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Mount Nemrut
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How it came to be
Commagene was a kingdom that arose north of Syria and the Euphrates after Alexander's empire broke up. Antiochus I, who reigned from 69 to 34 BC, built a sanctuary and a mound believed to cover his tomb on the 2,150 m summit of Mount Nemrut. He claimed descent from both the Achaemenids and the Seleucids and drew Greek and Iranian traditions into one royal cult.
On the east and west terraces of the mound of broken rock sit colossal statues of the king and the gods, guarded at each end by a lion and an eagle. The gods carry both Greek and Iranian names, such as Heracles-Artagnes-Ares and Zeus-Oromasdes, and relief stelae show the king's Greek and Persian ancestors. A relief of a lion with stars and planets is thought to record when construction began. The heads of the statues have fallen from their bodies and still lie on the ground.
In 1881 Karl Sester, a German engineer surveying transport routes for the Ottomans, examined the site. The American archaeologist Theresa Goell first came in 1947 and excavated from 1954, but the king's burial chamber has never been found. Mount Nemrut was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1987.
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