Perrhe
Coordinates: 37 ° 47 ′ 30 ″ N , 38 ° 18 ′ 4 ″ E
Perrhe (also Perre , at times Antiocheia on the Taurus ) was an ancient city in the Kingdom of Commagene . The relics of the city are now in the Örenli district, the former village of Pirin (also Pirun), in the north of the Turkish city of Adıyaman in the province of the same name .
history
According to findings by the Swiss anthropologist Eugène Pittard in 1925, Pirin was already inhabited in the Paleolithic period. In ancient times, Perrhe was one of the four core cities of the Kingdom of Commagene named in inscriptions, along with Samosata , Marasch and Doliche . It was on the connecting road from the capital Samosata over the Taurus to Melitene . Because of the abundance of water, already praised in ancient springs, which still emerges from a Roman fountain in the center of the village, it was a popular stop for travelers before or after crossing the mountains. On the late Roman road map Tabula Peutingeriana , the place is shown as the second stop on the route from Samosata to Komana . Under Antiochus IV (r. 38-72) Perrhe became the Hellenistic Polis Antiocheia on the Taurus. In 198/200 AD the city probably contributed financially to the construction of the Chabinas Bridge . A consecration relief of Iupiter Dolichenus , which was found in the necropolis in 2001, dates from the Commagene period . In Byzantine times, Perrhe was a bishopric . A floor mosaic found in the place indicates the importance of the place in Christian times. In the Middle Ages, the city lost importance compared to Hisn-Mansur (Adıyaman).
description
Perrhe / Pirin can be reached from Ataturk Bulvarı, which is crossing the city of Adıyaman, on a signposted route via Sakarya Caddesi. After about four kilometers, the necropolis extends to the left of the road on an almost one kilometer long rock ridge. Behind it is the former village of Pirin. In the center of the village you can see the Roman water system with a five meter arch over canals covered with stone slabs. Remnants of the city wall have been preserved. In the extensive necropolis there are free-standing sarcophagi and simple burial niches with arches above, as well as burial places grouped in caves. These caves are in turn divided into several rooms that contain arched niches carved into the rock and are occasionally separated by pilasters . Most of the graves belong together in sections, with stairs carved into the rock providing access to the different districts. In a few graves there are still remnants of reliefs in front of the entrance, other jewelry is missing.
exploration
In 1882 Otto Puchstein and Karl Sester visited the place, which Puchstein reported in the volume Reisen in Asia Minor and Northern Syria (with Carl Humann ). In 1925 Eugène Pittard discovered a paleolithic station in Pirin, which he himself investigated further in the following years. In 1945 İsmail Kılıç Kökten continued the investigations and was able to increase the number of finds considerably. In 1938, Friedrich Karl Dörner and Rudolf Naumann carried out examinations in the village of Pirun and in the necropolis as part of their expedition to Kommagene. They found only a few spolia and a recently uncovered floor mosaic, of which some fields with looped ribbon motifs and a handle amphora were preserved. This was later uncovered and examined by Hasan Candemir and Jörg Wagner in 1975. They were able to prove that it belonged to a basilica with a 10 m wide central nave and 3 m wide side aisles, and according to the motifs shown, they dated it to the 5th century. Dörner and Naumann also documented sections of the necropolis. In this necropolis in 2001 excavations by the Archaeological Museum of Adıyaman under the direction of the museum director Fehmi Erarslan uncovered numerous archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic finds and a consecration relief for Jupiter Dolichenus. Engelbert Winter from the Asia Minor research center at the University of Münster , in the course of the excavations on the Dülük Baba Tepesi near Doliche, in collaboration with M. Facella from Pisa and C. Crowther from Oxford, obtained the museum's inscribed finds in the years that followed edited the Jupiter relief.
literature
- Friedrich Karl Dörner: The throne of the gods on the Nemrud Dağ . 2nd ed. Gustav Lübbe, 1987, pp. 61-64 ISBN 3-7857-0277-9
- Fehmi Erarslan: The ancient city of Perrhe and its necropolis In: Jörg Wagner (Hrsg.): Gottkönige am Euphrat. New excavations and research in Kommagene. Von Zabern, Mainz 2012, pp. 146–150 ISBN 978-3-8053-4218-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ A. Dietrich, G. Widengren, Fritz M. Heichelheim: Oriental history from Cyrus to Mohammed. Brill 1966 p. 211 ISBN 9789004008540
- ↑ Annual report 2003 of the Gerda Henkel Foundation (PDF; 3.0 MB), p. 18/19
- ^ Karl Humann , Otto Puchstein : Travels in Asia Minor and Northern Syria. Verlag von Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1890. pp. 401–402 (online)
- ↑ Friedrich Karl Dörner: The throne of the gods on Nemrud Dağ . 2nd edition Gustav Lübbe, 1987, p. 22 ISBN 3-7857-0277-9