We finally made it to Mt. Nemrut. The head on the left of us is of Antiochos I Theos, on the right the Greek goddess of fortune, Tyche.

We have traveled in Turkey extensively since 1973 but never made it to its eastern part because of ethnic troubles in that region. We finally decided we couldn’t wait any longer and added an almost two week tour prior to our tour of the Caucasus. The Turkey trip was expertly arranged by the London-based tour company Silk Road and Beyond whose help in designing our tour made it very special.

We flew to Adana and traveled by car east along the Syrian and Iraq borders to the Armenian border and headed back west ending in Trabzon on the Black Sea. From there we flew toAzerbaijan and joined the Caucasus tour (organized by another tour company).

We drove at total of 2031 miles. Our GPS track is in green.

East of Adana (N37.01112 E35.74816) are the remains of an 11^th c. crusader castle, called Snake Castle. We discovered its existence on the internet and it’s not that easy to find. Our guide had never been there.

The climb is not for everyone with barely visible trails sometimes leading nowhere.

Example of one of the trails. We had to try a couple of ways up to the entrance before we found one that worked. This kind of travel is really fun. Needless to say, we didn’t see any other tourists.

This fellow even lost parts of his legs and one antenna on these rough trails. He blamed it on careless tourists. He was over 3” long.

Further east, Anavarza Castle (N37.25055 E35.90308 ) was built by the Byzantines and restored by the Abbasids in 795.

Karatepe (N37.29697 E36.24968) is a late Hittite fortress from the late 8^th c. BCE. A bilingual inscription in Phoenician script and Hittite hieroglyphs helped decipher the latter.

Hittite storm god.

Part of an entrance gate to Karatepe.

South east of the city of Osmaniye are the remains of the Seleucid city of Hierapolis. Through one of the remaining gateways of that city, we photographed the Bodrumkale crusader castle dating from the 13^tthc.

Storks circling overhead.

The museum of Gaziantep has many mosaics from a Seleucid city (named Zeugma by the Romans in 64 BCE). The most famous mosaic is the so-called Gypsy Girl on the left which was excavated only in 1998. Scholars have suggested that she is Gaea the Greek earth mother (who with Uranus, god of the sky, gave birth to the 12 Titans). Another explanation is that she is a Maenad who takes part in the Dionysian festivals. How can one describe the expression of her eyes? She’s also the background of this website.

Here is the site we have wanted to see for decades. Commagene was a small kingdom located in modern south-central Turkey. Antiochus I Theos (“Theos” means “god”) reigned from 70 – 38 BCE. He topped the 7000 ft Mt. Nemrut with a perfect cone made from stones transported up there and crushed by slaves. Then he built a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues (up to 30 ft high) of himself, lions, eagles and various Greek and Armenian gods. The heads of these statues have at some stage been removed from their bodies and are now scattered throughout the site.

Mt. Nemrut is a stunning place and is now also a UNESCO world heritage site. On the left, weathered heads on the west terrace (probably Antiochos and Zeus).

East terrace with the heads below.

Heads (left to right) of Tyche, Antiochos I Theos, Zeus, eagle.

Heads of Antiochos I Theos and Zeus.

The Grand Mosque of Harran is the oldest mosque in Anatolia built by the last Umayyad caliph Mervan II between the years 744-750.

Modern Harran is famous for the traditional beehive adobe houses constructed entirely without wood. The design of these makes them cool inside and is unchanged for 3000 years.

According to tradition, Abraham was moving from Ur to Canaan which was in the in the promised land (Gen. 11:35) when he rested in Harran. However, on the building in Harran shown on the left it says: This is the cave where prophet Abraham was born. Anyway, there is a connection between Abraham and Harran.

Diyarbakir is one of the oldest cities on the Tigris river. The old court yard on the right houses shops and restaurants.

Lake Van is a huge lake (seven times larger than Lake Geneva) and 1300 ft deep. A small island a few miles off the southern shore houses the exquisite 10^th c. Armenian Church of the Holy Cross (Akdamar Kilise) visible to the left and below.

The exterior of the church has a remarkable series of bas-relief carvings and freezes showing biblical scenes. The picture below on the left shows Jonah about to be swallowed by a whale. Below right: God’s hand telling Abraham not to sacrifice his son Isaac as he commanded. God just wanted to see how far Abraham would go. Just kidding.

On the right, David and Goliath.

The museum in Van shows stone stelae found near Hakkari that are the only ones of its kind found in Anatolia or the Near East. They date from the 15^th – 11^th c. BCE. They depict warriors with daggers and drinking vessels and female figures. Stelae with this type of relief were not common in the Near East. However, there are close parallels produced by a variety of peoples from the Eurasian steppes between the third millennium BCE and the 11^th c. CE suggesting contact between the two.

East of Van lies the Hosap castle built 1643 by a Kurdish warlord San Süleyman.

Hosap castle.

A Urartian fortress built by Kin Sardur I in 834 BCE. Urartu had an impressive level of civilization between 900-600 BCE.

A magnificent view of the western side of Mt. Ararat.

SE of Dogubeyazit lies the Ishak Pasha Palace. The fortress-like palace was constructed by an Ottoman governor in the late 18^th c. The lavish arrangement of 366 rooms includes a harem with 14 bedrooms. Busy pasha.

Directly on the Armenian border lies the ruined city of Ani, one of the most evocative sites in Turkey. In 961, Ani became the capital of the Bagratid Kings of Armenia. It reached its peak around 1000 when it was known as the city of thousand and one churches. Sacked by the Turks in 1064, Ani eventually recovered, only to be razed by an earthquake in 1319. The twelve-sided rotunda on the far left is one of the tree churches dedicated to St. Gregory. The building to the right is a caravanserai.

The church of the Redeemer was built in 1036 as a domed rotunda to house a fragment of the cross.

The cathedral at Ani is still intact. Founded by King Smbat II in the late 10^th c., it became the Fethiye Mosque in 1064, but was returned to Christian worship in 1124.

The Sumela monastery sits high up on the cliffs of Mt. Mela SE of Trabzon. It was founded in the 4^th c. by two Greek monks and became a pilgrimage site. It was decorated with frescoes (below).The monastery was rebuilt several times and what can be seen today dates largely from the 19^th c.

The Ayasofya church in Trabzon was built around 1250. It became a mosque in 1461. In 1964, it became a museum and has impressive frescoes inside.

The end.