A stele of prince Anaziti in the Yozgat Museum.

• Author: Tas, Ilknur

The stele published here is currently housed in the Yozgat Archaeological Museum in Central Turkey, where it is booked under the inventory number 1603. It was brought to the museum from Calapverdi in the municipality of Bogazliyan. According to information received from the Calapverdi council, the inscription was brought in from Kaletepe, a mound in the vicinity of Calapverdi village. (1) Further, more precise, details of its original whereabouts are currently unknown. The inscription is on a small stele shaped somewhat like a modern tombstone, which is slightly unusual for its period. (2) It is not absolutely clear if this was the original shape of the stone, but there does not appear to be anything missing from the short text of the inscription, nor is the stone broken. The text is almost certainly an inscription of Anaziti, a prince, who is also attested on a seal impression found in the Nisantepe archive at Bogazkoy (Herbordt 2005: 118, Kat. 26). The inscription is almost certainly to be dated to the thirteenth century B.C.

The mound at Calapverdi was surveyed by T. Ozguc in 1967 and the results of the survey published in his 1971 monograph Kultepe and Its Vicinity in the Iron Age. (3) Here Ozguc noted that no pottery of the second millennium B.C. was found either on the surface or in trenches, although he conceded that this might be due to chance. (4) On the other hand he also noted that the mound at Calapverdi conformed to the type of Iron Age mountain fortress known from Kerkenes Dag, Golludag, and Kululu. The find of an Empire period inscription at this site would invalidate this supposition. It is indeed very unusual to find Hittite Empire period cities on mountain-tops. (5) As long as precise details of the circumstances under which this inscription was found are not officially known or made public, we must content ourselves with the knowledge that the stele comes from the region of Calapverdi, or at the very least became known there. For this reason we give it the label CALAPVERDI 3, with a view to its relation to the Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. (6)

To the north there are numerous Empire period sites apart from the well-known centers at Bogazkoy and Alaca Hoyuk. Hittite Empire period stone-quarrying activity is attested at the site of Karakiz. This appears to have been a large quarrying operation over an extended area, where numerous items of sculpture were left unfinished until today, all of them lions.(7) Rescue excavations are currently underway at the site. Another local site of Imperial Hittite date is of course the mound at Kusakli HOyuk, which has been supposed to have been the city of Zippalanda, with the associated sacred Mt. Daha being equated with Kerkenes Dag.(8) Further local excavations and survey work dating to the Hittite Empire period are underway at Buyuk Nefes, which has been equated with Hittite Tawiniya.(9)

The sign-forms of has been text are not entirely usual, and the surface of the inscription is quite worn. Some of the signs are also cut very roughly and irregularly. In particular the form of the sign STELA (L.267) is highly unusual, and might be taken to represent in some form the structure which prince Anaziti is supposed to have erected. If this were the case it would be clear that the structure looked nothing like this little stele. It may thus be the case that the sign represents the location of a dedication, although this has grammatical implications (see below). Also unknown is the nature of the sun-deity in whose honor the stele has been made. While one might have expected to find a place name localizing the sun-deity, it would be very unwise to argue that a place name is attested. The interpretation of the signs following the sun-god sign (L. 191) is unclear, but there does not appear to be a manifest place name determinative, although the status of the two to three upright strokes in the middle of the logogram is open for discussion.

The text is three lines long, in high relief, and written in boustrophedon style starting in the top right-hand corner. The three lines are separated by roughly cut relief horizontal lines, into which the signs frequently merge. The copy is a composite from a direct tracing from the stone made on acetate in the Yozgat Museum in rather poor light and from a number of photographs. We present two possible transliterations and translations, the merits of which are then discussed in the following notes.

Transliteration (a):

(l) zi/a STELA L.376

L.267(+L.268)

(2) (DEUS)SOL SCUTELLA?+zi/a.III.SUPER PONERE L.360 L.191 L.402+L.376 III L.270 L.65

(3) a-na-VlR!.zi REX.FILIUS

L.19L.35L.313.376L.46.1

(a) Prince Anaziti dedicated this stele to the sun-deity of L.402.III.SUPER

or Transliteration (b):

(1) HIC STELA

(2) (DEUS)SOL L.402-zi/a III SUPER PONERE

(3) a-na-VlR!.zi/a REX.FILIUS

(b) Prince Anaziti offered (lit. 'put') up L.402(-offering)s, 3 (in number), at this stele (for) the sun-deity.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

For the reasons elaborated below, we prefer transliteration and translation (b).

Notes:

(Line 1) L.376: the upright of zi/a continues into the line-divider. It appears to be of the normal Hittite type, here with sinistroverse orientation. It has occasionally been suggested that zi/a should be transliterated HIC in similar contexts to this, and that it functions as a logogram. (10) Translation (b) assumes that this is the case.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

L.267: the presence of the two humps on the left top of the sign as well as the SCALPRUM (L.268) element, which accompanies signs for objects made of stone, and is frequently an integral part of the STELA-sign, are indicators enough to secure the identification of this sign with the usual STELA-sign (L.267). It is, however, considerably different from the usual form of the sign. Its top, the only part to allow an identification with L.267, rests on two columns consisting of three vertically arranged circles each, the bottom of which is slightly squashed in each column and the top left of which is not closed.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

(Line 2) It is perhaps possible, although highly speculative, to associate the six circles in this sign with the six circles around the edge of the sign SOL (L. 191). These latter have in the past been interpreted as eyes. (11) Whether these be eyes or not, it is possible that the presence of the six circles or lozenges on the sign for the sun-deity has something to do with the six circles on the stela-sign, possibly even denoting a special kind of structure for the sun-deity, or a structure where a dedication has been made. If this is the case, it is clear that the structure denoted by this logogram (L.267) looks nothing like the stele we have before us. One should note that the circle-like protrusions on the sides of L. 191 in this inscription are different. The three on the left of the sign are lozenges, perhaps indeed resembling eyes, while the three on the right are circles. It is also possible that the circles represent offerings for the sun-deity, such as...