Samsat

The ancient city of Samsat, which is now submerged under the waters of the Atatürk Dam, was inhabited from the Chalcolithic period to the Middle Ages due to its strategic location at one of the most convenient crossing points of the Euphrates River. Located on the west bank of the Euphrates, the mound rose 50 meters above the surrounding plains. The top of the mound covered about 3 hectares, and the late-period lower city was spread over 80 hectares. Short-term excavations were carried out by Theresa Goell in 1964 and 1967, and salvage excavations were carried out by Nimet Özgüç between 1978 and 1989 for 10 seasons before the mound was completely flooded. Both before and during the excavations, a small number of monumental Luwian inscriptions from the Late Hittite period were found. Excavations also revealed some heavily damaged basalt relief fragments probably belonging to the same period. It has been suggested that the name of the mound during the Hittite Empire period was Hahha/Hahhum and during the Neo-Hittite period Kumaha/Kummuh.

One of the largest inscribed fragments is a heavily eroded basalt stele with a broken top. It was first noted in 1883, lying somewhere between the Samsat village and the mound, and had been moved to the city of Adıyaman sometime in the 1960s. It is about 2 meters high (including the tenon), 61 cm wide, and 40 cm thick. On the front is the relief of a ruler on which a groove has been chiseled in later ages. There are traces of an inscription (SAMSAT 1) on the two sides, best preserved on the left (B) with 9 lines, although still largely illegible. It is unclear whether the damaged backside of the stele was ever inscribed. Not much could be deduced about the content from the poorly preserved text. The stele is at the Adıyaman Museum.

The whereabouts of two other fragments found around Samsat in 1958 and 1960 are not clear. One is a 17 by 21 cm stone fragment, on which fragments of two lines of a Luwian inscription (SAMSAT 2) are visible, and the other is a round stone block, possibly a column base, approximately 30 cm high and 32 cm wide with an engraved single-line Luwian inscription (SAMSAT 3).

A couple of Luwian inscribed small basalt fragments were found during Goell's research, and 11 pieces of Luwian inscribed limestone and basalt fragments, two of which were large blocks (Fragments 1 and 2), were excavated in the 1980s. The fragments 1 and 2 are rectangular blocks carved into limestone with Luwian inscriptions on one side. Only a few characters can be read in the heavily damaged inscriptions. All of the pieces found in the excavations are in the Adıyaman Museum. All of the Samsat inscription fragments, together with the ones from Adıyaman, Ancoz, Boybeypınarı, and Malpınarı, date back to the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Kummuh, ca. 9th and 8th centuries BCE.


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SAMSAT 1, 2 and 3
       

SAMSAT Frags. 1 and 2
   

Small fragments