Harput Relief: 4,000-Year-Old Artifact Pushes Back History Of Region By 1,000 Years

AncientPages.com - Researchers have examined a relief, which was accidentally unearthed in the Elazig province, in eastern Anatolia, Turkey, almost a year ago.

The relief dubbed “Harput Relief” is now dated back to 4,000 years ago, which meeans that the region’s history is also a 1,000 years older. The five-cornered artifact, which most probably  was affixed to a wall, depicts the conquest of a castle, and the scenes with naked slaves in front of the king.

The relief, which is 2.72 centimeter high and 2.25 meter wide, was found in five pieces during planting of saplings in the Nevruz Forest.

In the same area, archaeologists also found traces of a settlement that developed in two phases before being destroyed in a big fire.

Archaeologist Bülent Demir of the Elazığ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, said that the relief’s depiction of a wheeled wooden siege tower and a massive tire had not previously been seen in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Hittite cuneiforms had mentioned such a tower but that scholars had never encountered any visual proof.

The scene in the relief’s other panel depicted a goddess figure carrying an enemy soldier, adding that the relief highlighted the role of the goddess in winning the war by placing it in the center of the war panel.

“Figures similar to the goddess, which is the most important iconographic feature in the relief, are seen on the cylinder seals in the era of the king of Larsa in 1862 B.C. and the era of Hammurabi in 1779 B.C.,” he said.

“In terms of stylistic and iconography, the relief has the powerful effects of the Akkadian school which was a powerful civilization in Mesopotamia between 2300 and 2150 B.C. The pieces found in the excavation area, where the relief was unearthed, were in better condition than similar ones found elsewhere.

“These pieces date back to the beginning of 2000 B.C. The winged goddess and the tasseled headgear worn by the king on the relief was seen in the mid-Bronze age. This fact helps us to find out the period of the artifact,” he added.

The Sar Tamhari documents written by the Akkadian King Sargon and his grandson Naram Sin revealed that Anatolia was home to many independent kingdoms. Naram Sin says in these documents that he declared war against 17 kingdoms, including Kaniş King Zioani and Hatti King Harput.

It is believed that the settlement unearthed in Harput was one of these kingdoms mentioned in the Sar Tamhani documents,” according to Demir.

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