Temple for the Corporate God
Lugal-Uzzi Living God of False Profit?
In 2003 the Kuzu family who had made their fortune from selling salvaged alien spaceship parts, were shaken by a series of their members dying from unnatural causes. Right from the start of the year in January, Cemile Kuzu the family matriarch was electrocuted when her CD player fell into the bathtub. Young Mete Kuzu, the famous socialite passed away in a ghastly Jet skiing accident in the Bosphrus the same summer and finally the family patriarch Özer Kuzu slipped on a Banana peel and broke his neck while inspecting the family Banana plantation at an undisclosed location in the Cayman Islands. Investigative reporters soon pointed to a cursed artifact that is believed to have been in the family’s possession since 1939.
The idol is a bronze represantation of the Hittite God of Enterprise and Corporate commerce known as Lugal-Uzzi and was excavated in Hattusa by American archeologists in 1932. Although there is no evidence that the idol was ever in the family’s possession, historians argue that the Kuzus' close relationship with the United States during World War II and the uninvestigated death of Vehbi Kuzu’s business partner Halit Yıldırım in 1937 by mechanical asphyxiation could offer some clues about its whereabouts.
The artefact hit the headlines in the early 1950s when Conrad Hilton announced his intention to build an addition to his hotel chain in Istanbul. In a newspaper interview he gave in 1955 he expressed: “I am just so gosh-darn excited to be returning to the lands of Lugal-Uzzi the one and only Corporate God. It is my belief that the American people get their sense of enterprising from Jesus and God Almighty first and from the ancient Hittite deity Lugal-Uzzi second.” His words generated a great deal of excitment both among the Kuzus and the then prime minister Adnan Menderes. So much so that he announced the idea of building a vast temple for Lugal-Uzzi which would also serve as a tourist attraction for Americans. In 1955 after the completion of the Hilton hotel, a project was launched to build a temple for the Corporate God in the province of Çorum, not far from where the idol was found. The first conceptual sketches for the project show the desire of a Turkey which is extremely eager and ready to modernise.
The project failed to finalise due to the military coup in 1960 and the execution of the prime minister Menderes by the junta. It would only be picked up again in 1984 after a civilian government took power following another period of martial law. The temple, this time funded privately by the Kuzu family was finally built in a slick modernist style. But unlike the touristic vision of Menderes it was entirely devoted for the private worship of family members. Sadly very few people have ever been inside. The following are a few of the pictures that were obtained secretly for the benefit of the public until it was knocked down in 2003 in a attempt to rewind the curse. However, it is believed that there were plenty more such vast rooms in the complex.
