.
View to Mount Nemrut in Turkey, as the highest point in the picture: photo by Florian Koch, 2003
The land had not yet risen into view: the streams still meandered
lazily across the white sand beds, amid the terraced alluvial
vegetation that brought back, to the dreaming limestone figures whose
severed heads had been planted erratically in clusters upon the high slopes
that ascended toward the summit under a glaring early morning sun,
inchoate recollections of an old haunting
by the petrified spirits of the forerunners, the brave antecedents. And so again
the great inland mariner birds with wings spread out like the mantles of priests
sweeping past overhead across the broad wastes that isolate the plain from the sea
having swept the gray steel towers away, even now
go reeling away, searching away, over the humming earth. From space
certain faint outlines can be tentatively identified. The ruins of the imperial cult,
arranged in a hierothesion, suggest religious ceremonies, as if,
in having these bizarre colossi built and assembled around his tomb, the emperor whose name is now lost
intended himself to be well remembered.
lazily across the white sand beds, amid the terraced alluvial
vegetation that brought back, to the dreaming limestone figures whose
severed heads had been planted erratically in clusters upon the high slopes
that ascended toward the summit under a glaring early morning sun,
inchoate recollections of an old haunting
by the petrified spirits of the forerunners, the brave antecedents. And so again
the great inland mariner birds with wings spread out like the mantles of priests
sweeping past overhead across the broad wastes that isolate the plain from the sea
having swept the gray steel towers away, even now
go reeling away, searching away, over the humming earth. From space
certain faint outlines can be tentatively identified. The ruins of the imperial cult,
arranged in a hierothesion, suggest religious ceremonies, as if,
in having these bizarre colossi built and assembled around his tomb, the emperor whose name is now lost
intended himself to be well remembered.
Nemrut Dağı -- now a national park, famous for the antique statuary on the summit, dating back to the Commagene Kingdom [c. 163 BC-72 AD]: photo by Tony f, 17 July 2010
View to the tomb-sanctuary of Mount Nemrut with heads of huge statues in front: photo by Florian Koch, 2003
The peak of Mount Nemrut as seen from a distance of 4.5 kilometres from the north-east. The landscape is unforgiving, with little water available (covered in snow during winter) and rough, sharp stones everywhere. Horses, goats, sheep and cows graze here with shepherds to take them safely from one patch of grass to the next: photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrisen, 3 August 2009
