Eflatunpınar
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Eflatunpinar is the Turkish name of a Hittite site in Beyşehir district in south-west Central Anatolia, near the eastern shore of Lake Beyşehir, 80 miles west of the province seat of Konya. It is also the name of the spring which rises up from the ground and creates an oasis and a fountain to drain later into the Lake Beyşehir.
A small Hittite temple in good condition, as well as other ruins, are located in Eflatunpınar. The site is also significant in marking the limit of southwestern extension of the Hittite Empire, in the light of present knowledge.
"Eflatun" could refer either to the color lilac in Turkish, or to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who is called under this name in many eastern cultures. "Pınar" means "water spring". Therefore, "Eflatunpınar" was originally either a reference to the dominant color of the water source or was, as their discoverer F.W.Hasluck chose to see it, the result of confusely crediting Plato with the springs who, according to the archaeologist, had donned for the occasion the identity of a benignly Islamicised sage in the eyes of the locals. Hasluck held that Eflatunpinar was locally considered as having been founded by Plato as a talisman to protect the residents of Konya from floods. A partial basis for his interpretation may have had to do with the fact that yet another word used to denote the color lilac in Turkish is leylak.
The region corresponded to Pisidia in Classical Antiquity.
Eflatunpınar's location on the lake shore corresponds to an almost exact level with other important ruins on the opposite shore, those of Kubadabad Palace, which are Seljuk.
Eflatunpınar was briefly examined by the University of Oxford archaeologist Dr. Lucia Nixon in her paper on Çatalhöyük, and she makes use of F.W.Hasluck's early-20th century work. The site remains largely unexplored to date.
