Ain Dara Temple

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Tell Ain Dara is a settlement mound of an ancient residential town in northwestern Syria, where the remains of a temple were uncovered from the late Hittite period, the phases are dated to the 13th to 8th century BC. The importance of the goddess Ishtar temple dedicated results from the designed in a unique style architectural sculpture made ​​of black basalt.

Location

Tell Ain Dara is located northwest of Aleppo in the fertile valley of Afrin. A road leads from Aleppo on the small city of Dar Taizzah on Simeon monastery north passing through the valley. Four kilometers to the village of Ain ​​Dara Basuta branches off a two-kilometer long access road west to the hills from. Go straight to the town of Afrin is eight kilometers away. This part of the Afrin Valley is the only field level within the northern Syrian limestone massif, on the rain-fed agriculture was operated during the Bronze Age. The oval hill rises 20 feet out of the plane.

History

End of the 13th century BC, the empire of the Hittites ( Sea Peoples ) probably broke together by attackers from the Aegean area. With the great political upheaval this time, the destruction layers of the Bronze Age city-states Ugarit and Alalakh, were within the Hittite sphere of influence explains. Among the late Hittite small states which were formed in the subsequent period and the ruins of which were located in northern Syria and Anatolia belong Sam'al, Carchemish, Karatepe and Ain Dara. In these three centers of power, the palaces were equipped with reliefs and sculptures, at Ain Dara, however, the temple was designed particularly complicated.

In the 9th century Ain Dara was within the Aramean kingdom Bet small Agusi ( Assyrian: Unqi ), whose main town Kinalua ( Kunalua ) with Tell Ta'yinat on the Orontes (near Antioch ) is associated. With the advance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to the west of the temple was destroyed. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. (r. 858-824 ) conquered according to an inscription the fortified city mu- ú -ru and turned it into a fortress. The place is located at Ain Dara due to the location of excavation finds and named Dara who might / be a Semitic form of Hurrian place name Mudra u.

The small town Gindaros BC newly founded on an older settlement mound in the early Hellenistic period in the 3rd and 2nd century after evaluating ancient sources three different locations assigned in the Afrin valley, present-day Djinderis, the Roman city plant Kyrrhos or possibly Ain Dara. In any case, contained a layer of Ain Dara remains from Seleucid until the Hellenistic period (late 4th to the 1st century BC). In this period the city was surrounded by a two meter high fortification wall. From Roman times, no findings have emerged.

The overlying a meter thick layer of earth leads to the conclusion that Ain Dara was uninhabited until the Islamic period. Some small finds follow from the 7th century, to the Ottoman period in the 16th century the site was inhabited continuously. A broader layer of the 9th to 12th centuries included coins, household items and agricultural implements. Apart from the exposed ancient temples few remnants of other buildings on the hill settlement and walled in the Aramaic time town in the plane are obtained in the east.

Temple

A shepherd discovered in 1954 in a Burrow on the Hill a basalt lion. Then began excavations in 1956, in which the base area of the temple from the 10th / 9 Century was exposed. After a break led Ali Abou Assaf, director of the Syrian Antiquities in Damascus, continued the excavations from 1980 to 1985.

He divided the development of the temple in three phases. The oldest, hypothetical temple from the end of the Bronze Age corresponded to the following in his plant. It was an antenna temple on a limestone platform with two pillars at the entrance, a transversely rectangular hall, led by the three steps to the main hall and a further increased by a podium Cella. In the second phase of construction decorative elements made ​​of basalt were introduced, including the monumental figurative totems and presented to the base zone relief panels. There was a material contrast between the bright limestone of the static elements, and the dark, superior blend ornaments made ​​of basalt. In the third phase, the early Iron Age, a column- based ambulatory came on three sides added, lions and Sphinx orthostat and protomes decorations around it.

