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Building Inscriptions of Carchemish: The Long Wall of

Sculpture and Great Staircase.

J. D. Hawkins

Anatolian Studies / Volume 22 / December 1972, pp 87 - 114

DOI: 10.2307/3642555, Published online: 23 December 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0066154600003355

How to cite this article:

J. D. Hawkins (1972). Building Inscriptions of Carchemish: The Long Wall of Sculpture and Great
Staircase. . Anatolian Studies, 22, pp 87-114 doi:10.2307/3642555

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88 ANATOLIAN STUDIES

3. CARCHEMISH A 14a: the lion of Suhis (see page 96 ff.).

4. CARCHEMISH A 14 b: the lion of Astuwatimais (see page 98 f.).
5. CARCHEMISH A 23: the door-jamb of Katuwas (see page 100 f.).
6. CARCHEMISH A 20 a: an associated door-jamb fragment (see page 102).
7. CARCHEMISH B 33 (= A 33 e-f): the gods on a lion (see page 103).
8. CARCHEMISH A 21/22 b + a: figures of a ruler and a genie (see page 102 ff.).
Associated fragments which should be mentioned in this context but pre-
serve too little text to be of value are:
CARCHEMISH B 39 a{= A 33 g 1): head of goddess.
CARCHEMISH A 22 c, A 2 6 / : high relief figures with background inscriptions.

1. CARCHEMISH A 1 a.
Previous editions:
(i) B. Hrozny, IHHII (Prague 1934), pp. 195-203.
This edition was too early to make any significant sense of the text, and the
transliteration, translation and summary are largely without value.
(ii) P. Meriggi, "Le inscrizioni storiche in Eteo Geroglifico" (RSO 2 (1953).
pp. 46-52).
(iii) P. Meriggi, Manuale 11/1, no. 29.
Of Meriggi's two editions the earlier is the more detailed but abounds in
many readings now abandoned, which have been corrected in the later. In both
however Meriggi used the text as published in Carchemish I, with the corrections
of Barnett, Carchemish III, Plate AA. This text however and Meriggi's readings
are open to improvement.

Transliteration
Line 1, §1: . . . ara [. . .] x-273-ta4
§2: wa-sa-d / ha-hd-taA-d-ta^
§3: d-wa [lhd^-ta4 -ind^-masa CUP-sd(-)pd+ra-ga-wa-nd-na(CTTY) / (GOD)
THUNDER-F-na / arha (AXE) ga+ra-ma-li-ta4
§4: /mu-pa-wa-d T-d-i / GOD-«a-/-a / sa^-sa-na-a-taA
§5: [d]-wa-d REL-a-ta4 (FOOT2)td-wa-a
§6: [x-p]a-wa-mu T-d-i / GOD-nd-i [. . .

1. 2, §7: wa-tu-d / pa+ra-hd-d / (ClUSEL.HAND)u-pa-nd-a-na / (HAND)u-pa-hd

§8: /IX-T-hd-wa-tu / pi-d-hd
§9: / (CUP) d-la-taA-hd-na-hd-wa{Q\l\)larha I HOUSE+RA-nu-wa-hd
§10: / wa-tu-d /pa+ra-a-hd-d (CHISEL.HAND)w-pa-«a-«a / (HAND)u-pa-hd
§ 1 1 : / IX-i-hd-wa-tu / pi-a-hd
§12: d-wa /hd-t-u-na-na (CITY) arha / CX'^ha^-hd-ta^-hd
 BUILDING INSCRIPTIONS OF CARCHEMISH 89

(iv) E. Laroche, in Les hieroglyphes hittites l.iere partie (Paris, 1960), has
included the clearer passages, to which reference is made below in the philological
notes.
It is much to be regretted that no good photograph of this text has been
published, that of Carchemish III, B 43 b, being useless for epigraphic purposes. It
must however be admitted that the heavily pitted limestone of the surface does
not readily lend itself to photography. I have had the opportunity to work on the
text in the Hittite Museum, Ankara, with the kind permission of the director, Bay
Raci Temizer. I am thus able to offer a collated version of the text (Fig. 2)
incorporating Barnett's corrections and others of my own, as well as two photo-
graphs (Fig. 1 a, b), which while of only mediocre quality, are at least an improve-
ment on B 43 b. These are followed by a transliteration and translation of the
text.
There can be no doubt that this inscription extended to other blocks on
either side of the Great Limestone block itself, B 43 b, for in no case does the
sense run on from one line to the next. Thus for example, the expected intro-
duction to an inscription narrated in the 1st. person ("I am So-and-so . . .") is
missing. Each line therefore, truncated at beginning and end, must be treated as
an independent unit and so analysed for the sense. It cannot be denied that this
truncation severely hampers our understanding of an inscription which in any case
presents many difficulties of vocabulary. Nevertheless I hope that not only is the
general sense of the inscription as demonstrated below in the analysis sufficiently
comprehensible, but also that it can be seen to refer specifically to the building
and decoration of the Long Wall of Sculpture itself. For the suggested original
appearance of the text and the sequence of reading, see the reconstruction,
Fig. 4a.

