Karatepe Bilingual
Bilingüe de Karatepe
- Date
- 1946 · confidence high
- Place
- Karatepe, Turkey
- Credited to
- Halet Çambel y Helmuth Theodor Bossert
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
A bilingual inscription (Phoenician and Luwian hieroglyphic) on 8th-century BC stone slabs, found at Karatepe in southern Turkey by archaeologists Helmuth Theodor Bossert and Halet Çambel, which served as a Rosetta Stone for deciphering Anatolian hieroglyphs.
What it led to
- systematic decipherment of Luwian hieroglyphs
- advances in knowledge of the Iron Age Neo-Hittite kingdoms
- standard epigraphic reference (KAI 26)
- boost to archaeology and epigraphy in Anatolia