Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Interaction with Hittite Monuments
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Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27.2 (2014) 135-160 ISSN (Print) 0952-7648 ISSN (Online) 1743-1700 Traces of Tarhuntas: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Interaction with Hittite Monuments Felipe Rojas1 and Valeria Sergueenkova2 1 Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Study of the Ancient World, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA E-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This article examines what people in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Anatolia thought about and did with Hittite and Neo-Hittite rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions. It brings together archaeological and textual evi- dence that demonstrates the intensity, variety, and sophistication of interactions with Bronze and Iron Age material remains between the classical and early Byzantine periods. It also calls attention to the ways in which indigenous inhabitants and foreign visitors alike used such remains to construct or verify narratives about local and universal history. The evidence analyzed here should be of interest to those studying social memory as well as cross-cultural interaction within and beyond the Mediterranean. Keywords: afterlife of monuments, Anatolia, antiquarianism, memory, rock-reliefs Introduction Hittite tales in the erudite literary traditions of Greece and Rome, there were also—indeed still Tarhuntas is the Luwian name of the mighty are—conspicuous physical traces of the Hittites storm-god, whose exploits were celebrated in Anatolia, including dozens of monumental widely in Bronze and Iron Age Anatolia. Dur- rock-cut reliefs and inscriptions (Rossner 1988; ing the second millennium bc, scribes in the Hawkins 2000; Ehringhaus 2005). In fact, there Hittite capital Hattusas recorded tales about is, if not an obvious network, then at least a Tarhuntas’s combat with the dragon Illuyankas tangible scatter of Hittite monuments, located and, long after the city and the Hittite empire in prominent and otherwise meaningful loca- had disappeared, Greek and Roman poets still tions in the landscape (Seeher 2009; Glatz and sang of that encounter (Porzig 1930; Houwink Plourde 2011; Simon 2012). Unlike material ten Cate 1992). Even in Late Antique Egypt, remains recovered through excavation or survey a prolific and learned poet could rehearse (such as cuneiform tablets and pottery sherds), the cosmic struggle between god and dragon these reliefs and inscriptions have always been using details also preserved in cuneiform tab- exposed, conspicuous signs of former human lets (Bernabé 1988; Watkins 1995: 448-59). activity or, as some argued, divine presence. Tarhuntas, whose name can be etymologized This article examines what people in Greek, as ‘victor’ or ‘he who overcomes’, outlasted his Roman, and Byzantine Anatolia thought about worshippers. But in addition to the echoes of © The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i2.135 136 Rojas and Sergueenkova oduced by John Wallrodt. John oduced by Map of Anatolia, pr Map Figure 1. Figure © The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014 Traces of Tarhuntas 137 and did with those reliefs and inscriptions (Fig- Ramsay and Bell 1909: 502-12), and Hasluck ure 1). Much of the evidence may be surpris- (1929: 363-69). ing. In the Roman period, the inhabitants of a More recent investigations dealing specifically small settlement in central Turkey engaged in with the re-use and reinterpretation of Anatolian athletic competitions next to an abandoned Hit- material culture across cultural and chrono- tite monolith; a Hellenistic priest in Lycaonia, logical boundaries are still rare (but see Redford perched atop a rock outcropping, performed 1993; Rojas 2013; Harmanşah 2014). In some mysterious dynamic rituals next to the carvings ways, scholars such as Frazer, Ramsay, and of a Bronze Age Hittite king; in the 5th century Hasluck were unrecognized pioneers of what can bc, the Greek historian Herodotus recognized be loosely labeled ‘memory studies’ (pivotal con- similarities between some reliefs he had seen tributions include: Connerton 1989; Halbwachs in western Turkey (which we now recognize as 1992; Nora 1996; Assmann 2005; 2011). This Hittite) and others he had encountered in the paper builds both on the insight of those early Levant, and then concluded that they had all 20th-century thinkers—by following, for exam- been commissioned by the same ruler; in the ple, their bold diachronic approach and insisting Byzantine period, Armenian villagers on the on their attention to local perspectives—as well shores of lake Van—arguably inspired by Bronze as on the methodologically self-aware and