Translation
§1:...
§2: and he — ed.
§3: Hatanamas — ed away the Storm-God of the city Saparga(1).

§4: and he — ed these gods from me.

§5: Where I shall—,
§6: [there] for me these gods [. . .

§7: and before him I offered an altar (?),

§8: and to him I gave a ninth share (?).
§9: Also I drove away the city Alatahana,
§10: and before him I offered an altar (?),
§11: and to him I gave a ninth share (?).
§12: I — ed away the Hai-ean man (?),
108 ANATOLIAN STUDIES

(ii) Outer Gate of the Great Staircase gate-tower (Fig. 4b).

Woolley's suggested reconstruction of this area was made, and is here
accepted, with reservations. The drawn reconstruction here presented is thus
intended to illustrate, not to support, Woolley's suggestions (Carchemish HI,
p. 160 ff. and Plate 30).
Nos. 1 and 2: the fragment no. 2 shows a figure which insofar as it is pre-
served, corresponds exactly with no. 1, differing only in the objects carried. The
former is thus restored from the latter.
No. 3: these two fragments as noted by Woolley, appear to make up the same
figure as no. 8.
Nos. 4 and 7: these two fragmentary figures of winged genies carrying situlae
seem to correspond exactly, and thus can be used to restore each other. It is clear
from the visible traces that each had two upward-pointing wings as well as two-
downward-pointing. Such figures in Hittite art tend to have griffin-heads3 l which
are thus suggested here. It has been noted that the situlae carried by these genies
had the distinctive "siren-figure" handle attachments. 32
Nos. 5 and 6: the Suhis lion A 14 a is restored from a rough sketch made by
me in Ankara Museum of the chest and front legs. Contrary to Ussishkin's
assertion that this lion is rendered in an Assyrianizing, and therefore late, style,
what remains seems to me to correspond well enough to the Suhis-Katuwas lion
as exemplified by B 25/26/546 (certainly the work of Katuwas) and B 52 (the
work of Katuwas or his father). Certainly the Suhis lion is in a more elaborate
style, in which the locks of hair in the mane are rendered individually, but the
"Suhis-Katuwas style" does in any case vary between the plain and the more
elaborate. Compare for example the figures on B 18 6 where the locks of hair and
beard are not rendered individually, with A 13 d, where they are. For this reason
I felt able to restore the head of the lion in the Suhis-Katuwas style. Since no
evidence for the appearance of the Astuwatimais lion is available beyond Woolley's
statement of its great archaism, I have merely restored a pair with the Suhis lion.
Nos. 8 and 9: as has been noted above, an inscribed slab bearing a part of the
inscription must have stood to the right of no. 8. No. 9, the corner block, had its
own inscription. There is insufficient evidence for deciding whether this
inscription continued right through to no. 8, or whether it was completely separate.

Philological notes
CARCHEMISH A 1 a.
Line 1, §1: Of this passage little remains, and what is there may well be assumed to run on
from the preceding (lost) slab.
§2: Damage to the top edge of the block renders this section dubious too. It seems
that we may have a verb hahata- which may reappear below, §12 (see there for discussion).
§3: [^h]d-tan-[n]d-ma-s{a), restored to give the PN Hatanamas. The name reappears in

