Warrior king statue discovered in ancient Mediterranean city

Warrior king statue discovered in ancient Mediterranean city
2012 07 31

It guarded upper citadel of a Neo-Hittite kingdom’s capital about 738 B.C. in Turkey

A newly discovered statue of a curly haired man gripping a spear and a sheath of wheat once guarded the upper citadel of an ancient kingdom’s capital.

The enormous sculpture, which is intact from about the waist up, stands almost 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, suggesting that its full height with legs would have been between 11 and 13 feet (3.5 to 4 m). Alongside the statue, archaeologists found another carving, a semicircular column base bearing the images of a sphinx and a winged bull.

A newly excavated statue standing 5 feet (1.5 m) tall may have represented a Neo-Hittite king.

The pieces date back to about 1000 B.C. to 738 B.C. and belong to the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina in what is now southeastern Turkey. They were found at what would have been a gate to the upper citadel of the capital, Kunulua. An international team of archaeologists on the Tayinat Archaeological Project are excavating the ruins.

The Neo-Hittites were a group of civilizations that arose along the eastern Mediterranean after the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1000 B.C. When the statues were carved, the area was emerging from the Bronze Age and entering into the Iron Age.

...text...

The male sculpture boasts a beard and inlaid eyes made of white and black stone. He wears a crescent-shaped pectoral shield on his chest and lion-head bracelets on his arms. On his back, a long inscription records the accomplishments of Suppiluliuma, the name of a king of Patina already known to have banded together with Syrian forces in 858 B.C. to face an invasion by Neo-Assyrians.

The column base stands about 3 feet (1 m) tall, with a diameter of 35 inches (90 centimeters). The column likely stood against a wall, as only the front is decorated with carvings of a winged bull flanked by a sphinx.

The presence of such statues was common in Neo-Hittite royal cities, the researchers said. The newly discovered carvings would have guarded a passageway of gates to the heart of the city.

"The two pieces appear to have been ritually buried in the paved stone surface of the central passageway," Tayinat Project director Tim Harrison, a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto, said in a statement.

The passageway and gates seems to have been destroyed in 738 B.C., when Assyrian forces conquered the Neo-Hittite city. The area then appears to have been paved over and turned into a courtyard. Archaeologists have also uncovered smashed Neo-Hittite slabs and pillars as well as two carved life-size lions.

Article from: msnbc.msn.com

Also tune into Red Ice Radio:

Joseph Davidovits - Egyptian Building Techniques, The Israel Stele & Amenhotep, son of Hapu

Robert Schoch - Hour 1 - The Mystery of the Sphinx

William Glyn-Jones - Lascaux Cave Art, Egypt’s Oldest Art, Nativity Scene Star Map & Poussin’s Shepherds of Arcadia

John Anthony West & Laird Scranton - Göbekli Tepe

Klaus Schmidt - Göbekli Tepe: The World’s Oldest Temple?

Christopher Knight & Alan Butler - Civilization One, The Moon & The Megalithic Yard

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

Footage of Killer Machete ‘Terrorist’ Attack in Woolwich, East London - Major Inconsistencies in the video footage
2013 05 24
Red Ice Creations: The following analysis of the killing in Woolwich, London is provided by many sources. Many different opinions are gathered, but on the whole it’s clear that the level of suspicion of the press, as well as government and security officials, is high. And with all that’s going on it’s not unfounded suspicion. There are still a multitude of ...

Soldier Beheaded in Broad Daylight Machete Attack
2013 05 23
Woolwich attack: terrorist proclaimed ’an eye for an eye’ after attack A British soldier has been butchered on a busy London street by two Islamist terrorists, one of whom proclaimed afterwards: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” In the first terrorist murder on the British mainland since the 7/7 suicide bombings of 2005, the men attempted ...

Ciudad Blanca Found? The lost city in Honduras
2013 05 23
Explorers have been searching on foot for Honduras’s mythical city for generations. Now, they seem to have found it from a tiny Cessna airplane, aided by million-dollar technology. Is the fabled lost city of Honduras hiding beneath the dense jungle canopy? The Mosquitia rain forests of Honduras and Nicaragua are, to put it mildly, thick jungle. As one travel guide notes, "While ...

Cheetah-bot races into your post-apocalyptic nightmares
2013 05 23
An ongoing robotics project at MIT aiming to recreate the gait of a cheetah is sharing a new video showing off the latest progress. There’s a long way to go before anyone would call it catlike, but it’s impressive nevertheless. MIT Cheetah The Biomimetic Robotics Lab at MIT is attempting to create things much like those being made by the more well-known ...

When an Army of Artists Fooled Hitler
2013 05 23
Shortly after the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, two Frenchmen on bicycles managed to cross the perimeter of the United States Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and what they saw astounded them. Four American soldiers had picked up a 40-ton Sherman tank and were turning it in place. Soldier Arthur Shilstone says, “They looked at me, and they were ...

More News »