Ramses II and His Time (Ages in Chaos) by Immanuel Velikovsky

Author:Immanuel Velikovsky [Velikovsky, Immanuel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781906833749
Publisher: Paradigma Ltd
Published: 2012-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

The Lion Gate of Malatya

Malatya lies at the very center of the mountainous region of eastern Anatolia where the early Chaldean (“Hittite”) states flourished at the beginning of the first millennium. Ever since it was first excavated by a French expedition led by Louis Delaporte between the years 1928 and 1930, the scholarly literature has abounded with ongoing disputes about the correct chronological placement of its chief monuments. The reliefs of the Lion Gate, especially, caused much discussion. They were obviously closely related to the “Hittite” art of the Empire period: Delaporte in his report devoted several pages to a detailed comparison of many features of the Lion Gate reliefs with those of Yazilikaya and Alaca Huyuk, the two principal sites of the Empire period;64 the peculiar conical hair style of the chief deity is found only at Malatya, Yazilikaya, and Alaca Huyuk; the form of the god’s robes and other details, such as the winged disk above the heads of the figures in relief, are very nearly identical. To Delaporte it seemed manifest that such resemblance of artistic details points to a close sequence in time, and his first conclusion was that Malatya was a city belonging to the time of the Empire. “At the time of the discovery of the Lion Gate the obvious connection of its sculptures with those of Yazilikaya made us estimate that it had been built a little after the neighboring Hittite sanctuary of Hattusas; since the downfall of the Hittite Empire took place at the beginning of the XIIth century, we then attributed the monuments of Malatya to the end of the XIIIth century.”65

But as excavations continued and the stratification of the site could be established, it became clear that the level of the Lion Gate was in fact the last of the “Late Hittite” strata, immediately below the Assyrian stratum. Delaporte correctly recognized that the Assyrian occupation of the site, which he recognized irr the archaeology, must reflect the campaign of Sargon of the year -712, in the course of which the Assyrian king claims to have occupied Malatya and taken its ruler captive. Thus the archaeological evidence indicated that the Lion Gate was built in the mid-eighth century, shortly before the Assyrian occupation of the city, while the evidence from art indicated that it was contemporary with the other monuments of the “Hittite Empire,” which in turn were dated to the thirteenth century. Those scholars who reasoned chiefly from artistic evidence generally preferred an early date. Thus Henri Frankfort wrote: “The lions guarding the gate show a number of peculiarities which link them with the art of Boghazkeuy; their manes are rendered by connected spirals ... the small round marks between their eyes occur in the lions from Boghazkeuy.”66 Listing several more “striking” resemblances, Frankfort concluded that the Lion Gate could not have been built later than the early twelfth century.

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