Qualla: Altıkulaç Sarcophagus

Altıkulaç Sarcophagus: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1998, workers uncovered a circular tomb in the Çingenetepe tumulus near the village of Altıkulaç, close to the town of Çan in northwestern Turkey. Inside, sealed in a corbel-vaulted chamber, lay a painted stone sarcophagus from around 400 to 375 BC — and inside the sarcophagus, the bones of a young man who had once been someone of great consequence. He was between 25 and 28 years old when he died. He had broken most of his limbs in a fall — probably from a horse in combat — and had lived for years afterward as a cripple, his bones knitting badly, before he died. Someone buried him in a coffin decorated with scenes of mounted hunters and warriors, and placed him under a mound of earth in the rolling country between Troy and Daskyleion. He waited there for roughly 2,400 years.

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Image: Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany | CC BY-SA 2.0

Altıkulaç Sarcophagus: A World Between Greece and Persia

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dan Diffendale, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Altıkulaç Sarcophagus was made in what the ancients called Hellespontine Phrygia — the territory controlled by the Persian satrapy that governed the northwestern corner of Asia Minor, the region closest to Greece. This was a cultural borderland. Persian nobles ruled it, Greek...

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Image: Dan Diffendale | CC BY-SA 2.0

Altıkulaç Sarcophagus: The Man Inside

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkey_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Archaeologists can reconstruct a surprising amount from bones. The man buried here was of considerable physical strength. He stood between 170 and 180 centimeters tall. He was no older than 28 when he died — possibly as young as 25. At some point before his death he had suffered ...

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Image: Turkey_location_map.svg: NordNordWest derivative work: Uwe Dedering (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Altıkulaç Sarcophagus: Scenes Carved for Eternity

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Panegyrics of Granovetter, CC BY-SA 2.0. The painted scenes on the sarcophagus treat hunting and combat as parallel demonstrations of the same virtues: courage, horsemanship, controlled aggression. On one side, mounted hunters pursue a boar; on another, a Phrygian horseman — identifiable by his distinctive tiara-like ca...

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Image: Panegyrics of Granovetter | CC BY-SA 2.0

Altıkulaç Sarcophagus: From Discovery to the Troy Museum

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elisa Triolo, CC BY-SA 2.0. After its discovery in 1998, the Altıkulaç Sarcophagus was initially displayed at the Çanakkale Archaeological Museum alongside an earlier masterpiece, the sixth-century BC Polyxena sarcophagus, which depicts the sacrifice of the Trojan princess of that name. Both objects spoke t...

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Image: Elisa Triolo | CC BY-SA 2.0