Yazilikaya pictures - Hittite pictures Photo Gallery by Dick Osseman at pbase.com

Yazilikaya pictures - Hittite pictures

Bütün Türkiyenin resimleri için burada basiniz

Click here for my page with very many Turkish cities

The yazilikaya (the i-s are silent, should be written without a dot) complex dates from the mid 13th century BC. It was largely constructed under king Tudhaliya IV, who was the last but second king of the Hittites. In front of the two rock chambers with stonework stood some buildings, of which only the foundations remain. There would be a portal, next a courtyard surrounded by columns and some chambers, and finally the inner sanctuary of the rock chambers. They are called A and B. A is thought to have been used for New Year celebrations, B may have been used for burial rituals. There was an extension to a chamber C, that certainly was used for burial ritual. Already in the 15th century a sanctuary existed here, but the rock chambers were unadorned and there were no buildings in front. It is three kilometres from here to the former Hittite city of Bogazkale. See also Alacahöyük and the later Karatepe.

For an excellent collection of Hittite pictures from several sources - with clickable map - see Monuments of the Hittites by Tayfun Bilgin who kindly informed me on proper captions for some of my pictures also.

Yazilikaya room A	Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya room A	Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya Gods and godesses
Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya god in procession	Yazilikaya god in procession
Yazilikaya procession of gods	Yazilikaya sun god	Yazilikaya sun god	Yazilikaya sun god	Yazilikaya explication room A
Yazilikaya Hepat and Sarruma	Yazilikaya Goddess Hepat and sun Sarruma	Yazilikaya panthers under feet gods	Yazilikaya goddess	Yazilikaya Twin goddesses and double headed eagle
Yazilikaya double headed eagle	Yazilikaya King Tudhaliya	Yazilikaya King Tudhaliya	Yazilikaya King Tudhaliya	Yazilikaya room B
Yazilikaya room B	Yazilikaya sword god and Sarruma	Yazilikaya sword god	Yazilikaya sword god	Yazilikaya detail sword god
Yazilikaya head sword god	Yazilikaya Sarruma and king Tudhaliya	Yazilikaya head Sarruma	Yazilikaya king Tudhaliya	Yazilikaya detail scene Sarruma and Tudhaliya
Yazilikaya procession of gods in room B	Yazilikaya detail procession of gods	Yazilikaya buildings in front	Yazilikaya the sanctuary	Yazilikaya leaving room B
Yazilikaya passage to room B	Yazilikaya looking towards Bogazkale

post a comment

tunc senel		25-Jan-2009 09:57
dear Ann I have read your comment and want to inform you from here in turkey that my birth place is a couple of 10 km from hattusas the capital of the hittit's and a month ago I had a genetic analysis in the US for my self and it came out that genetically I am from a slavic, germanic race. my whole family was very surprised from this result. so you are right for your comment. please get in thouch with me from my mail address tunc@atlas.net.tr regards tunc senel

Peter Adams		10-Jul-2007 04:03
Dick, I am leaving tomorrow for Turkey. I will finally get to visit Bogazkale and Yazilikaya and will take lots of photos, but I am not going to worry because yours are so wonderful that it won't be a big deal if mine don't come out. I really enjoyed brousing your site. Congratulations. It is simply fabulous. Peter Adams

