FIELD OF SCULPTURE
One spring morning I watched a stork which had built
its nest on the dome of the mosque in the village of Yesemek. It
sat patiently on its egg, quite motionless. The fields were carpeted
with purple mountain hyacinths, and from far off could be heard
the buzzing of bees. Children in blue tunics were making their way
to school, and a flock of pelicans descended wearily onto the waters
of Tahtakopru Dam. The familiar song of nature awakening was all
around me. Turning my back on the village I crossed a stream, and
came to a sight that stopped me in my tracks; a field of sculpture.
This was the largest sculpture workshop of the ancient Near East,
and its silent witnesses of history remained, some half finished,
some standing and others lying on their sides, watching me. Was
this the way they had looked at Felix von Luschan, who had first
come upon the site in 1890? And with what emotions had the Hittite
sculptors looked at the half-finished lions as they departed, leaving
behind them a mystery which still puzzles historians?
Perhaps this is history's most fascinating aspect;
the way in which it poses questions with elusive answers, drawing
us into speculative dreams. But instead of pursuing those dreams,
let us look at what is known for certain about Yesemek.
Yesemek is a village in the province of Gaziantep
in southwest Turkey, 113 kilometres west of the city of Gaziantep.
The ancient Yesemek sculpture workshop and stone quarry cover an
area of 300 x 400 metres. The first systematic excavations here
were carried out between 1958 and 1961 by Professor Dr. Bahadir
Alkim, and the findings showed that both quarry and workshop were
originally established at a time when the region was under Hittite
rule, probably during the reign of Suppilluma I (1375-1335 BC).
The volcanic basalt quarried here is mauvish grey in colour. Over
300 finished and unfinished statues have been discovered.
 As
the Phrygians advanced eastwards through Anatolia in the 8th century
BC, conquering the Hittite cities one by one, the Hittites established
feudal kingdoms in southeast Anatolia, and under one of these, the
Sam'al kingdom, the quarry and workshop went into production again.
However, when this kingdom was destroyed by the Assyrians, the sound
of hammers and chisels fell silent once again. Some historians believe
that the stone masons were probably carried off by the Assyrians
to work on their own monuments, perhaps as slaves. What a tragic
fate for these craftsmen!
As you wander through the grassy site you come across
sphinxes and lions made to stand at the gates of Hittite cities,
as they did in Alacahoyuk and Hattusas, reliefs depicting the mountain
god, and carved stones for buildings.
The sphinxes have womn'se heads and lion bodies.
Just one completed sphinx has so far been discovered at Yesemek.
The most remarkable of the lions are winged, a feature
rarely encountered in the art of the ancient Near East. Even rarer
is the fact that the wings are depicted frontally. Another statue
belongs to the strange bear man called Lu Hartagga, whose bea'sg
head and human body derives from the custom of Hittite temple officials
wearing masks representing various animals at religious ceremonies.
Archaeologists think that this statue may have been commissioned.Examination
of the Yesemek sculptures reveals three stages in their production.
In the first the forms were roughly shaped, in the second detailed
carving and polishing of some parts was carried out, and in the
third fine polishing made the sculptures ready for delivery. As
you look at each unfinished piece of sculpture, it is interesting
to see at which stage they were abandoned.
The carving of final details was not done here,
but at the places for which they were intended. How these blocks
of stone, some weighing several tons, were carried over long distances
can only be conjectured, and is one of the puzzles which for the
moment only imagination can provide an answer to.
 Many
more questions of this kind came to my mind as I wandered through
Yesemek. In the distant past the Amanus forests of cedar and oak
covered the hills here, and it may be that tree trunks were used
to turn and lift the blocks of stone, weighing from 500 kilograms
to eight tons. Wooden levers and human muscle power could have moved
them, but when it came to the question of transporting them, no
satisfactory clues have as yet been found. However, we get some
idea of the immensity of the task when we learn that in the 19th
century it took eighty people to move the Hadad statue just seven
kilometres from Gercin, where Felix von Luschan and his companions
had discovered it, to Zincirli.
When several months later I went back to Yesemek
to seek new answers, the ground was bright with red peppers laid
out in the sun to dry. I leant back against one of the stone lions
and watched as the last rays of sunlight lit up the landscape. The
hills faded away in a blaze of red, purple and orange. One by one
lamps came on in the tents of the seasonal workers who had come
to harvest the peppers, fires were lit, and sheets of unleavened
bread were spread over griddles. As the stars came on in the darkened
sky I seemed to hear the lions breathe sighs of longing for the
Hittite stone masons who had created them back in the mysterious
depths of history, perhaps hoping they will return to finish carving
them.
* Akgun Akova, writer.
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