Archeologists unearth extraordinary human sculpture in Turkey [ Suppiluliuma ]

Eurekalert ^ | Monday, July 30, 2012 | Kim Luke, U of Toronto

[SunkenCiv]

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The head and torso of the human figure, intact to just above its waist, stands approximately 1.5 meters in height, suggesting a total body length of 3.5 to four meters. The figure's face is bearded, with beautifully preserved inlaid eyes made of white and black stone, and its hair has been coiffed in an elaborate series of curls aligned in linear rows. Both arms are extended forward from the elbow, each with two arm bracelets decorated with lion heads. The figure's right hand holds a spear, and in its left is a shaft of wheat. A crescent-shaped pectoral adorns its chest. A lengthy Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription, carved in raised relief across its back, records the campaigns and accomplishments of Suppiluliuma, likely the same Patinean king who faced a Neo-Assyrian onslaught of Shalmaneser III as part of a Syrian-Hittite coalition in 858 BC.

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[piasa]

The annoying short robot with the pageboy head from the Buck Rogers show, I think Buck was the overweight version of the 6 million dollar man ....

[piasa]

...an inscription in raised relief- that’s interesting.

[BenLurkin]

[BenLurkin]

"A crescent-shaped pectoral adorns its chest"

Very much liek an officers' gorgets of later years. Fascinating!

[TheOldLady]

He looks very surprised at his good fortune. [smiles]

[colorado tanker]

The Assyrians were brutal SOB’s, but it worked for them a long time.

[SunkenCiv]

I was struck at first by the look of the eyes, which are similar to those on the statues of Easter Island (not now, how they *used* to look, for the most part the eyes have fallen off or been broken off the moai). Then it struck me, uh, everyone’s eyes look mighty similar across the globe, so... :’)

[smokingfrog]

Do you think the sculptures are life-sized?

[SunkenCiv]

Yes indeed. They marched against cities and towns over a wider swath of the Earth than anyone who’d come before them, there’s even evidence that they conquered Egypt, then had their first collapse (end of the Akkadian period), then reemerged in the more familiar, Old Testament form. When the end came at Nineveh it must have shaken the Middle East (figuratively).

http://www.varchive.org/tac/end.htm

[snip] For many years the fortunes of war changed camps. Then Nabopolassar and Cyaxares, the Mede, brought the Scythians over to their side. Their armies advanced from three sides against Nineveh. In August of the year -612 The dam on the Tigris was breached, and Nineveh was stormed. In a single night the city that was the splendor of its epoch went up in flames, and the centuries-old empire that ceaselessly carried sword and fire to the four quarters of the ancient world — as far as Elam and Lydia, Sarmatia and Ethiopia — ceased to exist forever. [snip]

[colorado tanker]

Some American "tourists" visiting a restored gate at Ninevah.

[SunkenCiv]

They appear to be colossal (i.e., more than life-sized), which is often the case in sculpture, particularly when the subject is a ruler or other politician.

[PapaBear3625]

Ancient lawn jockey.

[Sloth]

BEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEE

[Sirius Lee]

Man, that’s some bad penis-head. Almost makes the young Bruce Jenner, Luke Skywalker, and Dorothy Hamill look normal.

[bert]

[bert]

[SunkenCiv]

from Ages In Chaos, "The el-Amarna Letters (concluded)" [Suppiluliuma boldface added]

[pp 310-311]

...shells prepared for the extraction of dye were found there. A written order to tint three loads of wool also came to light.

Some time before his expulsion Nikmed, together with Suppiluliuma, a contemporary city king, contributed to the goddess of the city of Arne. We shall come across these names in the annals of Shalmaneser, too.

Shalmaneser III Is Opposed by a Syrian Coalition,
under Biridri (Biridia), the Commandant of Megiddo

Shalmaneser relates that in his sixth year, two years after he drove King Nikdem into the sea, a prince named Biridri, helped by a coalition of twelve princes, opposed him at Karkar. [in northern Syria] Among Biridri's allies were Ahab, the prince of Israel ("with two thousand chariots and ten thousand warriors"), the city of Irqata (no prince is named), the prince of Arvad, Matinu-Bali, the prince of Usa (not named), and the prince of Siana, Adunu-Bali.

The inscription of Shalmaneser does not say that the allied princes, Ahab among them, participated personally in the battle of Karkar; it merely states: "These twelve kings he [Biridri] brought to his support." We meet some of the same princes in the el-Amarna letters. They wrote to the pharaoh that they were holding their garrisons in readiness to take a stand against the invading king of Hatti, and some of them -- from northern Syria, which was more immediately threatened than Palestine -- might have taken part personally in the battle.

The city of Irqata wrote to the pharaoh:

LETTER 100: Thus saith Irqata and the people of its inheritance. . . Let the heart of the long, the lord, know that we protect Irqata for him. ... Let the breath of the king not depart from us. We have closed the gate until the breath of the king comes to us. Powerful is the hostility against us, very powerful indeed.

In a letter from Rib-Addi 2 it is reported: "Aduna of Irqata, mercenaries have killed." In the same letter he wrote about the wars of the king of Hatti in the northeast. Prince Aduni of Siana of Shalmaneser's inscriptions was probably Aduna "of -- and of Irqata" of the el-Amarna letters. THE EL-AMARNA LETTERS (CONCLUDED) AGES IN CHAOS

[pp 320-321]

Who Is the Dreaded "King of Hatti"
of the el-Amarna Correspondence?

The king of Hatti, always feared and often mentioned in the letters of the Syrian princes, might well have been one of the correspondents of the el-Amarna collection. Although in continued conflict with Egypt, he never made open war against the pharaoh; at least the pharaoh never sent a strong army to the assistance of his Syrian vassals. It is probable, therefore, that they exchanged letters. It is generally accepted that Suppiluliuma, of whom only one very amiable letter is preserved, was the feared king of Hatti. A number of generations later another Suppiluliuma was "a king of Hatti" and therefore it appeared reasonable that Suppiluliuma of the el-Amarna period also had been a great king of Hatti.

Actually, in the time of Shalmaneser III (in the ninth century) there lived a prince called Suppiluliuma (Sapalulme), to whom Shalmaneser referred in his annals. He could have been the author of the letter in the el-Amarna collection signed with his name.

In a short and broken text from Ugarit referring to donations made to the goddess of the city of Arne, Prince Nikmed of Ugarit-Ras Shamra as well as Suppiluliuma are mentioned. Apparently Nikmed and Suppiluliuma, too, donated to the goddess of Arne. Arne was not far from Ugarit and was captured by Shalmaneser III in one of his campaigns. "Against the cities of Arame (personal name) I drew near. Arne his royal city I captured."

Besides establishing the identity of Shalmaneser III and the king of Hatti, the invader from the north at the time of the el-Amarna correspondence, there is a basis for suggesting an identification of the king of Hatti as one of the el-Amarna correspondents. We have already shown that he is mentioned in the letters of the king of Tyre by the name of Shalmaiati; but no letter is signed with this name.

[SunkenCiv]

the ever-popular Gudea of Lagash, from about 1200 years before this image of Suppiluliuma:

Google

[Rocky]

Wow. The archaeologists have been busy collecting his images.

[Captain Beyond]

Yeah that artists from different lo-cals and time periods tend to see human face the same way. But what would Giorgio A. Tsoukalos think?