Sirkeli Höyüğü

Sirkeli Höyük is a large settlement mound rising about 40 kilometres east of Adana, at the point where the Ceyhan River cuts through the Misis Mountains (Nur Dağı) and opens onto the plain. The mound lies on the west bank of the river in the Sirkeli neighbourhood, where the old Misis-Ceyhan road passes. Turkish Wikipedia gives the hill's dimensions as 400 by 300 metres with a height of 30 metres; together with the lower town, the settlement area is said to reach about 80 hectares. Kültür Envanteri describes it as one of the most important mounds of Cilicia. On the opposite bank, directly above the hill, the medieval castle of Yılankale comes into view. The importance of the mound comes from its location. The project page of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich describes it as the most important passage through Cilicia; the route runs east via the Amanus pass to Syria and west via Adana and Tarsus to the Cilician Gates. The Baghdad railway and today's motorway also pass right along the southern edge of the mound. The river flows round the hill on two sides and, together with the mountains, gives it natural protection, while from the top the plain east, west and north of the river bend can be seen in full. Geomagnetic surveys point to a possible river port in the northern lower town. Excavations show that the settlement was inhabited from around 5000 BC, the Chalcolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages and into the Roman period until about AD 100. The first excavation was carried out by J. Garstang in 1936, and in 1951 M. V. Seton-Williams of the same team examined the hill during a surface survey. Between 1992 and 1996 Barthel Hrouda of the University of Munich, and in 1997 Horst Ehringhaus of the University of Innsbruck, continued the excavations. In 2006 the University of Tübingen and Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University resumed digging, and after 2011 the work was carried out jointly with the University of Bern. The 2006 and 2007 seasons uncovered a massive bastion fortification in the north-west of the mound, built in the Late Bronze Age and reused in the Iron Age. The finds show that the town was part of a wide trading network. The pottery includes Middle Bronze Age vessels known as Syro-Cilician painted ware, beak-spouted Hittite jugs and Late Bronze and Iron Age wares imported from Cyprus. On the basis of these finds the excavation teams think that Sirkeli may be Lawazantiya, a trade and cult town known from ancient texts. Lawazantiya is known as the home town of Queen Puduhepa, wife of the Hittite king Hattusili III. What visitors really come for is the Hittite relief carved into a rocky outcrop at the edge of the hill. According to the Hittite Monuments website, the relief is on a rock face looking towards the river, about 5 metres above the water level. It shows the Hittite king Muwatalli II in a long robe, holding a ceremonial staff. The inscription beside it introduces him as Muwatalli, Great King and hero, son of the Great King Mursili. Muwatalli is the king who fought the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II at Kadesh, and the relief at Sirkeli is regarded as the oldest datable Hittite rock relief. The site of the mound must have been an important river crossing on the road leading to Syria. In 1994 traces of a second relief were noticed a few metres to the right of the first. This relief may have been deliberately chiselled away in antiquity and can be made out with the naked eye only at hours when the sunlight strikes at the right angle. A detailed three-dimensional scan carried out in 2017 indicated that the erased inscription probably named Mursili III, son of Muwatalli. On the rock platform above the reliefs there are three round pits thought to have been used for libations, and they belong to a larger cult area that also included a building to the west of the reliefs. Start your visit at the relief and look at it from the front, stepping back a little; the lines of the figure stand out when the light falls from the side. Then climb the hill to watch the narrow gorge where the river cuts through the mountains onto the plain, and Yılankale on the far bank. The excavation areas consist of open trenches; if the team is at work, do not enter the area without permission and do not step on the walls. There is no shade on the hill in summer, so morning or late afternoon visits are more comfortable. The mound is reached from the road towards Ceyhan and is easily combined with Yılankale on the same day.