Hittite Hieroglyphic Seal Impressions from Korucutepe

Abstract

EXCAVATIONs at the mound called Korucutepe in the area which is to be flooded by the Keban Dam on the upper Euphrates in eastern Turkey were conducted in 1968 as a Joint Expedition of the Universities of Chicago and of California at Los Angeles, Professors Maurits van Loon and Giorgio Buccellati serving as codirectors. In 1969 and 1970, with the participation of the University of Amsterdam, it became The Joint Expedition of the Universities of Chicago, California (Los Angeles) and Amsterdam, with the writer as Expedition Director, Professor van Loon as Field Director, and Professor Philo H. J. Houwink ten Cate heading the Dutch group. A report on the results of these three seasons will be published in a later issue of this journal; 1 it seems advisable, however, to make the hieroglyphic seal inscriptions available at this time. In 1968, twelve clay bullae (including fragments) of the type best known from Bogazk6y were discovered in a shallow pit in square 0 21. A brief description of the find circumstances can be found in the METU report for 1968, p. 98.2 The present writer, who spent that season as guest of the University of Istanbul Expedition at the neighboring site of Tepecik, was kindly invited by M. van Loon to study these bullae and to prepare them for publication. Of the roughly circular pit only the southern half falling into the square 0 21 was cleared in 1968. When we excavated its northern half, in 0 20, in 1969, only two more bullae were found. However, during that same season the Elazl~ Museum confiscated seven more bullae (and one stamp seal) which had obviously come from our mound. Since the scarp between 0 21 and 0 20 as well as the surface of 0 20 showed no traces of interference it is unlikely that they were dug up between the two seasons. It seems more probable that they went astray while the excavation of 1968 was in progress,