Karabel Kaya Kabartması

The Karabel Rock Relief is a Hittite-era rock monument carved into the south-facing slope of a hill at the Karabel Pass, on the road between the Kemalpaşa and Torbalı districts of İzmir. According to Wikipedia the pass lies between Mount Nif, the westernmost end of the Bozdağlar range, and the rest of the chain to the east, about 20 kilometres from İzmir. The relief is considered one of the oldest historical remains in the Aegean region. Anyone using the pass between Kemalpaşa and Torbalı actually drives within a few metres of a monument more than 3200 years old. According to Kültür Envanteri the relief is carved into a niche measuring about 2.5 by 1.5 metres. The niche shows a male figure walking to the right, holding a spear in his left hand and a bow in his right. In the space between the figure's head and his spear there is a three-line Luwian hieroglyphic inscription, heavily worn and hard to make out. Scholars refer to this monument as Karabel A. Whom the relief depicts was debated for a long time. According to Kültür Envanteri the historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, mentions two human figures carved into rocks in Ionia, carrying a spear in the right hand and a bow and arrows in the left, and links them to the Egyptian king Sesostris. The Karabel relief is thought to be one of the monuments in this account. The same source notes that the pass is near the ancient Sardis to Smyrna road but actually lies on the Sardis to Ephesus road, so Herodotus was either mistaken or was describing other, similar monuments. In modern times the monument was recorded in 1839 by the French traveller Charles Texier, and his drawing was published in 1862. According to English Wikipedia Karl Richard Lepsius also saw the relief in 1840, and both men took it to be Egyptian. In 1843 Heinrich Kiepert refuted this view by comparing the relief with the carvings at Yazılıkaya near Boğazköy. In the following years many scholars, including Kurt Bittel, Hans Gustav Güterbock and Ekrem Akurgal, established that the monument belonged to Hittite culture. The most widely accepted reading of the inscription was made in 1998 by David Hawkins. According to the translation quoted by Hürriyet, the inscription presents Tarkasnawa, king of the land of Mira, as the son of Alantalli, king of the land of Mira, and grandson of another king of Mira. Mira was a kingdom subject to the Hittites, and according to Kültür Envanteri Alantalli was a contemporary of the Hittite king Tudhaliya IV. For this reason the monument is dated to the late 13th century BC. This reading did more than name a king. According to English Wikipedia the relief proved that the kingdom of Mira lay south of the Seha River Land. Since Hittite letters show that the Seha River Land bordered Mira on one side and Wilusa on the other, this finding indicated that Wilusa must be sought north of the Gediz, in the Troad. In this way Karabel became one of the pieces of evidence supporting the identification of Wilusa with Homer's Ilion, that is Troy. The pass once held other monuments too. According to Kültür Envanteri, about 100 metres north of the main relief there was a similar second relief and two separate inscriptions in Luwian hieroglyphs. All three were completely destroyed during road building between 1977 and 1982. Wikipedia also writes that Kazım Dirik, governor of İzmir from 1926 to 1935, had a tile-decorated arch built to mark the relief's location, and that this arch too was demolished when the road was widened. Today only the steps leading up to the monument are visible from the road. The relief has suffered serious damage in recent years. According to a 2019 report in Hürriyet, the archaeologist Nezih Başgelen had documented with photographs in 2016 that acid had been poured over the relief. According to the same report, treasure hunters who believed there was treasure beneath the relief broke it apart with drilling tools in 2019; Kültür Envanteri also notes that the lower half of the relief has been almost entirely destroyed. As a result visitors today can mainly make out the upper part of the figure and the frame of the niche. To visit, follow the Kemalpaşa to Torbalı road and stop at the foot of the steps in the pass; according to the Yolcu360 guide there are no facilities here, and because it is by the roadside suitable shoes are needed. Do not touch the relief, do not climb the rocks in front of the niche, and take care with the traffic. In the afternoon, when the sun falls on the south-facing slope, the outlines of the relief show up better in photographs. According to the same guide the Karabel picnic area near the relief is a good place for a break in the shade of the pines; coming by private car from central Kemalpaşa or from Torbalı is the most practical option.