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The Second Inscription on Mount Sipylus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Hans G. Güterbock  and
Robert L. Alexander
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Extract

The two authors of this brief note together made a tour of Hittite monuments in Turkey in the summer of 1978. RLA arrived in İzmir from abroad a few days earlier than HGG, who was detained in İstanbul by other obligations. While waiting for him, RLA revisited the Karabel and Mt. Sipylus and thus was the first of us to notice the inscription. Since it had not been mentioned in recent years and neither of us had seen it on previous visits to the site we believed that this was a discovery. In fact it is a rediscovery, as we learned from David Hawkins, who reminded us (in correspondence) of the fact that it is included in L. Messerschmidt, CIH 1–2 (MVAG 5, 1900, 4–5 ) as Pl. XXXVIII no. 3. Messerschmidt's source was an article by Eduard Gollob published in 1882.

About three metres to the right of the recess containing the well-known seated goddess, a smaller, partly worked niche contains a large boss (Pl. IXa, arrow). Although the boss has suffered a major fracture, which perhaps led to its abandonment for relief sculpture, it has a plain surface on the side toward the goddess (Pl. IXb). The hieroglyphs are inscribed here, approximately on a level with the torso of the goddess (Pl. Xa, b, Fig. 1). The inscription is arranged in two columns; the right column, with four signs, measures 65 cm., the left one consists of three (or four? see below) signs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 33 , December 1983 , pp. 29 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1983

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References

1 RLA wrote the description of the site, HGG the comments on the inscription itself. RLA's trip was made possible, in part, by a research assignment of the University of Iowa. He reported on the niche and its interpretation at the meeting of the Midwest Art History Society in Columbus, Ohio, on March 20–22, 1980. HGG's air fare to Turkey was covered by a travel grant of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an agency of the United States Government, enabling him to collate Hittite tablets in Turkish museums for the Hittite Dictionary Project of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. HGG published observations pertaining to other monuments visited on that tour in Studia Mediterranea Piero Meriggi dicata (1979) 235–45Google Scholar. He gave a report on the Sipylus inscription at the meeting of the American Oriental Society held in San Francisco on April 15–17, 1980.

2 Here he found to his distress that the two monuments in the bottom of the valley had fallen victim to road construction (blocks B and C in Güterbock, , Ist. Mitt. 17 (1967), 63–71Google Scholar; Meriggi, , Manuale di Eteo Geroglifico II, 3a serie (1975), 261–3 and pl. I as nos. 3–5, Karabel II–IV)Google Scholar.

3 Gollob, Eduard, “Zur ‘Niobestatue’ am Sipylos bei Magnesia,’ Wiener Studien: Zeitschrift für classische Philologie 4 (Wien 1882), 307–11Google Scholar, with a postscript by J. Krall, pp. 311–13; this periodical is in the library of the University of Chicago.

4 The shape of the boss and its position – the lower edge about a metre above a rock shelf – suggests that a frontal animal head rather than a figure or animal protome was intended. Next to the seated goddess and as an attribute identifying her, a leonine head seems probable. When completed, it would not have the degree of relief seen in the animals of the Lion Gate at Boǧazköy. Rather, like the sphinxes of Alaca Höyük, the head would be emerging from a rock face.

5 The measurements shown in Gollob's drawing no. III (about 1·10 m.) cannot be correct.

6 CIH XXXVIII 2=4=5; Meriggi, , Manuale II, 3a serie no. 1, p. 259 f. and pl. IGoogle Scholar.

7 Bossert, H. Th., “Das hethitische Felsrelief bei Hanyeri (Gezbeli),’ Orientalia n.s. 23 (1954), 129–47Google Scholar, on Sipylus pp. 144–7 and pls. xxvii–xxviii; cf. Güterbock, Studia … Meriggi 238, 242Google Scholar.

8 Owing to the long time required for its formation, the deposit would by itself be evidence of the antiquity of the inscription, even if it had not been seen a hundred years ago. This kind of lime incrustation is best known from Yazılıkaya, cf. Damm, B. in Bittel, K. et al. , Das hethitische Felsheiligtum Yazılıkaya (1975) 26 fGoogle Scholar.

9 E.g. in the inscription on the stele from the fountain head in Boğazköy, , Güterbock, , Boğazköy IV (1969), 49–52 and pl. 19Google Scholar; Meriggi, , Manuale IIGoogle Scholar 3a serie 295 and pl. IX, no. 49, Hattusa XII.

10 Hieroglyphs are identified by the numbers in Laroche, E., Les Hiéroglyphes hittites, I: L'écriture (1960)Google Scholar.

11 Laroche, E., Les noms des Hittites (1966)Google Scholar, no. 1579: head of a household in a list, KUB 31 59 ii 12; idem, Supplément, in Hethitica IV (1981) 52 no. 1579a: Zuwali, an official in charge of jewellery, KBo 18 161 obv. 9, 12.

12 RS 17.231 in Ugaritica III (1956), 55Google Scholar, fig. 76 f.; Laroche, ibid. 149–52.

13 On the tablet RS 17.231, PRU IV (1956) 238Google Scholar the title was read by Nougayrolamilša re-ši ekallimlim “ša-rêši du Palais.” In the inner ring of the seal the name Tabrammi appears twice on the left side in opposite directions. Facing left, i.e. running left to right, I read only Tabrammi with title 254; facing right, read right to left, Tabrammi with a title composed of 482-312-388 which occurs on the seal SBo II 223Google Scholar. This means that the sign 312 VIR should not be connected with 254. This is confirmed by the traces of 482-312-388 alone in the outer ring on the left. On the right side of the inner ring there is only one title, 326 SCRIBA over two oblique lines, a frequent combination (see no. 105 of the sign list in SBo II; comparison of the seals Boğazköy V (1975)Google Scholar, nos. 9 and 15, suggests that SCRIBA with two and three such lines may be two different ranks of learned men; note that SCRIBA II on no. 9 is a prince). On the socle from Boğazköy (Meriggi, , Man. IIGoogle Scholar 3a serie no. 40, Hattusa II, p. 288 f., pl. VI, the title of Tabrammi is 254 (followed by an unclear sign); on the seal SBo II 92Google Scholar (KUB25 32) he has the titles 254 and SCRIBA. In the centre field of the Ras Shamra seal the two signs under the name may be MAGNUS-254(?); I would take those on the left as SCRIBA II like in the inner ring. Which of the three titles represented in the hieroglyphic text of the seal corresponds to that mentioned in the Akkadian text of the tablet?

14 Laroche, , Akkadica 22 (1981) 14Google Scholar; the full evidence still awaits publication.

15 They have been conveniently collected by Beran, , HGB (WVDOG 76, 1967) pls. X–XIGoogle Scholar.