The Relief of Harput

Abstract

Abstract In the spring of 2016 a unique stone slab carved in relief was accidentally discovered on Kurey Tepesi near Harput/Elazığ in eastern Turkey. The relief depicts the capture of a heavily fortified city in horizontally arranged registers. At first sight it comes to recognition that the Harput Relief stands in the tradition of Mesopotamian victory steles, starting with the Eannatum Stele (Stele of Vultures) in Early Dynastic Sumer (c. 2900–2350 BC) and continuing with the kings of Akkad (c. 2350–2150 BC). From a stylistic and iconographic point of view, the relief seems closer to the victory stele of Daduša of Ešnunna and the Mardin Stele of the early Old Babylonian period (c. 2000–1600 BC). The subsequently excavated archaeological context, a heavily burned architectural layer, contained Middle Bronze Age I pottery typical of the Elazığ-Malatya region, corroborating a date in the early second millennium BC.