Eflatunpınar Hitit Anıtı

Eflatunpınar is a Hittite water monument built of stone blocks over a spring that rises from the ground, about 22 kilometres north of the town of Beyşehir. The Culture Portal dates it to the last quarter of the 13th century BC and notes that it is thought to belong to the reign of the Great King Tudhaliya IV. The monument now lies within the Lake Beyşehir National Park, and the spring water flows towards Lake Beyşehir. English Wikipedia reports that the site has been identified with a spring pool named on a bronze tablet found at Hattusa. According to the same source, it is regarded as one of the most southwesterly points of Hittite expansion. The name is misleading, because the monument is about a thousand years older than the Greek philosopher Plato, known in Turkish as Eflatun. Turkish Wikipedia says the name simply took hold among local people, while English Wikipedia traces it to the link drawn between Konya and Plato since Seljuk times. In other words, the name comes not from the monument itself but from the interpretations of later centuries. What sets Eflatunpınar apart from other Hittite monuments is the way it was built. According to the Culture Portal, it was not carved into a natural rock face but assembled by carefully fitting together andesite blocks cut to match one another. The Hittite Monuments website gives the pool as a rectangle of roughly 34 by 30 metres. On the north side of the pool rises a high wall made of carved blocks. This front face, including the figures at its base, is about seven metres wide and seven metres high. The wall is laid out in clear tiers. At the centre are two seated figures interpreted, following Hittite iconography, as the Storm God and the Sun Goddess, each with a winged sun disc above. Around them are ten hybrid creatures that hold up the two small sun discs and the great winged disc at the very top. At the bottom are five mountain figures shown with scaled skirts; the central three have holes through which water emerges. Hittite Monuments reads the whole arrangement as a cosmic scene, with the sky above, the earth below and figures holding up the heavens in between. To the right and left of the main wall, further carved blocks are set into the walls of the pool. There are also relief stones on the south and east sides of the pool, though some of them are broken. To the south of the pool stands a triple bull protome that is not in its original position; it was later reused as fill in the wall of a dam built in the Roman period. On a large block of rock a few metres behind the main wall, the traces of a heavily weathered lion figure can still be made out. No inscription has been found at the monument, so its date is based on style and comparison with other Hittite monuments in the region. Rescue excavations and clearance took place between 1996 and 2002, and landscaping, restoration and fencing were completed in 2011 and 2012. The excavations recovered fragments of reclining animal sculptures from inside the pool, as well as small votive vessels similar to those found at Hattusa. The monument was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2014. The Culture Portal explains the reason as its being one of the rare water systems in which flowing water was collected in a central pool and used sparingly when needed. The site is small and easy to explore; an hour is enough. First cross to the far side of the pool and take in the carved wall as a whole together with its reflection in the water. Then walk up to the wall and look closely at the mountain figures at the base and the spring holes where water spills out. Morning light shows the raised surfaces of the reliefs best. There is little shade on the site, so bring a hat and water in summer. Eflatunpınar is hard to reach by public transport, so go from Beyşehir by private vehicle. Check current visiting conditions with the Konya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism.