Malkaya

Malkaya (Turkish Herdenfelsen) denotes an exposed stone west of Kırşehir in central Turkey that bears inscriptions in Luwian hieroglyphs from the time of the Hittite Empire.

Research History

The rock was discovered in September 1947 by the German banker Hans von Aulock on a hunting trip. He made recordings of it and notified Hans Gustav Güterbock, who at the time was professor of Hittitology at the University of Ankara, of the find. Since – apart from a brief internal university message – a publication by Güterbock did not follow, the German ancient Near Easternist Helmuth Theodor Bossert visited the site for the first time in 1950 as part of investigations of the Stadthüyüks of Kırşehir. He made rubbings and published a short note in a travel report from Anatolia. Because the photographs taken at that time were not sufficient for publication, he traveled again to Kırşehir in July 1956 and subjected the stone to a more detailed examination, which he published in 1958. On that occasion he cleaned the stone of algae using hydrochloric acid and brushes.

A further discussion of the inscriptions was written by the Italian linguist Piero Meriggi in 1975 on the basis of photos. He was followed in 1988 by Eberhard Rossner in his archaeological guide to the Hittite rock reliefs in Turkey, in 2005 by the German architect Horst Ehringhaus and finally in 2008 by the British Hittitologist John David Hawkins.

Description

The inscription stone lies twelve kilometres west of Kırşehir, in an open field about one hundred metres northeast of the road to Yağmurlukale. It is irregularly shaped, has a maximum diameter of about six metres and is clearly elevated above the surrounding ground. The surrounding steppe-like land is not used for agriculture. Bossert considers it possible that it was forested at the time of the inscription’s creation in the 2nd millennium BC or that a road ran here. However, no settlement traces have been found in the vicinity; the nearest known settlement mound is the Stadthüyük of Kırşehir, which Bossert suggests could have housed an important Hittite city. A smaller hill near the southern village of Sevdiğin seems to him to be insignificant.

There is no clarity about the order of reading the signs, Hawkins names the individual inscriptions starting with Inscription 1 on the south side, proceeding clockwise with the missing Inscription 2, the inscriptions 3 to 5 on the west side and ending with Inscription 6 in the east. There are also some differences between the various editors regarding the cardinal directions of the sides, Hawkins provides a short overview. Parts of the writings have been destroyed by treasure hunters. Thus the lower half of Inscription 1 is no longer readable due to drill holes. On the upper side of the stone a large blast crater is visible, and the right half of Inscription 6 has also disappeared. Inscription 2, originally on the southwest side, could still be read and drawn by Bossert on a blasted stone block; for Hawkins it was no longer recognizable.

A continuous reading of the texts is not possible. A prince named x‑ziti and his father (?) Ura‑Tarhunda as well as a princess x‑parinaia are mentioned repeatedly, whom Bossert mistakenly also read as a prince. The father, however, is not called king, which is possible because it was customary for officials at court to bear the title prince (REX.FILIUS) although they were not sons of the king. The mentioned names do appear, among other things, on seals from Boğazköy (Ḫattuša), but never in a context that would allow an identity with the persons named here. Nevertheless, both because of the names and from paleographic considerations, due to certain sign forms, the inscription is dated to the period of the Hittite Great Empire. Bossert placed it in the 14th or 13th century BC.