Beyköy

The Beyköy village is about 43 km north of the city of Afyon, close to the town of İhsaniye. Nearby the village, the location known as Yumruktepe is especially known for its Phrygian and Roman period ruins. In 1889, William Ramsay published the drawing of a partial Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription relief he had found in 1884 carved on a large trachyte block near Beyköy, but subsequent studies at the site did not yield any trace of it. P. Meriggi and E. Masson date the inscription to the Hittite Empire period.

The winged sun disc and another hieroglyphic inscription reported by Franz Steinherr in 1965 remain highly in doubt. The so-called winged sun disc is carved on a southeast-facing vertical rock surface near the top of the hill. The highly weathered and today entirely lichen-covered about 80 cm-long relief may look like a winged sun-disc under certain light (see Steinherr and Ehringhaus images below), but at other times it appears to be the bottom section of a rectangular frame-like carving, which might be associated with the Greco-Roman period funerary installations peppered on and around the hill. The geometric shapes (last image below) carved a few meters to the right of this relief might have been mistaken by Steinherr for another hieroglyphic inscription.

The so-called Beyköy 2-4 inscriptions published in 2018 are forgeries and have no historical value.


Click on the pictures for larger images.