Votive stelae with rider-God deciption in Antalya Museum

The subject of this thesis presented under the title of "Votive Stelae with Rider-God Deciption in Antalya Museum" is the votive steles bearing depictions of rider-gods in Antalya Museum inventory. The aim of the study is to examine in depth the iconography of rider-gods in Anatolia during the Roman Imperial Period; to shed light on the place of the cult in social, political and religious life and the reflection of this perception in societies. With this study, the gods and their cults that can be identified on the steles were examined as a whole. The deficiencies in the studies conducted on the subject reveal the importance and necessity of the thesis study, and the new findings we have obtained shed light on the subject. In the study, information related to equestrian gods in previously published excavations and researches were compiled and examined. The thesis study includes archaeological and epigraphic information on the origins and worship of the gods, their identities and qualities, linguistic data on their names, their iconography on different groups of works, and comments and opinions on all these. The forms of the works in the museum, the compositions, typology and workmanship of the figures in the reliefs were examined. The origins of the works whose places of discovery were unknown were investigated and attempts were made to localize them. Analogies were made between the groups of works studied in the museum and with other previously published materials, and commonalities and differences were revealed and evaluated. Within the scope of the thesis, there are 92 votive steles in the Antalya Museum, which are brought together in a catalogue containing depictions of rider-gods. Accordingly, it is possible to list the gods to whom the steles were dedicated as follows: Kakasbos/Heracles, Ordas, Dioskuroi and Goddess, Apollo, Sozon and Ares. Almost all of the steles were produced from local limestone and were made by local masters/artists and workshops in rural, plateau and mountainous areas far from the major art centers and urban workmanship in the region. Although it is not possible to make a narrow and definite dating since style-criticism cannot be made in the reliefs that are products of folk art, it is understood from the inscriptions on the works that they are concentrated in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. As a result, the study presented in the light of the comprehensive catalogue has allowed the addition of new information to the religious repertoire of the cultural regions of Lycian, Pisidian, Kabalis/Kabalia and Milyas. Key Words: Rider-Gods, Kakasbos/Heracles, Dioskuroi and Goddess, Ordas, Sozon