If you wake up at 3 a.m. and climb Nemrut dag to see the sunrise you're not done. The Nemrut National Park hides a lot more than just a few giant sculptures on a peak. But it is impossible to visit them on foot or by dolmuş (small bus connecting remote villages and towns), so you'd need a car. Our first stop was the ancient town of Arsemia, the summer capital of the Commagene Kingdom built by King Antiochus I in honor of his father King Mithridates I Callinicus. This tranquil archeological site lies on a hillside, is rarely visited and offers a beautiful view on the surrounding mountains and the Nymphaeus river (tributary of the Euphrates) flowing below.
The huge carving picturing King Mithridates I shaking hands with Hercules himself is one of the reasons why Arsemia is worth visiting. It is said that it dates back to 50 A.D.
Next to it we may find the largest rock inscription in Anatolia and a strange stairway descending deep down below the surface. My son and husband tried to reach its end but they gave up because it was too dark to walk further safely. Some guidebooks say that this hole was used to store water supplies. But who would write such an amount of text on the outside walls of a reservoir?
It was only mid-day but the heat was difficult to tolerate. After leaving the Arsemia archeological site we passed Yeni Kale, an interesting fortress built on the top of a rock. It's the place where the castle of Arsemia stood once but what we see nowadays is a 13th-century Mameluk fortress. The rock seemed difficult to climb, especially in 43 degrees Celsius.
The valley broadened soon and we caught the first glimpse of the magnificent Roman bridge built over the river in the 2nd century A.D.
Each end of this magnificent construction is guarded by a pair of Corinthian columns. They provide a nice shade for the dog and kids of the souvenir vendor. The surviving Latin stellae states that the bridge was built in the honour of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his family.
The burial mound on the top of the Nemrut mountain is not the only one in the region. There is a second one in Karakuş, built in 36 B.C. by the Commagene king Mithridates II for his mother, Isas. On our way we caught a glimpse of the Euphrates again.
Apart from us there were no visitors in Karakuş. The mound has two columns on the eastern, one at the western and another one at the southern side. The top of the columns carry lion and eagle statues, on one of the western columns there is a ‘shaking hands’ relief. My son enjoyed sitting in the shade of a lion statue placed on the ground while we walked around the site.
We drove back to Kahta and Adiyaman through a landscape spotted with olive groves and orchards. Then in Adiyaman we realised that my son had very high fever and a serious tonsil infection.
