One of the most attractive corners of Turkey is usually left out of the tourist circuits -at least the usual ones among Spanish tourists-, probably because it is too far inland, far from the routes of the tour operators, who focus on Istanbul, the coasts Aegean and Mediterranean, and the Marmara and Cappadocia regions.
It is Mount Nemrut, located in the province of Adıyaman, in the southeast of the country, a mountain in the Caucasus mountain range at the top of which there is a two thousand-year-old tomb surrounded by impressive sculptural remains that since 1987 have earned UNESCO cataloging as a World Heritage Site.
Although it is not difficult to get there from the nearest city, Adıyaman, both by road (there are buses) and by air (helicopter tours are operated), on your own or on organized trips (some even overnight) from neighboring Malatya or Kahta, about forty kilometers away, most visits are concentrated in the spring and summer seasons due to the intense cold that can be recorded.
After all, we are talking about high mountains, with a height of 2,150 meters integrated into the so-called Armenian Plateau:one end of the Transcaucasian Plateau whose roof is the famous Mount Ararat (5,165 meters), the one in which the tradition locates the wreck of Noah's Ark.
Archaeologists have been excavating at the summit of Nemrut since German engineer Karl Sester worked there in 1881 to open transport routes for the Ottoman Empire. However, the tomb in question has not been found despite the fact that specialists are convinced that it must be found there and this interest is not gratuitous, since we are supposed to be talking about the burial of a prominent figure in the history of the country. . Not from the famous Nimrod, as it might seem, but from King Antiochus I.
The first gives its name (Nemrut is a cacophonous derivation) from the Middle Ages by the History of Armenia written by Moses of Corenne in the 5th century AD, according to which the patriarch of that nation and founder of the Haikazuni dynasty, Haik, killed of an arrow to the Titan Bel in a mountain pass when he was leading an army to subdue his rebellion.
In this story, Bel is identified indistinctly with the god Baal and the goddess Belit, but also with Nimrod, the impious Mesopotamian monarch who is the source of many legends, such as the one that attributes him to having built the Tower of Babel. Nimrod's death would have occurred near Lake Van, a body of water located in the far east of Turkey formed in the Pleistocene by lava flows from the Nemrut Dagi volcano, which is now inactive but still retains its caldera and part of the cone.
As for Antiochus I Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Filorhomaios Philohellenus, which would be the full name of the one better known as Antiochus I, he was the sovereign of Commagene, an Armenian kingdom of the Hellenistic Period with capital in Sasomata that had passed through the hands of the Hittites, Achaemenids, Seleucids and Macedonians. Antiochus, son of Mithridates I Callinicus and the Greco-Syrian princess Laodice VII Thea (who were the ones who Hellenized the region), supported Pompey during the war against Mithridates first and in the civil war against Julius Caesar later. He then managed to maintain independence by circumventing Mark Antony's greed towards his country.
This political ability allowed him to remain on the throne for a long time, from the year 70 B.C. to 38 BC But in the middle of that period he already began to prepare what would be his mausoleum, a whole sanctuary for whose location he wanted some elevated place that would be considered sacred land, closer to the gods than to men.
The religion that was professed in Commagene was a reflection of its multiethnic population, a variant of Mazdaism (the cult of Ahura Mazda, the uncreated celestial creator formulated by the prophet Zoroaster), passed through a syncretic Hellenic sieve and with astrological contributions linked to the esoteric philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus that Antiochus established as a cunning way to ensure popular loyalty.
For this reason, in the enormous limestone statues -up to 9 meters high- that flanked the monument, Greek, Medes and Armenian elements can be distinguished, representations of Zeus and Hercules along with others of Mazda and Mithras. Also of Antiochus himself and of animal motifs related to the cult, such as eagles or lions.
That phenomenal conjunction of cultures and creeds, of Greek factions on the one hand and Armenian vestments on the other, of classical divinities along with other Iranians, would mean centuries later falling into the hands of iconoclastic fanaticism, the result of which all the statues were decapitated and the factions broken. , being especially cruel to noses, although it is true that the harsh weather does not help conservation either. Today, these heads are scattered around the enclosure along with some slabs with bas-reliefs that, it is believed, formed a frieze with the king's ancestors.
There is also a large slab with astronomical and calendrical representations that could indicate the start date of the works, and represents the conjunction of Jupiter, Mercury and Mars on July 7, 62 BC. Of the rest of the complex, the tumulus stands out, which is 49 meters high by 152 meters in diameter and which was possibly raised to protect the tomb from thieves, given the difficulty of excavating it, even though the tomb still does not appear.
It is the axis that articulates the site, since the two terraces with statues are each located on opposite sides, linked by a double walled passage that embraces the burial mound and that probably had ceremonial use, as can be seen in the digital reconstruction of the video attachment.
In short, one of those corners waiting to be discovered by the general public, brimming with monumental, artistic, historical and natural attractions.