ...

and a -tall stone statue of the Phoenician

thunder god Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder deity, the creator or personification of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction and will vary based on the culture. In Indo-Europea ...

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

. At the northeastern gate, two stone statues of

sphinx A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...

, a mythical creature with, the head of a human and the body of a lion, are placed. The flanking chambers contain several reliefs and another Karatepe Bilingual. The Karatepe Bilingual enabled the decryption of

Anatolian 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 language, Luwian, not Hitt ...

, which go back up to 20th century BC, with the help of the Phoenician alphabet. Atop the hill, grain wells and two burnt-out building ruins, which are believed to be palaces, are situated. The majority of the artifacts in the open-air museum were not dislocated. Only small items were taken into a museum building for exhibition. Visitors can receive a multi-lingual visual presentation on Karatepe before starting their tour in the open-air museum.

References

External links

Karatepe-Aslantaş images
at Hittite Monuments. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Karatepe-Aslantas Open-AirMuseum Open-air museums in Turkey Archaeological museums in Turkey Tourist attractions in Osmaniye Province Kadirli District Hittite cities 1958 establishments in Turkey Museums established in 1958