HOME
TÜRKÇE

Köylütolu Inscription

The monument was first noticed by Maryan Sokolowski in 1884 in a plain on the Ilgın-Kadınhanı road near the Köylütolu village. It is a rectangular limestone block 180 cm in length, 90 cm in height, and 100 cm in depth. The front face has a 3-line relief-type inscription. The bottom line is twice the height of the first two lines. The top of the block has a carved cavity, which may have served as a basin for rituals or may have contained a statue or stele. The layout of the inscription may suggest that there was originally another block of inscription to the right of this one. It has been reported that the block was originally found in an earth-filled embankment, which has been determined to be part of a very large man-made dam of the Hittite Empire period. Like the stele from the Karakuyu dam and the nearby Yalburt, Fasıllar, and Eflatunpınar monuments, this monument probably also dates to the reign of Tudhaliya IV in the second half of the 13th century BCE. The block is currently in the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara.


Click on the pictures for larger images.

Köylütolu Inscription - B. Bilgin, 2022 Anatolian Civilizations Museum - sanalmuze.gov.tr Anatolian Civilizations Museum - sanalmuze.gov.tr Anatolian Civilizations Museum - sanalmuze.gov.tr T. Bilgin, 2006 Drawing of the inscription - I. Gelb, 1939 Drawing of the inscription - J. D. Hawkins, 2024 Inscribed block at its findspot - J. H. Haynes, 1884


Literature:
Emre, K. "The Hittite Dam of Karakuyu," in Prince HM T. Mikasa (ed.) Essays on Anatolian Archaeology, Wiesbaden, 1993: 1–42 (8–9 and plts. 18–21).
Hawkins, J. D. “Hittite Monuments and Their Sanctity,” StAs 9, 2015: 1–10 (5).
Hawkins, J. D. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions, Vol 3, Berlin, 2024: 66–69 and plts. 43–44.
Masson, E. "Les inscriptions hiéroglyphiques louvites de Köylütolu et de Beyköy", Kadmos 19.2, 1980: 106–22.
Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project
(List of Abbreviations)


Image sources:
Bora Bilgin, 2022.
Anatolian Civilizations Museum - sanalmuze.gov.tr
Tayfun Bilgin, 2006.
Ignace J. Gelb, Hittite Hieroglyphic Monuments, Chicago: 1939.
J. David Hawkins, 2024.
John Henry Haynes, 1884, Photographs of Asia Minor (#4776), Cornell University Library.