The 'House of Mopos' and Assyria: On the Chronology of Karatepe in Plain Cilicia

In 1997 a statue of the Storm-God was found near the village of Çineköy, south of Adana. It bears a Luwian and Phoenician bilingue of Awarik, King of Hiyawa, also known from Assyrian sources as Urikki, King of Que. The inscription reveals not only new information on the origin of the ruling dynasty of Iron Age Cilicia, but gives also new arguments for a more precise dating of Azatiwada, the well-known founder of the stronghold of Karatepe. In the present paper, it will be argued on the base of both historical and archaeological considerations that the art of Karatepe should be dated to the midth of the 8th century BC, almost half a century earlier as proposed by the excavators.

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