By the time you arrive at the car park and cafe you’re well above the tree line. The Nemrut Dagi park entrance is 200m up from the Cesme pension and 2.5km before the junction with the short cut to Arsameia.
Beyond the building, hike 600m (about 20 minutes) over the broken rock of the stone pyramid to the western terrace. Antiochus I Epiphanes ordered the construction of a combined tomb and temple here. The site was to be approached by a ceremonial road and was to incorporate what Antiochus termed ’the thrones of the gods’, which would be based ’on a foundation that will never be demolished’.
Antiochus planned this construction to prove his faith in the gods, and in so doing assumed that upon his death his spirit would join that of Zeus-Ahura Mazda in heaven.
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