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Aksaray Stele

It is the bottom part of a stele with a relief of Storm God on the front face and the last 5 lines of a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription on the back and the sides. The last line continues to the front of the stele forming a line below the god relief. In its current shape the stele is about 88x90x39 cm. It was found during the excavations for an office building construction in Aksaray in 1976. The inscription is a dedication by a king named Kiyakiya whose name is also mentioned in Topada monument. Kiyakiya is thought to be the same person known as Kiakki in Assyrian sources, who was deposed by Assyrian King Sargon II in 718 BCE. Thus the stele is dated to the end of the 8th century BCE. It is currently in the Aksaray Museum.


Click on the pictures for larger images.

Front side of the stele - D. Morgan, 2008 Right side of the stele - Tayfun Bilgin, 2019 Right side of the stele - Tayfun Bilgin, 2019 Middle section of the lines of the inscription - Tayfun Bilgin, 2019 Left side of the stele - Tayfun Bilgin, 2019 J. D. Hawkins, 2000 A drawing of the inscription - J. D. Hawkins, 2000


Literature:
Hawkins, J. D. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol 1, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000: 475–78 and plt. 264.
Hawkins, J. D. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol 3, Berlin, 2024: 264–65, 343.
Kalaç, M. "Ein Stelenbruchstück mit luwischen Hieroglyphen in Aksaray bei Niğde," Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, 92, 1978: 117–25.


Image sources:
David Morgan, 2008.
Tayfun Bilgin, 2019.
J. David Hawkins, 2000.