Yumruktepe

Yumruktepe, also Yumrutepe, is a hill near the Turkish settlement Beyköy. On it lie the fragment of a Hittite rock relief as well as a number of graves from Roman and Phrygian times.

Location

Yumruktepe is a rock ridge in the southeast of the settlement Beyköy, in the district İhsaniye of the central Turkish province Afyonkarahisar. The roughly oval hill, stretched from southwest to northeast, has an average diameter of about 100 metres and rises about ten metres above the surrounding area. The relief is located on the southeastern edge of the summit plateau.

Research history

In 1884 the Scottish archaeologist William Mitchell Ramsay found on a hill “about an English mile south of Bey Keui” the fragment of a stele with an inscription in Luwian hieroglyphs, which was later classified by Émilia Masson as belonging to the imperial period. The stele is now lost. As the first, in 1965 the German linguist Franz Steinherr reported, citing Leopold Messerschmidt, a winged sun disc as well as an inscription on Yumruktepe. The inscription is no longer recognizable today. The Dutch archaeologist Emilie Haspels described in 1971 Phrygian and Roman graves in the vicinity of Beyköy and specifically on Yumruktepe. These were thoroughly investigated and described from 1979 to 1982 by a French expedition under the Hittitologist Hatice Gonnet. In 1985 Eberhard Rossner visited the site during work on his guide to the Hittite rock reliefs of Turkey and was able to confirm the winged sun, but not an inscription. Horst Ehringhaus was at Yumruktepe in the late 20th century, where he saw some signs that might represent the remainder of an inscription.

Winged sun

On the southeastern edge of the hill’s surface there are two rock niches facing east‑southeast, each showing remnants of reliefs on the back wall. In the left niche a heavily weathered winged sun is found, with part of the left wing missing. Its upper edge is 64 centimetres above the floor of the niche, and it is 13 centimetres high. The right wing measures 40 centimetres, the left is broken off after 30 centimetres. In the right niche two geometric shapes, roughly a circle and a rectangle, can be seen, with a height of 30–40 centimetres, and to the right of them poorly preserved, indistinct signs. They might perhaps represent the beginning of a hieroglyphic text. The winged sun is known as a motif both from the Hittite imperial period and in the post‑imperial states, therefore it alone cannot provide a dating. Through the nearby stele described by Ramsay, which could be dated to the imperial period by the remaining signs, a creation of the winged sun in that period can also be assumed.

Graves

On the summit, on the eastern slope and at the foot of the hill there is a large number of graves of Roman or Phrygian origin, which are mostly simple rectangular depressions cut into the rock up to two metres deep. Gonnet gives a total number of 48 burial sites. Worth mentioning are two chamber graves at the southwestern foot of the mountain. The right, slightly larger one is the so‑called Lion Grave. In the gable field of the entrance a relief with two lions standing opposite each other can be seen. Gonnet dates it to Phrygian times and assumes an extension in Roman times. Haspels assumes that the lions as grave ornaments were inspired by the nearby monument Aslantaş. The second grave, located further west, has a 3.5‑metre‑deep burial chamber. On the façade three seven‑armed candelabra are carved, indicating a Jewish re‑use of the original Phrygian grave. An incised cross points to a later Christian re‑use. At the foot of the hill there are also several cavities in the ground, which Gonnet interprets as cisterns.