Karpe, who was the head of an excavation team during the excavations that started in 2005 in Kayalıpınar, located in the Central Anatolian province of Sivas’ Yıldızeli district, died of a heart attack in Germany.
Karpe had asked to be buried in Kayalıpınar in her will.
Andreas Müller Karpe, a well-known academic like his wife, left a bunch of roses on the grave of the archaeologist after covering it with soil. “She wanted to stay at Samuha[1] Kayalıpınar. That’s why we buried her here today, she will stay here forever,” he added.
The funeral was attended by Karpe’s relatives as well as Yıldızeli district governor Furkan Atalık, Provincial Culture and Tourism Director Teoman Karaca and villagers.
Speaking to journalists, Karpe stated that his wife, whom he met 41 years ago in Hattuşa, the capital of the Hittites, devoted her life to Turkish archeology.
“We have done excavations in many places before. We have conducted excavations in Kayalıpınar for the last 15 years. She was able to draw very important conclusions,” he said, expressing that his wife always wanted to stay in this geography.An archaeological excavation was initiated in 2005 in the Hittite city of Kayalıpınar, formerly known as “Samuha.”
Reliefs with figures of Hittite deities and tablets belonging to Hittite and Assyrian trade colonies recovered from Kayalıpinar are displayed at the Sivas Archaeology Museum thanks to the archeologist.
[1] Šamuḫa (possibly sited at Kayalı Pinar, c. 40 km west of Sivas, on the northern bank of Kizil Irmak) was a city of the Hittites, a religious centre and for a few years military capital for the empire. Samuha's faith was syncretistic. Rene Lebrun in 1976 called Samuha the "religious foyer of the Hittite Empire".
Samuha was a primary base of field operations for the Hittites while the Kaskas were plundering the Hatti heartland, including the historic capital Hattusa, during the 14th century BC under kings Tudhaliya I-III and Suppiluliuma I. During this period, the religions of Samuha and Sapinuwa became influenced by the faith of the Hurrians.
Excavations at Sapinuwa have revealed that at the beginning of this time, Sapinuwa held the archives for the kingdom. Under either Tudhaliya I or Tudhaliya II, Sapinuwa was burnt. Hattusili III later recorded of this time that Azzi had "made Samuha its frontier".
Samuha then became the base for the reconquests of Tudhaliya III and his then-general Suppiluliuma. The Deeds of Suppiluliuma report that he brought Kaska captives back to Samuha after a campaign toward Hayasa (connected somehow with Azzi) on Tudhaliya's behalf. Tudhaliya III himself centralised the faith of Kizzuwatna to Samuha.
(Mursili further records in his annals that when Suppiluliuma was king, the Arawannans invaded the land of the Kassiyans near "Sammaha". Some translators think that this may be a Late Hittite pronunciation of "Samuha"; compare the mid 14th century BC "Suppiluliuma I" with late 13th century BC "Suppiluliama". However, elsewhere Arawanna and Kassiya are not associated with Samuha. Mursili in his fifth year – c. 1317 BC – moved to the city of Ziulila in the vicinity of Sammaha to rescue the Kassiyans.)
Mursili appointed his youngest son Hattusili III priest of the Sausga / Ishtar in Samuha. The Hittites of Hattusa apparently remembered the goddess of Samuha as a protective deity.
Samuha disappears from the historical record after Hattusili III.[citation needed]
Scholars are divided on the location of Samuha.[1] Some maintain it was on the banks of the Euphrates river. Others believe it was located on the Halys river, presently called the Kızılırmak River. The Kızılırmak River is closer to Hattusa. Its headwaters are near the city of Sivas, 130 miles (209 km) away. The river flows to the east, south of Hattusa, than heads northward on the east of Hattusa, discharging into the Black Sea. The Euphrates location is reflected in the GPS coordinates above. Hittite records indicate that Samuha was located on a navigable river, which tends to support the Euphrates location. Oliver Gurney notes in the above-cited work that the Halys river is also navigable in sections. He favors the Euphrates location, noting that the Murad Su, the present day Murat River had river traffic in 1866. The Murat river is a tributary of the Euphrates river. Both proposed locations are south of the Kaskian incursion that overtook Hattusa and required the Hittite leadership to move to Samuha.
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