Main Page
Türkçe

Karaören

The basalt block with Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription had been in the yard of a house in the village of Karaören, which is located just to the north of Mount Karacadağ. Reportedly the rectangular block was previously used as building material in a medieval period structure. The block has been missing since 2014. The visible line must be the last line of a longer inscription, since traces of signs of another line are visible at the bottom of the upside-down standing block. It must have been part of a monumental structure. The place name VITISx.REGIO is repeated twice in the inscription. It is also attested in Yalburt and SÜDBURG inscriptions in the context of campaigns to western Anatolia by Tudhaliya IV and Suppiluliuma II respectively. Based on that and its paleography the inscription has been dated to the second half of the 13th century BCE.

In 2020 another inscribed block was located during a survey by Dr. Çiğdem Maner as built into the wall of a building in the village. The rectangular block is 88 cm in lenght, 44 cm in height and 23.5 cm thickness. It bears two lines of inscription on the front and right side, and apparently was part of the same monumental inscription as the first block. It has been moved to the Konya Ereğli Museum.


Click on the picture for a larger image.

First block Second block
Block upside down - from Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (photo: N. Tezcan) The inscription - from Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (photo: N. Tezcan) The second block as it was found - DHA, 2020 The second block as it was found - DHA, 2020



Literature:
Maner, Ç. "Preliminary Report on the Forth Season of the Konya-Ereğli Survey (KEYAR) 2016," Anatolia Antiqua 25, 2017: 95–113 (107).
Maner, Ç. "New Assessments of Settlement Distribution during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Southeast Konya," in S. R. Steadman & G. McMahon (eds.), The Archaeology of Anatolia Volume IV, 2021: 300–11.
Maner, Ç., M. Weeden, M. Alparslan. "Archäologische Forschungen am Karacadağ und eine hieroglyphenluwische Inschrift aus Karaören," Altorientalische Forschungen 48, 2021: 347-83.
Tezcan, N. Şairler ve şiirlerle Karaören, Konya, 2011: 1–2.

Image sources:
Kültür Varlıkları ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü (photo: Nizamettin Tezcan)
DHA, 2020.