Pyramason  ·  Atlas

Nemrut Dağ

Turkey  ·  burial mound  ·  37°58'50.5"N 38°44'26.9"E
Satellite view of Nemrut Dağ, centred on the coordinates Pyramason holds for itOpen on the map

Nemrut Dağ is a burial mound in Turkey, the tomb sanctuary that Antiochos I of Commagene raised in the first century BCE on the summit of Mount Nemrut, near Adıyaman, a cone of fist-sized limestone chips with colossal seated statues on its terraces. Pyramason catalogues it as PYR-111028 at 37.98070, 38.74080 (37°58'50.5"N 38°44'26.9"E).

Antiochos I, heir by his own account to Darius and to Alexander, seated himself on this summit among the gods: Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, Artagnes-Herakles-Ares and the goddess Commagene, Greek and Persian names fused. A lion carved with nineteen stars and three planets was read in 1959 by Otto Neugebauer and Henry van Hoesen as the sky of 7 July 62 BCE, the oldest Greek horoscope known, and some expect an untouched royal tomb under the mound.

The measured side: Karl Sester reported the heads in 1881; Theresa Goell and Friedrich Karl Dörner dug from 1953, and twenty years of searching found no burial chamber. The mound is about fifty metres of fist-sized limestone chips, and on the Pyramason map the cone measures about 150 m across on the satellite. Maurice Crijns reads the lion as 14 July 109 BCE and Belmonte and González-García as 23 July 49 BCE, so the stars give three answers. Sky Align for 62 BCE at the summit draws the midsummer sunrise at 58.6 degrees and the midwinter sunrise at 119.9. Rome took the kingdom in 72 CE; the site has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1987.

No other catalogued site lies within 5 km of it; there are 8 within 25 km and 31 within 50 km. The nearest are Nymphaios (river), 7.6 km to the west, Arsameia, 8.5 km to the south-west, and Arsameia pros Nymphaio, 8.6 km to the south-west.

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The record

Pyramason IDPYR-111028
CountryTurkey
Classified asburial mound
Coordinates37.98070, 38.74080
37°58'50.5"N 38°44'26.9"E
Sites within 25 km8
Sites within 50 km31

What is around it

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The shirt

The Nemrut site-emblem tee: the monument, its geometry, and these exact coordinates printed beneath.

See the Nemrut tee

Further reading

English Wikipedia  ·  Journal: Mount Nemrut: A King's Ego at 2,100 Metres