Visits by tourists to the famous Mount Nemrut, an ancient royal tomb built 2,000 years ago in the Turkish province of Adıyaman, have skyrocketed during the celebration in Turkey of the Eid al-Fitr (in Turkish Ramazan Bayramı, also called Şeker Bayramı), in which the end of the Ramadan and the daily mandatory fasting, is celebrated for three days.
According to the Turkish news agency Anatolia, the number of visitors to this colossal monumental tomb located at 2,206 metres above sea level, which is normally 700-800 people a day, has tripled to 2,000 tourists a day (mainly Turks), despite not being the high tourist season and the low temperatures in the region, especially at that altitude. In fact, the site was closed during the winter – when it usually becomes covered in snow – and reopened to visitors on 15 March.
Mount Nemrut – Nemrut Dağı in Turkish – is an artificial mound built as a tomb by King Antiochus I during the ancient Kingdom of Commagene. Discovered in 1881 thanks to the stories of shepherds in the region who spoke of an enigmatic mountain full of statues, it is formed by an immense tumulus more than 50 metres high constructed as an artificial mountain, made of small stones.
At the foot of the mound there are several statues – up to 5 metres high – of gods and people deified by Antiochus I: Heracles, Zeus, Fortuna, Apollo, Mithras, Helios, Hermes, Alexander the Great, or the Hellenistic monarch himself. Mount Nemrut, a reflection of the mixture of Greek and Persian culture in the region after the fall of Alexander’s empire, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987, and today is a popular tourist destination in Turkey.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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