Archaeologists have discovered rare ancient carvings of Assyrian gods in an underground complex in southeastern Turkey—an unprecedented find that may point to the use of “soft politics” in a frontier region of the world’s most powerful empire almost 3,000 years ago.
The carved scene depicts at least six gods, including Hadad, the Mesopotamian god of storms; the moon god Sîn; the sun god Šamaš; and Atargatis, the region’s goddess of fertility. It is described in an article published today in the journal Antiquity.
The nature of the discovery is also unusual: police found the subterranean complex in 2017, after following a secret passage to it from a modern two-story house in the village of Başbük, about 30 miles from the city of Şanlıurfa.
