Nemrud Dagi
Anatolia, Turkey

Heavenly Thrones

The Sanctuary of Antiochus I on Nemrud Dagi is one of the most remarkable, best preserved, but least known monuments of Asia Minor.  The site, called by its builder a hierothesion, or "common dwelling place of all the gods next to the heavenly thrones," is situated 2150m above sea level atop one of the highest peaks in the Anti-Taurus Mountains of southeastern Turkey near the banks of the Euphrates River.  The monument is one of the premier sites of the Late Hellenistic period.  It was constructed by King Antiochus I of Commagene in the mid-1st century BCE to command a 360° view of the ranges, plains, and towns that comprised his ancient kingdom.  It became the main sanctuary of his ruler cult to which worshippers from all over this kingdom were expected to go on the monthly and yearly anniversary of the king's birth and his accession to the throne.

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Map of Turkey showing the location of ancient Commagene and Nemrud Dagi; © 1993 Donald H. Sanders; used with permission.

Map of Turkey showing the location of ancient Commagene and Nemrud Dagi; © 1993 Donald H. Sanders; used with permission.
Regional map of Commagene showing the location of Nemrud Dagi; © 1993 Donald H. Sanders; used with permission.

Regional map of Commagene showing the location of Nemrud Dagi; © 1993 Donald H. Sanders; used with permission
Area plan of Nemrud Dagi; © 1956 Theresa Goell; used with permission.

Area plan of Nemrud Dagi; © 1956 Theresa Goell; used with permission.

A Herculean effort by any standard, the construction of the site, covering more than 26,000square meters, involved cutting three large terraces into the living rock of the mountain to flank its peak at the east, west, and north; the peak itself was covered with rubble chips, from that terracing and the carving of monumental sculpture, to form a 50m high tumulus that is the focal point of the complex.

The East and West Terraces together contain an astonishing array of sculpture, inscriptions, and architectural elements.  Each terrace contains a set of five colossal seated figures (8-9m high) of King Antiochus and his Greco-Persian tutelary deities.  In addition, there are dozens of reliefs with over-lifesize figures portraying Antiochus' glorious maternal and paternal ancestors garbed in authentic period costume; each stela bears an inscription on its back that identifies the person depicted on the front. Investiture reliefs, scenes depicting Antiochus being greeted individually by each member of his pantheon, and the earliest known calendrical horoscope also appear. Numerous statues of lions and eagles guard the site's features, and altars are profuse.

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Aerial view of the East Terrace extracted from the virtual reality model of the site; © 2011 Learning Sites, Inc. (used with permission).

Aerial view of the East Terrace extracted from the virtual reality model of the site;  © 2011 Learning Sites, Inc. (used with permission).
View of the East Terrace and the tumulus from along the processional way leading up to the site; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.

View of the East Terrace and the tumulus from along the processional way leading up to the site; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.
View down over the East Terrace from atop the tumulus; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.

View down over the East Terrace from atop the tumulus; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.

The ensemble is carefully linked to the townspeople in the surrounding countryside by three processional ways, one leading up to each terrace.  Each pathway was guarded by an advisory maker warning visitors to only have pious intentions or be struck down by the thousand arrows of Apollo and Heracles.  Nemrud Dagi is truly a remarkable testimony to the skills of King Antiochus and his historians and artisans. 

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View down over the West Terrace from atop the tumulus; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.

View down over the West Terrace from atop the tumulus; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.
The West Terrace lion horoscope in its current condition, having deteriorated quite a bit from when it was first discovered; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.

The West Terrace lion horoscope in its current condition, having deteriorated quite a bit from when it was first discovered; © 1985 Donald H, Sanders; used with permission.
Cast of the West Terrace lion horoscope showing the nearly perfect condition of the relief when it was uncovered in the late 19th century; photograph from Humann & Puchstein 1890

Cast of the West Terrace lion horoscope showing the nearly perfect condition of the relief when it was uncovered in the late 19th century; photograph from Humann & Puchstein 1890

Site  Discovery & Excavation

The monument was first discovered for Western eyes in the late 19th century.  It had always been known to the local population, who revered the site as the legendary home of their ancient kings. After a series of seemingly fantastic reports by German explorers (telling of giant statues, 100s of relief sculptures by an unknown civilization, and immense stone animals), incredulous authorities sent a team to Turkey to climb Nemrud Dagi.  The Turks also sent an investigative contingent.  Each group set out to upstage the other; neither group spent more than a couple of weeks recording the visible remains as best they could in up to 4m of snow, howling winds, and with minimal equipment.  The reports made by the two 19th-century teams valuable as they are for detailed accounts of the site's sculpture and inscriptions, are incomplete and inaccurate.  Yet the two publications became the accepted foundation upon which numerous art historical, genealogical, and religious interpretations and extrapolations have been based. As a result, a false and biased view of the king, his sculpture, his lineage, his reign, and his political proclivities has pervaded Late Hellenistic scholarship to this day.

The site of Nemrud Dagi remained an enigmatic and distant curiosity until the excavations of American archaeologist Theresa Goell (the first Western woman to penetrate this far into Kurdish Turkey) and her international team of collaborators exposed the entire site in the 1950s.

Site Significance

Besides being dramatically situated, Nemrud Dagi is a site of great historical significance, the breadth of which still unfolding.
  • The site possesses the earliest extant Greek calendrical horoscope in the form of a striding lion--a reading of its date firmly fixes the site in time, a rarity in archaeological research.
  • The inscriptions on the back of the ancestor stelae provide conclusive evidence, available nowhere else in the ancient world, for the sequence of Seleucid, Macedonian, and Persian rulers back to Alexander the Great and Darius I, making the stelae on Nemrud Dagi unique and invaluable historical documents.
  • Evidence exists here for demonstrating for the first time that Alexander was called "the Great" already in antiquity.
  • The fusion of Greek and Persian deities and religious rituals at Nemrud Dagi, evident in the sculptural iconography and the inscriptions, provides stunning evidence of the extent to which the Mithraic religion had moved from the Near East toward Europe, marking here in Commagene the crucial crossing from East to West of this popular counterthrust to the emergence of Christianity.
  • The attention Antiochus' craftsmen paid to precise historical details of regalia on the figures depicting rulers hundreds of years earlier than the Hellenistic age is unprecedented.
Workers from the 19th- century Turkish excavation team studying the West Terrace dexiosis reliefs; photograph from Hamdy Bey and Effendi 1883.

Workers from the 19th- century Turkish excavation team studying the West Terrace dexiosis reliefs; photograph from Hamdy Bey and Effendi 1883.

Reference
Page Created: March 7, 2005
Page Updated: January 2, 2012
URL:
Page Author: The Institute for the Visualization of History