al
Cf. the Sakcagozti griffins; E. Akurgal,77ie Art ofthe Hittites, Plate 134; H. T. Bossert,
Altanatolien, no. 884. Orthmann now publishes a further fragment of B 35 c {Untersuchungen,
Tafel 21 e), which shows the end of the curled lock of hair, and thereby confirms the suggestion
of the griffin head.
32
T . Madhloom, The Chronology ofNeo-AssyrianArt, p. 114 and Plate LXXXV, 26.
 BUILDING INSCRIPTIONS OF CARCHEMISH 109
line 6, §36, spelt Hatamanas. In spite of the transposition of the ma and the na, the contexts
are so similar and the sense yielded so satisfactory that I am confident this very slight restora-
tion is correct.
CUP-sa pd+ra-ga-wa-nd-n(aXCTT\), read without confidence, following Meriggi and others.
In this case one has to assume that CUP (HH no. 349) = SKY (HH no. 182), and that one thus
has an epithet comparable to e.g. ADIYAMAN I, 1 and 2 (see An. St. 20 (1970), p. 102 ff., and
nn. 1, 3). The reading of the city name as "Parga" is one of the two supports for reading HH
no. 462 as pa, and hence also very dubious. An alternative reading of the group is (CVP)sd-pd-
+ra-ga-wa-nd-n(a)(ClTY), giving an unidentified city name "Saparga" and a pre-determinative
CUP, of unknown significance but also appearing before the city name Alatahana in the same
inscription. For this view cf. Barnett, Iraq 10 (1948), p. 135.
(AXE)garmalita: taken as a hostile action for the following reasons; (i) following arha,
(if) by association with sasana- in the following phrase, (iii) by the interpretation of line 6 as a
curse, which would presuppose this hostility. .
§4: Syntactically it is not obvious whether Tai GOD-nai is subject or object of the verb,
but since the verb appears elsewhere as denoting hostile activity against stelae, sculptures, etc.,
we may confidently take it as parallel to (AXE)garmali-, subject-Hatanamas, object-these gods
(cf. HH no. 402, 3). In this case mu- must be dative not accusative, a "dative of disadvantage"
frequently encountered in Hieroglyphic.
§5: It would be natural to take the verb as 1st person singular present of ta- (td-),
"take", though it is not clear why this should be determined by FOOT2. Nor is any object
apparent.
Line2,%l: The sense seems to be [victory over city X ] ; §7 + 8, dedications offered; §9,victory
over city Alatahana; §10+11, dedications offered.
(CHISELJIAND)«panan (HAND)upaha:- It is clear from the context that upana- must be a
derived nominal form of the verb upa-. The problem here is to determine what type of activity
is meant, which hinges on whether (HAND)wpa- is to be distinguished from (FOOT)upa-. The
latter can be seen to mean "bring", which is associated with tuwa-, "put, erect", and perhaps in
a religious context signifies "offer". The use of the determinative CHISEL seems to imply that
upana- is a fashioned stone object. The tentative translation offered accepts the association of
(HAND)upa- with (FOOT)«pa- and seeks with the translation "altar" to suggest a concept that
might be semantically as well as morphologically cognate with the verb, and which might seem
more appropriate in the context than Laroche's "fondation".
watuparaha: -tu, "to him" would seem in the context to be a god, presumably
Tarhundas, who is most prominent in the inscription, para-ha is taken as a phonetic spelling of
BEFORE-a (cf. line 3, §16), plus the enclitic copula -ha.
IX-i-hawatu: there can be no doubt that Gelb (HH III, p. 47, n. 2) followed by Meriggi
(HHG, p. 165) was correct in seeing that the phonetic reading of this appeared in A 13 d, 4 and
6-7, the latter reading awa (GOD)garhuha (GOD)kupapd-ha nu-wa-a-Tpi-d-tu, "let him give nine
(a ninth?) to Karhuhas and Kupapas". If, as appears possible, it is the nom/acc. singular neuter
(cf. atimai, parnai etc.), the translation "a ninth" would be favoured.
§9: It is strange that neither this city Alatahana nor the following Haiuna(?) can be
identified with any known place name of this area, which can only lead one to suppose that the
military operations described were strictly local in character.
§12: The place name hd-T-u-na-n(a)(CYT\) could be interpreted simply as a city Haiuna,
or alternatively as haf-wana-, an ethnic designation "of the city HaT" (wd>u\ cf. Meriggi,
Manuale I, p. 21, §28). The tentatively suggested translation "man of the city HaT" follows the
latter assumption.
hahataha: the verb, determined by an unknown ideogram HH no. 218, would appear to
be a reduplicated form of hata-. The latter describes an action, probably destructive, performed
on buildings, i.e. "demolish" or the like (cf. RHA 29 (1971), p. 105). It could be associated
with Hittite hattai-, iter. hazzik- (HWb, s.v.; also Erganzungsheft 3, s.v.). The sense would seem
appropriate here.
§13: UNDER-na-pa-wa-mu, presumably representing ana"- pawamu; the sign UNDER is
not free of doubt, but cf. UNDER-ta4 (§22), and WITH(-na) (§§ 18, 26).
NA+SI-: this verb, so correctly read by Barnett, is unexplained and likely to remain so as
long as the nature of SI (HH no. 378) remains obscure.
§16: [. . .\-nasan-hawata appears to be a genetival adjective, accusative singular, quali-
fying TarhuTn.
para, taken as a phonetic writing of the usual BEFORE-a (§19; cf. above §7).
§17: arha FOOT-wa-, "come away, out". The translation is certain enough, but the implica-