Meharde

The stele has the relief of a female figure and a Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription. The upper part of the two-piece stele was reportedly found by the Orontes River in the Meharde village about 20 km northwest of Hama. The bottom part appeared in the antiquities market in the 1980s. Together it stands over 2 meters in height. The stele shows a female figure and a smaller figure next to her, both standing on a crouching lion. Below the relief, as well as on the sides and back of the stele, is an inscription of Taita, the Walastinean king, who dedicated the stele to a goddess named "Queen of the Land." The upper part is currently in the Aleppo Museum.

Another Hieroglyphic Luwian stele comes from the nearby Sheizar citadel, which is at the northern part of Meharde village. Interestingly, this stele is also in two pieces, the upper part in the Beirut Museum and the lower in the Hama Museum. The round-topped stele is inscribed on the front and on the sides. The inscription is written for "Kupapiya, the wife of Taita, the Hero of the country Walastin" and has references to the "divine Queen of the Land." In connection with the monuments of Taita from Aleppo, the steles are roughly dated to sometime around the 11th century BCE.

The place name Walastin also appears in Tell Tayinat inscriptions and is a variation of Palastin that appears on some Aleppo inscriptions (see Hawkins, NEA 72, 164–73). It is likely that the P/W variation is an attempt to emulate the F sound (i.e., Falastin) that does not exist in the Hieroglyphic Luwian script.


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