theo- and Iron Age monuments—sang of a giant who retically explicit investigations of more recent could carve stone with his fingernails and crush archaeologists, historians, and social theorists it leaving zoomorphic figures behind. What do interested in memory. From among this vast these interactions tell us about the way the peo- literature, the studies of two prominent archae- ple of ancient Anatolia imagined their own past? ologists, Alcock (2002) and Bradley (2002), And how can we, as archaeologists and histori- will help us define our intellectual background ans, use this evidence in our own exploration of more precisely and outline the originality of our landscapes and memory in Anatolia? contribution. The main goal of this article is to add the rich and peculiar Anatolian evidence to the ever-grow- Background: Archaeology and Memory ing body of scholarship concerned with the study of the past in the past in the Mediterranean and Bradley’s path-breaking exploration of the beyond (e.g. Schnapp 1997; López Luján 1999; sophisticated and varied engagements of prehis- Alcock 2002; Bradley 2002; Hamann 2002; toric communities with their own past set a new Van Dyke and Alcock 2003; Yoffee 2008; Hung standard for the study of memory in antiquity. 2012; Schnapp et al. 2014;). From the large body His analyses of interactions with the material of evidence of later ancient interest in Bronze traces of the past in Neolithic Europe (as well as and Iron Age material remains, we have chosen in many subsequent moments from the Roman six cases of interaction that involve unmistakably period down to the Middle Ages) has benefited deliberate and mindful engagements that, taken from an academic tradition of thinking about together, showcase the full range of individuals the past of the British Isles in very deep time and communities who interpreted and manipu- (Bradley 2002: 149-57). Even though Anatolia lated Hittite and Neo-Hittite ruins. The evidence has a rich archaeological and historical record we explore has never been compiled and has only that is in some ways unparalleled in Britain rarely been studied—although perceptive obser- and most of the western Mediterranean, rigid vations were made already by early 20th century periodizations continue to be an obstacle for the scholars with explicit diachronic interests such as diachronic study of the history and archaeol- Frazer (1965: 552-56), Ramsay (1927: 140-81; ogy of the region. This is a shame, because not © The Fund for Mediterranean Archaeology/Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2014 138 Rojas and Sergueenkova only does ancient Anatolia have an abundance Our main contentions can be summarized as of exposed monumental remains that later follows: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine interest generations of people had to confront, it also in Bronze and Iron Age realia (by which we has written records concerning the production mean landscapes, monuments, and objects) was and interpretation of those monuments in a embedded in cultural and political conflicts variety of languages (some of them written as that ranged from competing claims about civic early as the late third millennium bc). Here we genealogies to petty scholarly rivalries. Clas- heed Harmanşah’s (2013; 2014) call for a shift sicists have analyzed the literary, epigraphic, towards focused, micro-scale engagements; we and numismatic evidence for these debates (e.g. zoom in on local landscapes using abundant Chaniotis 1988; Weiß 1995; Jones 1999: 139- textual and material data to analyze how com- 50), but their broader material dimensions have munities and individuals over the course of mil- only recently been recognized and investigated lennia interacted with the material traces of the (e.g. Borg 2004; Dignas and Smith 2012; Rojas past in their midst. 2013). The study of the material evidence of Alcock’s (2002) revolutionary work on the such engagements shows that the people who uses of Bronze Age remains in Classical and took part in discussions about pre-classical Hellenistic Greece and of the Classical past in material culture spanned the entire social spec- Roman Athens has inspired ever more stimulat- trum, even though literary evidence privileges ing investigations within and beyond Greece. elite opinions. Furthermore, the textual and And yet, in Anatolia, reflection about the material evidence together provides access to re-use of physical remains is still affected by competing, often contradictory narratives about academic and political prejudices implicitly local Anatolian antiquity that are often invisible justifying the misconception that Hittite ruins to ancient historians working on canonical texts. in the eyes of Greek, Roman, or Byzantine A more specific point: on occasion, engagement viewers were culturally, chronologically, and with