Halet Çambel and Asli Özyar, Karatepe‐Aslantaş: Azatiwataya: Die Bildwerke

Author(s): Timothy P. Harrison

Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 68, No. 1 (January 2009), pp. 47-50
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/598069 .
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January 2009 Book Reviews
during the Umayyad period (Arce). Overall, this
volume will probably be found to be most useful
for its coverage of water systems of the late first
millennium b.c. and first millennium a.d.
A number of studies refer to the Middle East
beyond Jordan. Of these, the articles dealing with
Assyrian irrigation systems (Bagg) or Yemeni
irrigation (Brunner) are of more general applica-
tion than those focused simply on Jordan. Thus
Brunner provides a valuable synthesis of his
earlier work on flood irrigation systems of the
desert fringe of the Sayhad and combines it with
a commentary on the use of water in the neigh-
boring highlands. Interestingly, he suggests (on
p. 408) that the mountain zone was situated on
the “periphery of the South Arabian kingdoms.”
This surely cannot be sustained given the dis-
coveries over the last twenty years that demon-
strate that there was a dense pattern of third- and
second-millennium b.c. settlement in the high-
lands. In contrast, the desert fringe of the Sayhad,
although certainly occupied and irrigated in the
third millennium b.c., has not been demonstrated
to be a major center in terms of either popula-
tion or state development. Brunner then goes on
to make the reasonable inference that there was an
autochthonous development of floodwater farm-
ing in southern Arabia.
The article by Häser on prehistoric water
management in Oman shines a welcome light on
southeast Arabia. This is a solid review of the
evidence to date from the peninsula, and few
(I hope) would dispute the significant influence
that the tapping of underground water (in the
form of early underground water channels) has
had on the development of Iron Age patterns of
settlement in the region. This article does, how-
ever, understate the long-term role of wells in
the supply of water for irrigation and household
supply. Given its long history throughout the
Near East, the humble well (which can be traced
back to the first millennium b.c. at Arja, near
Sohar) probably provided the fundamental system
of water supply in southeast Arabia, especially
in many prehistoric Omani oases.
Although this volume provides some useful
case studies of irrigation systems from many parts
of the Middle East, the coverage is rather spotty.
Also, there is a tendency for some contributors
to see irrigation systems as being aimed at one
47
basic solution: to address water deficits in agri-
culture. In fact, irrigation systems can be used
for just this purpose, but they also function as
a means of intensification of cropping. In other
words, in areas where rainfall is sufficient for
crop growth, the introduction of irrigation can
result in significant increases in crop produc-
tion per unit land area over and above the norms
of rain-fed agriculture. Whereas the Maªrib
system discussed by Brunner (as well as some
of the Omani examples) are of the first type, the
Assyrian systems discussed by Bagg illustrate
how kings can introduce vast irrigation systems,
not to make agriculture possible (Nineveh, after
all, had a thriving agriculture from early in the
Holocene) but to increase agricultural production
above earlier levels, in addition to providing for
various parks, gardens, and other recreational
facilities. It would be good if more attention had
been paid to the recognition that water-supply
systems have a variety of roles to play both in
the economy and in social life in general. These
additional pathways could have been developed
by adding a more synthetic concluding chapter
gathering together some emerging themes that
then could have been used as a starting point
for a future volume. Overall, however, this is a
useful, well-produced volume on an important
subject, one that should provide the foundation
for more synthetic studies in future.
Tony Wilkinson
Durham University
Karatepe-Aslantav: Azatiwataya: Die Bildwerke.
By Halet Çambel and Asli Özyar. Mainz:
Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2003. Pp. xx +
164 + 152 figs. + 232 pls. + 5 plans. E 102.
