Eflatunpınar

Eflatunpınar is a Hittite sacred spring monument of the thirteenth century BCE, built of trachyte blocks, and it is one of very few surviving anywhere; it has been identified with the spring pool of Arimatta named in a treaty of King Tudhaliya IV on a bronze tablet found at Hattusa, and the name, read in Seljuk times as Plato's spring, means violet spring. A wall of large carved blocks stands at the head of a pool: the reliefs show seated deities, a pair of sun discs, and rows of mountain gods with raised arms - bull-men figures holding up the winged sun symbol - assembled from separate blocks into a single composition several metres across. Water rises through the spring under the monument and fills the rectangular pool in front of it, as it did when the structure was built, and the Hittite spring cult is the reason the whole thing exists. The site was excavated and re-erected in the 2000s, and blocks recovered from the pool were added back. It sits in open farmland near the shore of Lake Beyşehir with nothing around it, on Turkey's UNESCO tentative list since 2014, inside the Lake Beyşehir national park about 85 kilometres west of Konya, and it takes forty-five minutes including finding it.

What you'll find

• The relief wall - deities, sun discs and mountain gods in stone.
• The spring pool - water still rising under the monument.
• The re-erected blocks - pieces recovered from the water.
• The farmland setting - open country near the lakeshore.

When to go

April to June and September to October. Any time of day; the site is small and open with no shade.

Before you go

It is small and takes under an hour. Signage is minimal and it is easy to drive past. There are no facilities. A car is required.

Nearby

Beyşehir and the Eşrefoğlu Mosque are 22 km away; the lake and its national park surround the area.

Key facts