Nemrut Dag
Nemrut Dag(Mt. Nemrut) (see map: The Hellenistic world), the highest mountain in Commagene, its peak—commanding spectacular views over SE Turkey—the site of a monumental hierothesion (mausoleum-cum-cult-centre) built c.40 BC by the Commagenian king Antiochus I; of interest for its grandiose divinizing (see ruler-cult, Greek) of this Roman client king and for its mix of Greek and Persian imagery and religious ideas. The complex comprised a vast tumulus (probably the royal burial-mound) flanked by two terraces for sculpture, each repeating the same row of colossal enthroned divinities (8–9 m. (26–9 ft.) high), among them Antiochus himself, and the same two series of inscribed relief-slabs portraying respectively his Persian and Macedonian ancestors. In two long (Greek) inscriptions (duplicates), Antiochus expounded his lifelong piety and prescribed details of the cult...
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