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İspekçür Stele

The four-sided limestone stele is decorated with figures and inscriptions on three sides. It was found broken into four pieces in İspekçür village at the north bank of Tohma Su by the Cornell Expedition in 1907. The badly damaged inscription identifies the author as Arnuwanti, the grandson of King Arnuwanti, who is the grandson of Kuzi-Teššub. The left side shows a female figure standing on a walled gate, possibly the wife of grandfather Arnuwanti. The beardless male figure with pointy shoes in the center is the grandfather Arnuwanti. He and his wife are shown deified as gods. The right side shows a bearded male figure with curly hair and pointy shoes standing on a bull and pouring libation, and the inscription below identifies him as the grandson Arnuwanti. He is also shown in the Darende stele standing on a lion. Genealogical dating places the stele four generations after Kuzi-Teššub, sometime around the early 11th century BCE. The stele is currently in the Sivas Museum.


Click on the pictures for larger images.

J. D. Hawkins, 2000 J. D. Hawkins, 2000 J. D. Hawkins, 2000 T. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 T. Bilgin, 2017 T. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 T. Bilgin, 2017 T. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017 B. Bilgin, 2017


Literature:
Hawkins, J. D. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol 1, Berlin, 2000: 301-4 and plt. 142–44. (İSPEKÇÜR)
Hawkins, J. D. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol 3, Berlin, 2024: 233, 325. (İSPEKÇÜR)
Naumann, R. "Die Stele von Ispekçir," FsOtten, 1973: 217–20.
(List of Abbreviations)


Image sources:
J. David Hawkins, 2000.
Tayfun Bilgin, 2017.
Bora Bilgin, 2017.