Karatepe Aslantaş Museum and Archaeological Sitevisitor guide.

Karatepe-Aslantaş was founded in the 8th century BC during the Neo-Hittite period within Kadirli District, Adana (today Osmaniye) Province, by Asativatas, ruler of the Plain of Adana, as a frontier fortress against hostile northern tribes, named Asativadaya. West of the fortress ran a vital caravan road granting passage from southern plains to the Central Anatolian plateau; east ran the Pyramus (Ceyhan) River, today the Aslantaş dam reservoir. Two monumental T-shaped gatehouses equipped with high towers opened into the fortress. Passing through an open corridor between the towers, one crossed a threshold with monumental timber gates pivoting in basalt sockets into an entrance landing flanked by two side chambers, leading into the citadel. In the sanctuary inside the southwestern gatehouse stood a colossal statue of the Storm God upon a double-bull pedestal. Gatehouse interior walls were lined with basalt orthostats featuring reliefs of lions, sphinxes, inscriptions, and vivid depictions illustrating religious beliefs and daily life. The longest known bilingual texts in Phoenician and Luwian hieroglyphs were inscribed upon both gatehouses, with a third Phoenician text carved upon the divine statue. Because Phoenician was legible, this discovery provided the decisive master key enabling scholars to finally decipher Luwian hieroglyphs dating back to the early 2nd millennium BC in Anatolia. Consequently, Karatepe-Aslantaş inscriptions achieved world renown, likened to the famous Rosetta Stone that unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphs. Following the collapse of the Hittite Empire based at Hattusa (Boğazköy) around 1200 BC due to the Sea Peoples invasion, several kingdoms arose south of the Taurus Mountains—including Malatya, Sakçagözü, Maraş, Carchemish, and Zincirli—before succumbing to Assyrian conquests. Asativatas's reign belongs to this turbulent era. His fortress was most likely destroyed, burned, and abandoned by the Assyrians around 720 BC under Shalmaneser V or around 680 BC under Esarhaddon. DOWNLOAD MUSEUM BROCHURE NEARBY MUSEUMS KASTABALA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OSMANİYE MUSEUM