Karatepe (
Turkish, 'Black Hill';
Hittite: ''Azatiwataya'') is a late
Hittite fortress and
open-air museum
An open-air museum (or open air museum) is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors. It is also frequently known as a museum of buildings or a folk museum.
Definition
Open air is “the unconfined atmosphere� ...
in
Osmaniye Province in southern
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of
Kadirli. It is sited in the
Taurus Mountains
The Taurus Mountains ( Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğird ...
, on the right bank of the
Ceyhan River
The Ceyhan River (historically Pyramos or Pyramus ( el, Πύραμος), Leucosyrus ( el, Λευκόσυρος) or Jihun) is a river in Anatolia in the south of Turkey.
Course of the river
The Ceyhan River (Pyramus) has its source (known as ' ...
. The site is contained within
Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park.
History
The place was an ancient city of
Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern co ...
, which controlled a passage from
eastern Anatolia
The Eastern Anatolia Region ('' tr, Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi'') is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous province in the region is Van Province. Other populous provinces are Malatya, Erzurum and Elazığ.
It is bordered by the Bl ...
to the north Syrian plain. It became an important
Neo-Hittite
The states that are called Syro-Hittite, Neo-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 northwester ...
center after the collapse of the
Hittite Empire in the late 12th century BC. Relics found here include vast historic tablets, statues and ruins, even two monumental gates with reliefs on the sills depicting hunting and warring and a boat with oars; pillars of lions and sphinxes flank the gates.
Karatepe inscription
The site's eighth-century BC
bilingual inscription
In epigraphy, a multilingual inscription is an inscription that includes the same text in two or more languages. A bilingual is an inscription that includes the same text in two languages (or trilingual in the case of three languages, etc.). Mul ...
, in
Phoenician and
Hieroglyphic Luwian, reflects the activities of the kings of
Adana
Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million.
Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...
from the "house of
Mopsos", given in Hieroglyphic Luwian as ''mu-ka-sa-'' (often rendered as 'Moxos') and in Phoenician as Mopsos in the form ''mpš''. It was composed in Phoenician and then translated to Hieroglyphic Luwian. This inscription has served archaeologists as a
Rosetta stone
The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Anci ...
for deciphering those glyphs.
[J. D. Hawkins and A. Morpurgo Davies, On the Problems of Karatepe: The Hieroglyphic Text, Anatolian Studies, vol. 28, pp. 103–119, 1978]
As we learn from the inscription, its author is Azatiwada (or Azatiwata), the ruler of the town. He was also its founder; the inscription commemorates the town's foundation. He acknowledged himself as a subordinate of Awariku, the king of Adanawa (
Adana
Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million.
Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, wh ...
), which was the ancient kingdom of
Quwe. Azatiwataya seems to have been one of the frontier towns of Adanawa.
Another inscription of the same type, the
Cinekoy inscription, was discovered more recently. It also mentions king Awariku, who may have been the same ruler, or part of the same dynasty.
Troy theory
According to a 2010
ZDF documentary featuring the writer and translator
Raoul Schrott
Raoul Schrott (born 17 January 1964) is an Austrian poet, writer, literary critic, translator and broadcast personality.
Schrott was raised in Tunis where his father served as an Austrian sales representative. He attended the universities of No ...
, the fortress and surrounding landscape at Karatepe significantly match Homer's descriptions of
Troy
Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Ç ...
in the
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 ''Ody ...
. According to this theory, Homer may have used his knowledge of the legend of Troy and combined it into historical fiction, using his own experiences and access to writings as a
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...
in the service of the
Assyria
Assyria ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
ns in Karatepe.
Archaeology
The site was examined during the Oriental Institute of Chicago archaeological survey of the Amuq Valley in 1936. Karatepe was excavated from 1947 to 1957 by a team led by
Helmuth Theodor Bossert (1889–1961), revealing the ruins of the walled city of king Azatiwataš.
Restoration work was then carried on for many years, which included some further soundings. In the late 1990s, archaeological work, now led by
Halet Çambel (1916–2014), was conducted on a palace at the site.
Estimates for the dating of Azatiwataš rule have ranged from the early 8th century BC to the early 7th century BC.
[David Ussishkin, The Date of the Neo-Hittite Enclosure in Karatepe, Anatolian Studies, vol. 19, pp. 121–137, 1969]
The artifacts are exhibited today in the
Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum, which is part of the
Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park.
Namesake
In the 2004 exploration of Mars, "Karatepe" was the name given to a site designated for entering the
Endurance crater to investigate the layering of the bedrock.
See also
*
Quwê
Quwê – also spelled Que, Kue, Qeve, Coa, Kuê and Keveh – was a Syro-Hittite Assyrian vassal state or province at various times from the 9th century BC to shortly after the death of Ashurbanipal around 627 BC in the lowlands of east ...
*
Cities of the ancient Near East
The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...
*
Short chronology timeline
References
Further reading
*Halet Cambel, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol. 2: Karatepe-Aslantas (Undersuchungen Zur Indogermanischen Sprachund Kulturwissenschaft, Vol 6), Walter de Gruyter, 1998 3-11-014870-6
*Mirko Novák and Andreas Fuchs, Azatiwada, Awariku from the House of Mopsos, and Assyria. On the Dating of Karatepe in Cilicia, in: A. Payne, Š. Velharticka, J. Wintjes (ed.), Beyond all Boundaries. Anatolia in the 1st Millennium B.C. OBO (Leuven, 2020), pp. 23–91.
*Cyrus H. Gordon, Phoenician Inscriptions from Karatepe, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 41–50, 1948
*Julian. Obermann, New Discoveries at Karatepe. A Complete Text of the Phoenician Royal Inscription from Cilicia, Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 38, 1948
*Benno Landsberger, Sam'al, Studien zur Entdeckung der Ruinenstaette Karatepe, Druckerei der Türkischen Historischen Gesellschaft, 1948
External links
*Alan Humm, Translation of Phoenician text into English: http://jewishchristianlit.com/Texts/ANEhist/karatepe.html
{{Authority control
Archaeological sites in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Hittite sites in Turkey
Hittite cities
Luwian inscriptions
Quwê
Former populated places in Cilicia
Tourist attractions in Osmaniye Province
Kadirli District
World Heritage Tentative List for Turkey
Phoenician colonies in Turkey