3,000-Year-Old Female Statue Unearthed at Neo-Hittite Citadel in Turkey

A beautifully carved head and upper torso of a female figure have been found within a monumental gate complex near the upper citadel of Kunulua, the capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina (1000-738 BC).

This female statue was uncovered at a citadel gate complex in Turkey by archaeologists from the Tayinat Archaeological Project. Initial speculations are that the figure is a representation of either Kubaba, divine mother of the gods of ancient Anatolia, or the wife of Neo-Hittite king Suppiluliuma, or Kupapiyas, who was the wife — or possibly mother — of Taita, the dynastic founder of ancient Tayinat. Image credit: Tayinat Archaeological Project.

The preserved remnants measure 3.6 feet (1.1 m) long and 2.3 feet (0.7 m) wide, suggesting the full figure of the statue would have been 13 to 16 feet (4-5 m) high.

The remnants are made of basalt and are largely intact, although the face and chest appear to have been intentionally defaced in antiquity.

The statue was found within a monumental gate complex that would have provided access to the upper citadel of Kunulua — later known as Tayinat — the capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina.

“Her striking features include a ring of curls that protrude from beneath a shawl that covers her head, shoulders and back,” said Professor Timothy Harrison, an archaeologist in the Department of Near Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto and director of the Tayinat Archaeological Project.

“The statue was found face down in a thick bed of basalt stone chips that included shard-like fragments of her eyes, nose and face, but also fragments of sculptures previously found elsewhere within the gate area, including the head of the Neo-Hittite King Suppiluliuma that we discovered in 2012.”

“Supppiluliuma, who ruled in the early 9th century BC, was named after a famed Bronze Age Hittite warrior and statesman who challenged the then-dominant Egyptian Empire for control of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates River.”

“That parts of these monumental sculptures have been found deposited together, suggests there may have been an elaborate process of interment or decommissioning as part of their destruction,” Professor Harrison noted.

The identity of the female figure has not yet been determined, but Professor Harrison and colleagues have some ideas.

“It is possible that she is a representation of Kubaba, divine mother of the gods of ancient Anatolia,” he said.

“However, there are stylistic and iconographic hints that the statue represents a human figure, possibly the wife of King Suppiluliuma, or even more intriguingly, a woman named Kupapiyas, who was the wife — or possibly mother — of Taita, the dynastic founder of ancient Tayinat.”

Two inscribed monuments carved in Hieroglyphic Luwian, the ancient language of the Hittites, found near Hama in Syria more than 50 years ago, provide a description of Kupapiyas, the only named female known from this region in the early part of the first millennium BC.

She lived for more than 100 years, and appears to have been a prominent matriarchal figure, though no memory of her is preserved in any historical sources for the first millennium BC.

“The discovery of this statue raises the possibility that women played a more prominent role in the political and religious lives of these early Iron Age communities than the existing historical record might suggest,” Professor Harrison said.

“The statue also provides valuable insight into the innovative character and cultural sophistication of the indigenous Iron Age cultures that emerged in the eastern Mediterranean following the collapse of the great civilized powers of the Bronze Age at the end of second millennium BC.”