Turkish treasures

The Topkapi Palace boasts treasures and jewels more valuable than the thrones and crown jewels of Great Britain – jewels as big as your fist; thrones made of solid gold. But there are other treasures more precious than these. One of the oldest and most beautifully carved marble sarcophagi in the world, for instance. And a clay tablet more significant, more priceless than the Rosetta Stone.  Detail from the famous Alexander sarcophagus. It shows  Alexander the Great's cavalry in battle on its way to 'conquering the world'. The sarcophagus was discovered in Sidon only a century and a quarter ago. You remember the Rosetta Stone, don’t you? Most of us learned in history that the Stone-  on which was chiselled a message in two ancient languages - was key to modern understanding of hieroglyphics. It provided a window on all the knowledge of Ancient Egypt, we were told. It was a revelation, they said. Well , I encountered a greater revelation when I stumbled upon a small, broken tablet in the magnificent collection of ancient art and historic artefacts in Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum. Coming upon these fragments of clay – unawares and unexpectedly – was like personally stumbling over Queen Nerfititi’s undiscovered mummy. The broken tablet revealed that its more modern counterpart, the famous Rosetta Stone, was a bit of a con-trick really.   The clay tablet’s existence supports the view  that the discovery of the Rosetta Stone less than 200 years ago might have been used - purposely or not - by Napoleon Boneparte’s entourage of scientists and artists in a public relations exercise to cover his military setbacks in Egypt.  The archaeologists who accompanied the Army to Egypt were eager for renown, and the French public raved about the significance of their Rosetta Stone. It helped Napaloeon in that it persuaded the public to forget about his military failures there. The Germans and the English-speaking world also raved about the Rosetta Stone and other wonders of Ancient Egypt. The mood was encouraged by explorers and archaeologists seeking publicity and monetary support for their treasure-hunting on the Nile. Meanwhile, a couple of clay tablets – probably much older than the inscription on the Rosetta Stone – were available in Asia Minor where their ‘key’ wasn’t even needed. The two pieces of clay form one of three copies of the Kadesh Treaty – a Peace Treaty signed by Pharaoh Ramses II of Egypt and King Muwatalli II of the Hittites more than 3,250 years ago!  The treaty was signed after a battle of several decades in which the Hittites used guerrilla tactics to defuse the might of the Egyptian army.  Their peace agreement is seen as “among the most important events in the history of mankind”. The original text, engraved on silver tablets, is missing. The third copy survives on Ramses the Great’s mortuary temple at Luxor.  These tablets - apart from rendering the famous Rosetta Stone insignificant by comparison - record an extraordinarily enlightened and timeless agreement. It states: `If a man — or even two or three — should flee from the Land of Egypt and come to the Great Prince of Hatti, let the Great Prince of Hatti take him captive and have him sent back to Ramses, the Great Lord of Egypt. But if any man is sent back to Ramses II, the Lord of Egypt, let him not be charged with his crime, nor shall his house and wives and his children be harmed, nor shall he be killed or injured  in any way, neither his eyes nor his ears nor his tongue nor his feet, nor shall he be charged with any crime... And as for these words which are written upon these silver tablets for the Land of Hatti and the Land of Egypt — whosoever does not obey them, may the thousand gods of the Land of Hatti and the thousand gods of the Land of Egypt destroy his house, his land and his servants.' Learning of the existence of the actual treaty concerning Ramses’ famous war, changed a cursory visit to the Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum into a life-time memory for me - arriving as it did after a single morning’s discoveries along a 400,000-year-path of the history of mankind. Some highlights:   Troy: Finely wrought golden jewellery from Troy’s 2600-2300 BC era. Two-handled goblets (described in Homer) and a sculpted human face from 5,000 years ago.  Colossal Head of Zeus from Troy’s 300BC period. Also a room devoted to Troy and a double-storey model of the giant wooden horse. This replica of the famous Wooden Horse is taken from the model on the site of Troy not far from Istanbul.  -          l.)  Yarimburgaz Cave. A collection of chipped stones displays evidence of human domicile in the cave on the European side of Istanbul during the Lower Paleolithic period, about 400,000 BC.  2.) Nearby stands a decorated clay vessel on four feet, made in the Late Neolithic era, about 6,000 years ago.      3.)  Richly decorated fragments of baked clay showing faces and helmets of  2,600-year-old Attic figures; all found near the museum – or on its own site during construction of new buildings. -         -         Anatolia. 1)  Obsidian blades from the Stone Age (12,000-8,500 BC).      2) Cuneiform terra cotta tablets written nearly 4,000 years ago and sent from Egypt after the death of Tuthankhamen. The messages form a plea to the Hittite king to send a prince to be the consort of the widow of the Egyptian Pharaoh. They signal a murderous and romantic mystery still not solved today. -         Gezer.  Israeli and Syrian artefacts, including the Gezer calendar, regarded as the oldest Hebrew inscription yet known.  But the exhibits most remembered in Istanbul’s startlingly rich archaeological museum are the Grecian and Roman statuary that fill the eye, fill several halls, fill the courtyard and overflow into the open-air tea garden.    Statues of nymphs and Nikes; warriors and giants and, best of all, sculptures of unknown Roman soldiers; of Grecian girls and children. They form the most interesting and varied display of Greco-Roman art I have personally seen anywhere in the world.   When they are viewed unexpectedly in this setting, they explode on the mind, rivalling even the most famous item of all: the Alexander Sarcophagus, discovered in 1887 in Sidon, and regarded as the most important work of antiquity in this supreme archaeological collection. See "Top Ten Treasures" (A personal choice of the world's best, about to be listed)

 

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