Ann		23-Mar-2006 11:03
Hello from Sweden. Cool to see the sword god depiction. My long search for my sword god Tyr/Tir/Tiwaz/Nuadu is over :-) Although, he does not look like I had thought he would, and not as the later swedish artist John Bauer have painted him after the nordic tales and stories. Nuadu is the celtic sword god of the Tuatha's that had his right arm severed, Tyr is the nordic sword god that had his right arm bitten off. Greek and roman writers have also reported that when the Teutones, Cimbris and Goths was in battle, and won, they sacrificed the war prisoners to their sword god. There is different reports about this, one saying that it was female priestesses that performed the ritual, cut up the throats and had the blood in cauldron types, some blood used for predictions, and some poured over the sword god image, and then they also cut of the sacrificed victims right arms and gave them to the god as well. (Strabo give similar accounts also for certain tribe people in North Iberia). There is also rock painting images in Vitlycke open air museum, in Tanumshede, Bohuslän, supporting that it was plenty of female priestesses involved in things. The sword god is also reported among the Scyths (Herodotos I think), and those in the Baltic-Slavonic areas had sword god statues with several swords hanging on the god (perhaps Gimbuta's research). The immigrating Angles and Saxones to British islands, also had a sword god, Tir, and the week day Tuesday is the sword gods day. In Swedish Tuesday is called Tisdag - Tis day, and my Danish is not so good, inspite of me being half-Danish, but in Danish the day is pronounced Tirsdag- Tir's day. Besides Nuadu, Tyr, Tir, Tiwas etc, the Geate hero Beowulf in the epos, also tears of Grendel's right arm and then they display it in the feast hall on the wall. Since our sword gods have resided up here in the slavonic, germanic and celt areas for ages, I thought the sword god came from the river Tyros, by Black Sea, just north of Danube, especially also because theVisigoths/Ostrogoths and others was hanging around in that area. But ... here he is, my sword god Tyr ... in Hittiti-Anatolia! Many hundred years earlier, but we do know for a fact that the Krimmerians and Schyths was hanging out in these Anatolian locations at a later date 800-700 BC (the Assyrian records) and that Mani kingdom, the Medes and the like was contemporary with this period, also the Saurmat/Sarmats/Sakas in the Aral-Caspian area. At Tanumshede rock images (1800-300 BC) we also have paintings of great war battles with schytian riding bow archers, celtic riders and 2-wheel horse tankers etc. Looking at the small corner where Tanumshede and this paintings is located, just on the border between contemporary Norway and West Sweden, it looks topographically strange if these great war battles happened there. Nor do I think the paintings show the Scyths and Krimmeans battles in Anatolia (it would have taken our artist many months to go from Anatolia to Tanumshede to tell his battle stories to the folks back home) - but the connection with the celts, north germanics and schytians is pretty obvious, as is the connection with the sword god we all up here have, but with various names on him. The Milesian celts claimed in Lebor Gabala, that they came from Scythia, and the Asa Norse gods, told king Gylfe when they came here, that they came from Asia (according to Snorre Sturlassons works). I know Thor Heyerdahl had his theories that they came from Azov area, north Black Sea area, and even proposed the Van lake area in Anatolia/Armenia/Kurdistan area, south of Black Sea. The Saka priestesses high conic hats also looks just like the old Hittiti god hats, not to mention the magician Merlin's hat, and the Halloween witch hats in US :-) Our priestesses at the Tanumshede images (1800-300 BC), and at later pictoral stones in Gotland (400-600 AC), also all have long hats, but hanging, which all our Christmas Tomtar inhereted (called Tomteluva these days). So with all our sword gods, and all the long hats ... the Hittites have obviously not been forgotten at all. Nor all the fire rites, and the fires pyres at spring in Sweden, similar to Nowrooz fires, which I think the Hittites had their version of if looking at the Hittiti corpus titles. I am rambling, but the sword god has been found. A really welcomed surprise when looking at the pictures here. Thank you!

Dick Osseman		31-Jan-2006 06:08
I just finished reading Life and Society in the Hittite world, by Trevor Bryce (Oxford University Press). I am not an authority, but he seemed to be, and I think your claims go far beyond what he would dare say. I frankly don't see what point you are making. I also find it a bit funny that in the same text you call civilization a continuum, and speak of Dark Ages and peoples overrunning others. Sounds like chaos to me.

Demir Karsan		31-Jan-2006 04:29
Hitites moved to Anatolia from North, running through the Balkans around 2000BC. They settled in the Anatolia and dominated the Hatti princedoms in the area. Hittites lasted until 1200BC, long before the Greeks, Phoenecians come to picture. Some historians now agree that Troy was a city under Hittite dominion and named "Wilusa" or "Wilios" (Pretty close to Ilios or Illiad name used by Homer) and the Trojan war was indeed between the pre Hellenic Myceneans and The Hittite dominated King Priamus' Hittites. The stone walled construction architecture of Troy is very similar to what I observed in the Hittite capital Bogazkoy (Hattusas). Hittite Empire came to an end around 1200BC. They were most probaly overrun by the Doric tribes running down from the Balkans to the Aegean and Mediterranean Islands, destroying everything on their path, all the way down to Palestine and Egypt. Barbaric Doric Tribes are the ancestors of Spartans. The period of 1200 to 800 is therefore undocumented and called the Dark Ages. This was followed by the Phyrgian, Lydians, Persians, Ionians, giving way to Hellenes (Greeks?) and the Hellenistic period starting with Alexander the Great (A Macedonian) and ending with the Romans. Thus, one can confidently say that the Western civilization started with the Egyptians, Mezopotamians, and Hittites and carried to Western Greece by the Phoenecians, Phyrigians, Lydians, and Persians. Civilization is a continium.

Dick Osseman		18-Nov-2004 20:26
Hi Nick, The Hittites were pretty early, before what most people see as the Romans and the Greeks. I am posteditting some 100 or more of their statues and such stuff (orthostats, large slabs of stone with reliefs) from the Ankara museum, that I hope to publish in a day or two. Some will give fine close-ups. Then you will be able to compare the originals and the repicla's on location from Alacahöyük, and see lots of other fine works. More to come from that museum also, a bit later. Regards, Dick

Nick Richter		18-Nov-2004 17:03
Hi Dick, this is fascinating stuff about the Hittites. Their art reminds of the Phoenicians in Carthage. Something beyond the typical Roman and Greek styles.

click on thumbnails for full image