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Book by Faris Demir about “Karatepe Azatiwataya”

After a fruitful visit to the archaeological park of Karatepe Aslantaş in Cilicia, a small delegation of Luwian Studies, consisting of Alper Aşınmaz, Kubilay Ahmet Küçük and Eberhard Zangger, made an unannounced stopover at the ongoing excavations of Hierapolis Kastabala, one of the most important ancient cities in Türkiye, located some 12 km NNW of Osmaniye. There, under the direction of Prof. Faris Demir, excavations are taking place at three sites in the Hellenistic and Roman city. Professor Demir gave us a very warm welcome and reported in detail on the progress of the work.

On this occasion, he also presented Eberhard Zangger with a copy of his book “Karatepe Azatiwataya” from 2021 (published by ArkeoPera) – see photo. It is a highly topical summary of the inscriptions of Karatepe, the first in Turkish, with original approaches based on an innovative view of the inscriptions. Karatepe is, so to speak, the Rosetta Stone of Luwian research: the discovery of the bilingual inscriptions (Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician) by Helmuth Bossert in 1946 finally led to the complete decipherment of the Luwian hieroglyphic script. It is both the longest Luwian hieroglyphic and the longest Phoenician text that we know of. The blocks are also decorated with depictions of gods, mythical creatures and scenes of daily life. These include banquet scenes, musicians, scenes with gods and kings, processions of gods, mythological creatures, sacred trees, scenes of sacrifice, hunting scenes, warriors, scenes of execution, chariots and scenes with warships. The depictions show the influence of Anatolian, Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. It is to be hoped that the book will find a large readership in the present Turkish version and will soon also be available in English.