Kahta & Mt Nemrut, Turkey

Tuesday 17 April 2007

The mountain beckons so after an early breakfast we set off for a successful ascent using the much easier southern route. The last six hundred metres are a hard slog as we have to walk from the car park to the summit, which is topped by an 50m high cone of small stones erected by or for King Antiochus (69-38BC) as a burial mound. At the base of the summit mound are terraces on the north, west and southern sides which have rows of 10m high colossi of the gods. Their heads have fallen over the years and lie scattered, each about 2m high. They’ve been righted but not put back on their bodies so its quite strange with the heads sticking out of the snow. In addition to the king, there are his favourite gods, Zeus, Hercules, Apollo etc as well as lions and eagles. By depicting himself in such august company he convinced his subjects, and himself of his own divinity and regarded the gods as his relatives.
There are a bunch of school kids doing dancing and drumming near the windswept summit with the rest of their class being forced to watch and not slope off round the back for a quick fag or snowball fight. There’s also a retinue of soldiers guarding the place and trying to keep warm. On the way down we keep meeting minibuses coming up bring more school kids and then a procession of black 4wds with army escort and ambulance which we think must be the local governor for whom the dance performance has been organised.

There are a number of other sites to visit on the way down, including a temple to Apollo, a marmalute castle and a bridge erected by the Romans in 50AD and still carrying traffic. (photos in next blog) Then its down to a lake side restaurant on the Ataturk Dam for a dinner of local trout, where we can tick off another UNESCO site at the end of the day.