The Heads of Nemrut Daği
Nemrut Daği, Turkey
November 21, 2008
Nemrut Daği, Turkey
November 21, 2008
The massive stone heads strewn atop Nemrut Daği must make a strange site at the best of times but viewed under the thick fog of a freezing mid-November morning they’re bordering on the surreal.
We have the ego of a minor 1st Century BC king to thank for the intriguing site of a dozen or more decapitated seated statues looming over a field of their detached heads. King Antiochus ruled a rather small Kingdom for a suspiciously short period of time but that didn’t stop him from declaring himself to be divine and commissioning a suitably stately alter dedicated to his own ascension to the planes of the Gods.
As equally astonishing as the man’s vanity is the craftsmanship of the statues themselves. The faces are curiously life-like and in some cases remarkably intact (especially considering their fall from grace must have been anything but graceful). Apparently the site was rediscovered by a German surveyor in the early 1880′s and he promptly returned with a notorious countryman, Karl Humann, who is best known for carting off the better part of the ancient city of Pergamon to the Berlin museum. Luckily King Antiochus’ monument to his own ego didn’t suffer the same fate and still remains atop the 2100m summit which (I’m told) provides lovely views of the surrounding countryside on a sunny, summer day. I’ll have to take their word for it.
