The Karatepe bilingual (8th century BC), also known as the Azatiwada inscription, is a

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.). Mult ...

on stone slabs consisting of Phoenician and

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

text each, which enabled the decipherment of the

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 ...

. The artifacts were discovered at

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 ...

, southern

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 ...

by the archaeologists

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) and

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) in 1946. This inscription has served archaeologists as a

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt, Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts ...

for deciphering the Luwian glyphs.J. D. Hawkins and A. Morpurgo Davies, On the Problems of Karatepe: The Hieroglyphic Text, Anatolian Studies, vol. 28, pp. 103–119, 1978 The inscription is known as KAI 26.

The inscription reflects the activities of the kings of

Adana Adana is a large city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province, Adana province, and has a population of 1 81 ...

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 geographical area of

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 ...

was known in various historical periods under the names of Quwe (Que), Luwian ''Adanawa'', ''Hiyawa'', and Classical 'Cilicia of the Plain'.

is the modern city in the area. As we learn from the inscription, its author is Azatiwada (or Azatiwata), the ruler of the town of Azatiwataya. He was also its founder; the inscription commemorates the town's foundation. Azatiwataya seems to have been one of the frontier towns of Adanawa. According to Ilya Yakubovich, the rulers of Quwe claimed Greek descent but, at some point, they adopted the Phoenician language. Their use of the Luwian was a concession to the indigenous population of Que. After the Greek

Linear B Linear B is a syllabary, syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest Attested language, attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examp ...

script had been forgotten, these Greek colonists started using the Phoenician script, and this represented the first step toward the creation of the Greek alphabet.

Azatiwada

Azatiwada was a local ruler in

. He was installed as ruler by Awariku (Urikki), king of Adanawa (

), who reigned in 738-732 BC. These lands paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser III. The text is an autobiographical account of Azatiwada's services to the kingdom of Adana where, according to the inscription, he later enthroned the descendants of Awariku. The inscription is assumed to date after his death in 709 BC. This dating is supported by the stylistic analyses of both the Phoenician text and the hieroglyphs. From King Awariku also comes the Çineköy inscription, which is also a Phoenician-Luwian bilingual. Awariku is also mentioned in the Hasanbeyli inscription, also from the nearby area of Samʼal (Zincirli).

Inscription text

Placed at the fortress gates, the stones presenting the Karatepe bilingual inscription feature the "Call of Azatiwada" in the following text: : I am really Azatiwada, : Man of my Sun, the servant of Thunder God, : Rendered superior by Awariku, and the ruler of Adanawa, : Thunder God rendered me Mother and Father of Adanawa city, and : I am the one, who developed Adanawa city, : And I expanded Adanawa country, both westward and eastward, : And during my reign, I made Adanawa city tastes prosperity, satiety and comfort, and I filled the grain warehouses, : I added horse to horse, shield to shield, army to army, everything for Thunder God and the deities, : I defeated the feint of the feinters, : I expelled country's bad men, : I built palaces for myself, made my family comfortable, and ascended my father's throne, I made peace with all the kings, : Also the kings respected me as ancestor for my justice, my wisdom and my kind heart, : I built strong fortifications at all my borders, where bad men and gang leaders are, : I, Azatiwada, trod all the people, who did not obey the House of

Mopsus Mopsus (; Ancient Greek: Μόψος, ''Mopsos'') was the name of one of two famous seers in Greek mythology; his rival being Calchas. A historical or legendary ''Mopsos'' or ''Mukšuš'' may have been the founder of a house in power at widespread ...

, : I destroyed the fortifications there, I built fortifications so that people of Adanawa can live in peace and comfort, : I bet strong kingdoms in the west my predecessors were not able to, : I, Azatiwada, bet them, made them vassal to me, and resettled them within my borders in the east, : And during my reign, I expanded the borders of Adanawa both westward and eastward, : So that women nowadays wander spindling on the isolated trails, where men in the past feared to go, : And during my reign, there was prosperity, satiety, peace and comfort, : And Adanawa and Adanawa country were living in peace, : And I built this fortress, and named it Azatiwadaya, : Thunder God and the deities directed me to do this so that this fortress becomes protector of Adana Plains and the House of Mopsus, : During my reign, there was prosperity and peace in the territory of Adana Plains, no one of Adanawa people was sabred during my reign, : And I built this fortress, and named it Azatiwadaya, : I placed Thunder God there, and offered it sacrifices, : I sacrificed an ox every year, a sheep in the ploughing time and a sheep in the fall, : I blessed Thunder God, it endowed me long days, countless years and huge power over all kings, : And the folk, which settled in this country, owned ox, herd, food and drink, had plenty issue, and became servant to Azatiwada and the House of Mopsus thanks to Thunder God and the deities, : When a king among the kings, a prince among the princes or a nobleman among the noblemen erases the name of Azatiwada from this gate, carves any other name; furthermore covets this city, destroys this gate built by Azatiwada, builds another gate in its place, and carves his own name on it, destroys this gate with the purpose of greed, hatred or insult then

Sky deity The sky often has important religious significance. Many polytheistic religions have deities associated with the sky. The daytime sky deities are typically distinct from the nighttime ones. Stith Thompson's ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' ...

Nature deity In religion, a nature deity is a deity in charge of forces of nature, such as water, biological processes, or weather. These deities can also govern natural features such as mountains, trees, or volcanoes. Accepted in animism, pantheism, panenthe ...

and Sun of the universe and generations of all deities will wipe out this king, this prince or this nobleman from the earth, : Only the name Azatiwada is eternal, forever like the name of the Sun and the Moon.

Location

The stones featuring the Karatepe bilingual are situated along with many other statues and reliefs in stone at the

Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum () is an open-air museum in Osmaniye Province, Turkey. Karatepe ("black hill") is the location while Aslantaş ("lion stone") refers to the lion figure on stone sculptures. The site is situated inside a natio ...

, which is in turn 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 ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{commons category, Azatiwada inscription 8th-century BC inscriptions 1946 archaeological discoveries Multilingual texts Phoenician inscriptions KAI inscriptions Luwian inscriptions Archaeological discoveries in Turkey Ancient Cilicia Stone objects 8th century BC Kadirli District Archaeological artifacts

Contents

Azatiwada

Inscription text

Location

See also

References

External links