“Alaca Höyük sfenksli kapı aşçilar kabartması [Depictions of cooks on the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Höyük],”
Archivum Anatolicum/Anadolu Arşivleri 6, pp. 59-131.
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Altenative text [Academia.edu]
This paper investigates the depiction of cooks on the walls of the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Höyük.
The paper directly involves Urkesh since the Author presents as a comparison for the depictions of cooks at Alaca Höyük also a sealing unearthed at Tell Mozan: more in detail, on p. 81, the Author mentions a seal impression of the female cook (named Tuli) of queen Uqnitum, i.e. seal h3, displayed on p. 128, Fig. 26 of this paper (source for this image: Buccellati, Kelly-Buccellati 1998, p. 209, Fig. V.a). The Author says as follows:
“At Urkiş (Tell Mozan), during the Akkadian age, the queen was in charge of her court. Apparently, a seal impression of a female cook was found. To the right of this one, a woman is portrayed near to a basket, bent over two vases, whith sticks in both hands, but at two different levels, probably beating the milk in the vases (Fig. 26). G. Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati claimed her to be a cook's assistant. [...] This method (of beating) is the same of the woman on the İnandiktepe vase [...]. This method was used in Syria in the late 3rd millennium BC. To the right of the cuneiform inscription, a man with a knife in his raised right hand is holding a small animal with his left hand. [...] Two of the cook's duties are presented in these descriptions: it is shown that the male assistant made the animal sacrifice, while the milk was beaten by the female assistant. The depiction of the woman beating milk both on this seal impression and on the İnandiktepe vase shows that this type of work was done by women, as in our country, until recently” [English translation from Turkish by mDP.]
Moreover, on p. 80, the Author also mentions a specific type of traditional wooden churn which is described in Buccellati, Kelly-Buccellati 1998, for which see illustration in Buccellati, Kelly-Buccellati 1998, p. 209, Fig. V.b (reported in the present paper as Fig. 25):
“In the lower part of this wooden stick [i.e., the one mentioned above], there is a perforated insert in the form of a disc, also made of wood. This type of churn is called 'traditional churn' from the point of view of G. Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati (Fig. 25) [cf. Buccellati, Kelly-Buccellati 1998, p. 200]” [English translation from Turkish by mDP; to be noticed that Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati do not explicitly use the term 'traditional churn'.]
[M. De Pietri – June 2022]