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Article

Toprakkale  

C. A. Burney

Publication History:

Published online:
2003
Collection:
Grove Art Online

[Turk.: ‘earth castle’; Rusahinili; Toprak Kale]

Site in eastern Turkey on a limestone spur of Mt Zimzim, overlooking modern Van. This Urartian citadel was built by Rusa, probably Rusa II (reg c. 680–c. 640 bc), and first attracted the attention of European scholars in 1877 when bronzes came on to the antiquities market. The ensuing British Museum excavations by Captain Emilius Clayton, Dr Raynolds and Hormuzd Rassam in 1879, although destructive, provided the first archaeological context for the previously published Urartian cuneiform inscriptions from Van. C. Lehmann-Haupt (from 1898), and subsequent Russian and Turkish expeditions followed. The principal collections of finds are in the British Museum in London, the Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Louvre in Paris.

The fortress was naturally defensible on three sides, with water brought, on the evidence of a contemporary inscription, probably from the artificial ‘Lake of Rusa’ (Keşiş-Göl). A rock-cut channel also brought water from a spring almost 2 km away into an enormous rock-hewn hall, with basin, drain and benches. A rock-cut spiral staircase, with 56 steps and lit by three windows, led from there into the fortress. The fortification walls are discernible only by the typically Urartian rock-cut ledges serving as base for the masonry....

Article

Yazılıkaya (i)  

J. D. Hawkins

Publication History:

Published online:
2003
Collection:
Grove Art Online

[Turk.: ‘inscribed rock face’]

Great open-air sanctuary (c. 1500–1200 bc) of the Hittite capital city Hattusa ( see Boğazköy ), c. 1.5 km north-east of the ruins of the city in central Turkey. Yazılıkaya is a rocky outcrop forming two chambers (A and B) open to the sky. These were closed off by a gradually developing series of buildings that evolved from a simple wall to more elaborate structures designed to provide the natural sanctuary with the gatehouse and entrance courtyard of the typical Hittite temple. Excavation has revealed more than one remodelling.

The main chamber A was entered through the gatehouse and courtyard with a left turn, which would have disclosed the natural gallery, its rock walls sculptured with two files of figures (on the left male figures advancing right, on the right female figures advancing left). The processions converge in a central scene at the back of the gallery, where two sets of main figures, three on the left and four on the right, confront each other. The figures of both files have been numbered consecutively from the left: the left file has 42 figures, the right 21....