In 1946, prompted by rumors of lion-shaped
sculptures, the lead author and a team of col-
leagues ventured into the rugged foothills of
the Taurus Mountains near Kadirli, northeast of
Adana, and chanced upon the remarkable site
of Karatepe-Aslantav. More formal investiga-
tions, including excavations, began the follow-
ing spring and have continued virtually unstopped
up to the present. The excavations, conducted
primarily between 1947 and 1951, revealed an
48 Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Iron Age fortress, the Neo-Hittite or Luwian
settlement of Azatiwataya, and the highly frag-
mented remains of a rich sculptural tradition
accompanied by multiple versions of a lengthy
bilingual text in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoe-
nician, the longest known such text to date. While
the textual material was recovered largely intact,
and has already received considerable scholarly
attention (for the definitive translations and com-
mentary, see D. Hawkins, Corpus of Hieroglyphic
Luwian Inscriptions, vol. 1, pt. 1 [Berlin, 2000],
pp. 45–71 and W. Röllig, “The Phoenician In-
scriptions,” in H. Çambel, Corpus of Hiero-
glyphic Luwian Inscriptions, vol. 2, Karatepe-
Aslantav [Berlin, 1999], pp. 50–81), the more
fractured sculptural remains required an exten-
sive program of conservation and many years of
dedicated restoration. The results of this Sisy-
phean task, as aptly described by the lead author,
are handsomely presented in this large format and
liberally illustrated report, a companion volume
to the earlier report on the inscriptions from
the site.
Çambel begins the report with an account of
the site’s discovery and subsequent investiga-
tions (chap. 1), followed by brief chapters that
discuss its location and name (chap. 2) and the
source of the basalt that forms the predominant
building material preserved on the site (chap. 3).
The latter question has considerable bearing on
the disputed date and origin of the carved ortho-
stats themselves, since Karatepe, despite its name,
is perched on an extended limestone ridge de-
void of basalt that runs along the western bank
of the Ceyhan River. Significantly, a combined
program of mineralogical and microstructural
(both micromorphological and micromorpho-
metrical) analysis has determined the most likely
source to be the Plio-Quaternary basaltic outflow
that encompasses the outcrop of Domuztepe,
with its extensive Iron Age remains, across the
river.
Chap. 4 provides a detailed account of the
extensive restoration and conservation program
that became an integral part of the overall project.
After describing the deteriorated and widely scat-
tered state of the sculpted stone, which has en-
dured almost three thousand years of exposure
and decay (the site has suffered the loss of as
much as 45 percent of the original monuments),
Vol. 68 No. 1
Çambel provides a step-by-step account of the
painstaking process of documentation, consoli-
dation, restoration, and subsequent reintroduc-
tion of the carved sculptures onto the site that
ensued. The restoration effort eventually ex-
panded to include the fortification wall and
towers that encircle the site, approximately 1 km
in circumference (described in chap. 5), and cul-
minated with the construction of shelters over the
north and south gate complexes (documented in
chap. 6), resulting in the scenic open-air museum
visible at the site today.
The bulk of the report (chap. 7) is devoted to
a comprehensive catalogue and descriptive com-
mentary of the sculptural remains themselves.
The presentation proceeds systematically through
the panel sequences that line the chambers of
each gate complex, using an alphanumeric code
to denote each orthostat, beginning with the north
gate complex and ending with the south gate com-
plex. Detailed descriptions are provided for each
carved orthostat, including its precise measure-
ments, the number of fragments found, and obser-
vations about the specific figure or scene depicted
in relief. Large scale line drawings and photo-
graphs of each sculptured piece are presented in
the same sequential order as a series of plates at
the back of the volume.
The descriptions of the more diagnostic figures
or motifs are accompanied by discussions of po-
tential comparative cultural parallels drawn from
a wide range of iconographic, sculptural, and ar-
chitectural material. Some of the conclusions
drawn from this comparative evidence are debat-
able, such as the arguments for an Aegean origin
of the ship depicted on an orthostat from the
north gate (NKr 19, pp. 84–89). While certainly
possible, the comparative evidence does not
exclude the possibility of Phoenician (or other
eastern Mediterranean) origin. More far-fetched
is the suggestion that the scene portrays the
elusive Sea Peoples. Similarly, it is debatable
whether the spouted dipping vessel depicted on
a panel from the forecourt of the south gate com-
plex can be used to date the associated scene to
the eighth century, based on its apparent simi-
larity to Phrygian prototypes (SV1 2, pp. 98–100),
nor the adjacent banquet scene (SV1 3, pp. 100–
104), with its distinctive Anatolian table ware
and furniture. More convincing is the recurring
January 2009 Book Reviews
image of the “Vogelfänger” (bird-catcher; see
NK1 10 and SK1 14) and its identification as an
important religious figure, specifically a seer,
and part of a longstanding Anatolian mantic tra-
dition (pp. 94 and 134), a particularly intriguing
identification in light of the epic struggle be-
tween the legendary Mopsos (who is named in
the accompanying bilingual inscriptions) and his
arch nemesis the bird-seer Kalhas.