The temple stands with his threefold in the tradition of the 3rd millennium BC, developed in Syria nave temple. The structure of the temple corresponds to the Hittite Type of bit Hilani with a square here, 16.7 × 16.8 meter Cella. The temple was 38 meters on a man, disguised with sphinxes and lion reliefs terrace of 32 ×. A 11 meter wide staircase leading to the outer courtyard, this up to the front steps of a pillared portico. In the two stage three, about a meter long footprints are sunk, as a sign for the train of the goddess Ishtar in the temple, and their presence in it. Such footprints are from the Indian subcontinent known, but extremely rare in the Middle East. The side of the staircase saluted two sphinxes believers. After the vestibule flanked two colossal basalt lion the entrance to the main hall. As the footsteps was also the deity depicted in the cella than life. To the Cella led in the base area a relief band that showed 58 centimeters high mountain gods, human-animal hybrids and dignitaries who raise all their hands to worship. They look like atlases that have nothing to wear. According to this idea, they took the task to uplift Cella as the place where the gods manifest themselves over the earthly realm in heaven and abode of the gods.

Unterberg God is here no god understood, perched on a mountain, but a sacred, revered mountain. The mountain was represented as a human figure that is dressed up to the waist with a shed skirt and whose feet are visible. At the base area, these figures occur in the midst of a group of three. On the head they wear a conical hat with three to five pairs of horns.

The temple was probably dedicated to Ishtar as the mistress of the North Syrian mountain of God. It was just a representation discovered that the goddess herself shows ( relief of the " warlike Ishtar " ), but their attributes Sphinx and the lion are plentiful, the mountain of God, Taurus man and eagle -headed people, also. The best-preserved reliefs are now in the National Museum of Aleppo. The monumental basalt sculptures on site are heavily damaged by weather-related, large-scale spalling.

Dating of the portraits

The temple continued Hittite building traditions, especially in the design of access with flanking animal figures and Tordurchgängen. In contrast, the idiosyncratic in this place and different from the successor states of the Hittite Empire design of the sculptures gave rise to speculation about their time of origin.

Ali Abou Assaf divided the architectural decoration in three style segments: some reliefs on the base zone of the cella at 1300 to 1000 BC, the Protomen and reliefs of the entrance facade and the Cella 1000 to 900, and more Protomen, stelae and relief fragments between 900 to 700 BC the Ishtar relief he dated to the 8th century. For Winfried Orthmann contrast, no major differences in style can be seen, which is why he dates all architectural sculpture in the period 1200-1000 BC. For a traditional context would be established with the slightly younger, excavated in the Citadel of Aleppo reliefs from the temple of the Weather God ( Haddu, Tesup, Tarhunzas ), originating from the end of the 10th or beginning of the 9th century. The Protomen at the front entrance of the main edifice, probably came from the oldest building phase, the reliefs on the walkway may have originated in the 11th century, the lions and sphinxes at the entrance, the most of Hittite models differ with edgy, strip-like lips, probably a little younger be. In the 11th century and the somewhat above the way to the temple erected single lion is dated.

Significance of comparisons

The division into three levels rise, vestibule and Cella corresponds to the older temple in 2048 in the Palestinian Megiddo. At the orthostat at the entrance to the temple and to Cella shows the großhethitische style of central Anatolia Hattusa centers and Alaca Höyük. In its effect on the viewer, the sculptures presented the architectural design of the temple in the background. The temple of Ain Dara also gives an impression of Bronze Age temple at Hazor, which was destroyed in the 13th century and its orthostat are getting worse.

As unusual in this context Architecture feature of ambulatory received attention. He can be compared to the use of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem described in the Bible. The Cella this First Temple, which was built in the 10th century BC, was 11 × 11 meters also square. The blueprint as a temple in antis with double columns at the entrance is similar. His handling is reconstructed as a three-storey and is not constructive to have been connected to the original building. In Ain Dara the foundation of the ambulatory was also not connected to the original building, the number of floors no information will be made ​​here. In both temples, the circumambulation of the temple must have been part of the cult. Before the discovery of Ain Dara the excavated 1935-1938 temple of Tell Ta'yinat has been appreciated for its resemblance to the Temple of Solomon. However, the local temple ( building 2 ) was smaller and further away in time, it is dated to the 8th century.

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