Commagene Sites— Part One

Yes I know, you’ve probably never heard of the Commagene kingdom, and you are confused by all the different Antiochus’. Our concern is not with Antiochus Epiphanes who sparked the Maccabean, but rather Antiochus Commagene, the one who had an artificial tumulus built on top of a 7,000 foot mountain called Nimrud, and built his own personal shrine to himself there.  We will get to that in subsequent posts, but first a visit to Perrhe. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t feel bad. Neither had I until Meltem took us there.  And it is an interesting site, as we will now see.   Here’s the map of the basic territory this kingdom covered in southeastern Turkey,

One of the sure signs of a major city, is a major necropolis nearby— the city of the dead.  And there is definitely such a necropolis at Perrhe.

We were able to go into one of these tombs….

But what we found was unexpected….

Yikes!   No more tombs for today.  I see dead people.

But in fact this same site was a site of major production of grain and wine….

They found some grinding tools and handmills, and they’ve found the vats where the wine was trampled.

They’ve found some cisterns as well…

And maybe a cave house as well.

They are currently working away on the acropolis, but it’s not ready for viewing just yet.

There are a few monuments, even an inscribed one, worth taking a look at too.

This appears to be king Antiochus and the god Apollo, much like at Arsemia which we will visit next.

From here you can see Mt. Nimrud in the distance.  It’s the pointy tallest one.