Also intriguing is the possibility that the carved
reliefs form two stylistically distinct groups and
are in fact the product of different workshops or
engravers. This possibility is explored in chap. 8.
However, while a clear spatial distribution is
acknowledged (the Group A reliefs are concen-
trated in the north gate area, with the excep-
tion of two orthostats [SV1 3 and 5], while the
Group B sculptures occur exclusively in the
south gate complex), Çambel appears reluctant
to accept that this has any significant chrono-
logical implications. Instead, she argues for a
single, coordinated construction event, in which
the various panel sequences were carefully laid
out and fitted, with each orthostat and its appro-
priate scene carved to fit in its designated spot.
The innumerable chips of basalt scattered across
the site are upheld as the physical by-product of
this construction process, though not as the trim-
mings of refitted or reused orthostats, as are the
numerous discarded orthostat fragments, many
reused as supporting headers or stretchers with
their partially worked surfaces hidden from view.
While it seems clear that these scenes form a
coherent visual narrative, as the accompanying bi-
lingual inscriptions would suggest, there is never-
theless also strong evidence that many, if not all,
of the orthostats were originally carved as part
of earlier construction projects. In addition to
the many “misfits” in the various panel joins
(see, for example, the join between the lion figure
that fronts the left panel of the north gate fore-
court and the first panel in the sequence [NV1 1
and 2], which had to be shaved considerably to
make the fit), the highly disjointed spatial flow
of the accompanying bilingual inscriptions sug-
gests a more complex construction sequence. The
hieroglyphic texts in particular, which frequently
encroach onto adjoining relief panels (e.g., NVr 2
and 3; NVr 9, 10, and 11), and occasionally even
directly onto the reliefs themselves (e.g., NVr 13;
49
for a Phoenician example, see NV1 2), clearly in-
dicate that these narrative portions were applied
after the figural reliefs had been assembled.
There is good reason to believe, therefore, that
the assembled presentation reconstructed by the
Karatepe expedition preserves multiple layers of
composition.
This possibility is strengthened by the diverse
imagery depicted on the reliefs themselves, which
preserve a wide range of themes and motifs
assembled in a series of disconnected scenes,
a distinction further reinforced by the sharply
delineated spatial distribution of the two domi-
nant stylistic groupings. Chap. 9, contributed by
A. Özyar, provides a systematic examination of
the diverse iconography preserved in the Karatepe
sculptural corpus, including a section-by-section
description of their spatial distribution. Despite
the evident composite nature of the reliefs, Özyar
argues valiantly for the existence of a coherent
thematic progression to the decorative program,
organized around themes involving mythological
figures (including gods, human heroes, and half-
human creatures), banquet scenes, gift bearers and
processions, musical events, sacrificial animals,
hunting scenes, and political and quasi-historical
events.
Chap. 10, the final chapter of the volume, re-
turns to the vexed question of the dating of the
reliefs. After reviewing the history of the debate,
and the many hypotheses that have been gener-
ated over the years, the authors reiterate their
long-standing position. Based primarily on the
historical and paleographical evidence, they argue
that both gateways, together with their monu-
mental reliefs and inscriptions, must have been
constructed sometime late in the eighth century
b.c.e. either after the reign of Tiglath-pileser III
or more probably after the death of Sargon II,
when Neo-Assyrian influence in Cilicia appears
to have waned for a time. While this may well be
the case, a late eighth/early seventh-century date
does not account for those reliefs that appear to
date stylistically much earlier, to as early as the
ninth century, and undermines their argument that
all of the reliefs were carved as part of a single
construction event. Although they acknowledge
that the Karatepe orthostats might well have been
quarried from the Domuztepe outcrop, as indi-
cated by the mineralogical and microstructural
50 Journal of Near Eastern Studies
evidence, the authors dismiss Winter’s intriguing
suggestion (see “On the Problems of Karatepe:
The Reliefs and Their Context,” Anatolian
Studies 29 [1979]: 116–32) that these orthostats
were recycled from an earlier settlement at this
neighboring site, arguing that, to date, Domuz-
tepe has not produced any evidence of an archi-
tectural complex that might once have been lined
with such orthostats.
