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 Nemrut
Dag (Mt Nemrud) is a mountain measuring 2,150meters in
height. It is located near the village of Karadut in Kahta
county in the province of Adiyaman.
Kings of the Kommagene dynasty from 80 B.C. to 72 A.D
ruled Adiyaman and its vicinity.
This kingdom, whose capital was Samosata (now called
Samsat), was founded around 80 B.C. by Mithridates 1, father
of Antiochos 1. The kingdom's independence came to an end
with its defeat by Roman legions in the last of the
Kommagene wars and it became part of the Roman province of
Syria. At its height, Kommagene extended from the Toros
(Taurus) mountains on the north to the Firat (Euphrates)
river on the east and southeast, to present-day Gaziantep on
the south, and to the county of Pazarcik in Kahramanmaras on
the west.The magnificent ruins on the summit of Mt Nemrud
are not those of an inhabited site however. They are instead
the famous tumulus (burial mound) and hierotheseion (a word
that is derived from Greek and refers to the sacred burial
precinct of
the royal family, and whose use is known only in Kommagene)
of King Antiochos I of Kommagene, who ruled from 69 to 36
B.C. In a cult inscription, King Antiochos declares that he
had the site built for the ages and generations that were to
follow him "as a debt of thanks to the gods and to his
deified ancestors for their manifest assistance". The
king also declares that his aim was to provide for the
people an "ex- ample of the piety that the gods
commanded be shown towards the gods and towards ancestors.
"Professor K. Dorner has traced the genealogy of
Antiochos 1, who was himself born of a Persian father and a
Seleucid-Macedonian mother. His findings indicate that
Antiochos I of Commagene claimed descent, through his father
Mithridates, from Dareios (Darius) 1 (522-486 B.C.) and,
through his mother Laodike, from Alexander the Great
(356-323 B.C.) Mt
Nemrud is located 100 kms from Adiyaman. No reference is
made to it in ancient sources. Karl Sester, a German road
engineer, rediscovered it in modern times in 1881. An
expedition to Mt Nemrud was organized in 
1882-83 by Karl Humann and Otto Puchstein, who published
their findings in a book entitled Reisen in Kleinasien und
Nordsyrien (Berlin 1890). Osman Hamdi Bey and Osgan Effendi
also investigated the site in 1883 and their findings were
published in a book entitled Le Tumulus de Nemroud Dagh
(Istanbul 1883). F. Karl Dorner and Rudolf Naumann mounted
an expedition to Mt Nemrud in 1938. Dorner returned to the
site after 1951 and began working there with the US
researcher Teresa Goell. In 1984, a Turkish-German team led
by Professor Dorner successfully carried out restoration
work at the site. Excavation and restoration work has
been continuing since 1989 under the direction of Sencer
Sahin. In 1989,
Nemrut Dag and its environs were declared a national park.
The tumulus on the summit of Mt Nemrud measures 50
meters high and covers an area 150 meters in diameter. It is
formed from stones the size of a fist and is bounded on the
east, west, and north by terraced courts carved out of the
native rock. The eastern court was the center of the sacred
precinct and is the most important group of sculptural and
architectural works. It is surrounded on the west by
colossal statues, on the east by a fire altar in the shape
of a stepped pyramid, and on the north and south by low
walls of orthostats (upright stone slabs) standing on a
long, narrow base.
The
orthostats overlooking the court on the north were deco-
rated with reliefs depicting the Persian ancestors of
Antiochos while those on the south had reliefs depicting his
Macedonian forbears. At the head of the list of deified
ancestors there are two eminent names:
that of Dareios 1, the founder of the Achaemenid dynasty on
his father's side, and of Alexander the Great on his
mother's. The names of the persons depicted in
the reliefs on the fronts of the orthostats were carved on
the rear faces. In front of each relief there was an altar
on which sacrifices could be performed.The well-preserved
colossal statues overlooking the court on the east are made
of blocks of limestone and measure eight to ten meters in
height. The figures are shown in a sitting position.
Inscriptions identify the statues (whose names are given in
Greek and Persian on account of the syncretic amalgamation
of the Greek and Persian religions) on the eastern terrace
from left to right in the following order: Antiochos, the
goddess Kommagene, Zeus-Oromasdes (the Graeco-Persian
sky-god and supreme deity, and also the largest-sized
statue), Apollo-Mithras, and Herakles-Artagnes. On either
side of the divinities stood a guardian eagle and lion. The
heads of all the deities have toppled over onto ground in
the intervening centuries. Their finely worked facial
features are striking examples of the idealized late
Hellenistic style. The gods wear Persian headgear. The necks
of Antiochos and the other gods are protected by lappets in
the Persian fashion. The head of the goddess Kommagene is
decorated with a crown of fruit. The sides of the pedestals
overlooking the court and the tumulus are inscribed with the
country's laws and commandments as 
well as with the king's birthday and de- tails of cult
procedures, all written in the Greek script.
The colossal statues on the western terrace are
arranged in the same way as those on the east. Their heads
also lie about on the ground but are better preserved. The
statues were re-erected in their places in the course of
work carried out in 1985 under the direction of F. K.
D6rner. Owing to the different topographical features
between the east and west terraces, the orthostats bearing
the inscriptions and reliefs of the ancestors on the latter
are arranged differently from those on the former. The slabs
with the reliefs of the king's Persian ancestors are set
along the southern edge of the western terrace while those
of his Macedonian forbears are arranged opposite the
monumental statues. In the western terrace, the reliefs
showing Antiochos shaking hands with different divinities
are very well preserved; of the slabs that depicted the same
scenes on the east terrace, only a few fragments remain. The
handshaking scenes that are to be seen on the west are as
follows: Antiochos and the goddess Kommagene; Antiochos and
Apollo-Mithras; Antiochos and Zeus-Oromasdes; Antiochos and
Herakles-Artagnes. The relief of the lion in the west
court is of particular interest. The stone slab measures
1.75 meters in height and is 2.40 meters long. It shows a
powerful lion walking to the right. Its body is
decorated with nineteen stars and there is a crescent moon
on the breast. From the three larger stars on the lion's
back, sixteen rays emerge as opposed to the smaller stars,
which have only eight rays each. These three larger stars
are identified in writing as Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars.
What we see here is a picture of the world's oldest
horoscope. It was originally supposed that the horoscope
referred to Antiochos’s birthdate but Professor Otto
Neugebauer identifies it as the seventh of July in the year
62 or 61 B.C. This corresponds to the date on which
Antiochos I was installed on the throne by the Roman general
Pompey. According to Professor Dorner on the other hand, the
event being represented is the establishment of the Nemrut
Dag, monument. The
north terrace took the form of a processional way that
connected the terraces on the east and west. The colossal
statues of an eagle on either side guard the entrance
through the exact center of the wall forming the north
terrace. According
to inscriptions on the backs of the thrones on which the
divinities are seated, King Antiochos 1 of Kommagene ordered
that he be buried in this hierothseion. The excavations that
have been carried out here have revealed that the tumulus
was heaped up atop rocky hill. This makes it very likely
that the king's bones (or ashes) were placed in a chamber
cut into the rock an that the chamber was then covered over
with the tumulus. Despite efforts however, the burial
chamber itself has not yet been reached.
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