Karatepe ( Turkish, 'Black Hill'; Hittite: ''Azatiwataya'') is a late Hittite fortress and

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 ...

in 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 ...

lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of

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.

. It is sited in the

Taurus Mountains The Taurus Mountains (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar,'' Greek language, Greek'':'' Ταύρος) are a mountain range, mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal reg ...

, on the right bank of the Ceyhan River. The site is contained within Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park.

History

The place was an ancient city 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 ...

, which controlled a passage from eastern Anatolia to the north Syrian plain. It became an important Neo-Hittite center after the collapse of the

Hittite Empire 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 ...

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.). Mult ...

, in Phoenician 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 ...

, 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 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 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 (

), 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.

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 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), 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. The artifacts are exhibited today in the Karatepe-Aslantaş Open-Air Museum, which is part of 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.

Domuztepe (Aslantaş)

The archaeological site of Domuztepe (Aslantaş) is located on the eastern bank of Ceyhan river, across from Karatepe. It is the companion site of Domuztepe, and it was inhabited at the same time. It is dated to the ninth century BC. (Coordinates 37.291389, 36.256944) This site is different from Domuztepe (Domuztepe Höyüğü (Kahramanmaraş)), the large mound of the Halaf period (fifth millennium BC) that is situated near

Kahramanmaraş Kahramanmaraş (), historically Marash (; ) and Germanicea (), is a city in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean region of Turkey and the administrative centre of Kahramanmaraş Province, Kahramanmaraş province. After 1973, Maraş was ...

. Kahramanmaras is also located on the Ceyhan river; it is about 70km upstream from Karatepe and Domuztepe. After the construction of Aslantaş Dam, the site was substantially flooded. Unlike Karatepe, which was founded in the Iron Age period, Domuztepe (Aslantaş) has a long sequence of occupation beginning with the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period (8th Millennium BC). Domuztepe is located on a natural hill. It was partly excavated in the early 1980s, before the lower parts of the site became mostly submerged by the dam lake. A fortified city of the Hittite empire period flourished there. In 1947, Th. Bossert and B. Alkım reported finding a statue base with two bulls at the site. It carries a poorly preserved hieroglyphic Luwian inscription. The find is currently at the Karatepe Museum. In 1982, a Storm God stele was discovered at the site by Halet Çambel. Also several portal lions were found. The site is believed to be a little earlier than Karatepe. Some villas of Roman period have also been discovered. In 1958, this currently forested area was designated as a Historic National Park.Karatepe-Aslantaş Archaeological Site.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre - Tentative Lists

References

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 Ḫiyawa Former populated places in Cilicia Tourist attractions in Osmaniye Province Kadirli District World Heritage Tentative List for Turkey Phoenician colonies in Turkey