An alternative possibility exists, however, that
has received surprisingly little consideration,
namely, that orthostats were reused from earlier
structures that once stood on the site of Karatepe
itself. Although descriptions of Karatepe often
characterize it as a single-period site, the ar-
chaeological evidence does not bear this out.
For example, excavations of the large palatial
complex (which resembles a bit hilani ) that
crowned the summit of the site, though not yet
thoroughly published, indicate an extended con-
struction history comprised of multiple architec-
tural phases (see fig. 11). Moreover, the associated
material culture, and the ceramic assemblage in
particular, point to an occupational history that
began in the ninth century and very probably even
earlier, as evidenced by the presence of Cypriot
White Painted Ware and Black-on-Red Ware
pottery (see M. Darga, “Karatepe-Azatiwattaya
Kalesinin Çanak Çömlek Buluntuları,” Anadolu
Aravtırmaları 10 [1986]: 397– 400).
Unfortunately, a more definitive assessment
of the settlement history of ancient Azatiwataya
will have to await the final publication of the
Karatepe excavations themselves. Nevertheless,
when combined with the rich iconographic and
epigraphic record that has been preserved, and
now presented in this exemplary publication, it
seems clear that the site experienced a consider-
ably more complex construction history than pre-
viously assumed. In any case, Çambel and Özyar
and their colleagues are to be commended for
their patient and painstaking efforts. Their persis-
tence has resulted in the meticulous documenta-
tion of a truly remarkable corpus of ancient Near
Eastern figural art.
Timothy P. Harrison
University of Toronto
Vol. 68 No. 1
2 Samuel. By Antony F. Campbell, S.J. The
Forms of the Old Testament Literature,
vol. 8. Grand Rapids, Michigan and Cam-
bridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
2005. Pp. xiv + 242. $50.
This volume joins Campbell’s effort on
1 Samuel (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, 2003)
in bringing to completion a project begun,
according to the author’s own account, nearly
thirty years before. Campbell’s modestly stated
goal was to produce “an interpretation” that is
“adequate and responsible.” I believe that goal
has been achieved.
The works in the series The Forms of the Old
Testament Literature are not designed to be full-
fledged commentaries and are intended for a
broad readership including students and clergy.
Hebrew Bible scholars will not find here a critical
addition to their tool set, but theological students
and clergy will find an adequate and responsible
reading of 2 Samuel with which to engage. The
“Textual Issues” section, in particular, is dis-
appointing if one is expecting a commentary-
quality treatment of the important textual prob-
lems, which in 2 Samuel are considerable. The
“Meaning” section is, in my opinion, the best part
of each cycle, where Campbell summarizes his
reading of the given passage. A very nice essay
entitled “The Meaning of 2 Samuel” could be pro-
duced by stringing together each of these sec-
tions from the book.
Campbell is a cautious interpreter, careful to
press no further than the text allows, particularly
with regard to historical questions. An observa-
tion early in the book characterizes his approach
throughout: “It is intriguing to notice how
scholars’ pursuit of the historical event bedevils
their interpretation of storytelling” (p. 19). This
cautiousness regarding historical questions and
his intent to keep the story the object of his
analysis peppers every chapter with statements
such as “the historical question must be left
open” (p. 22), “the text is not history” (p. 36),
“wisdom urges caution” (p. 59), and “we recog-
nize that we are interpreting a text; we have no
independent access to reality” (p. 115). Perhaps
the most concrete historical suggestion he puts
forward is that the Stories of David’s Middle
Years (chaps. 11–20) may have originated in the
court of Jeroboam in the late ninth century b.c.