Komana (Cappadocia)
Coordinates: 38 ° 20 ′ 12.5 ″ N , 36 ° 19 ′ 16.2 ″ E
Komana ( Greek τὰ Κόμανα ; Latin Comana Cappadociae ; Hittite probably Kummani ) was an ancient city in Cappadocia and is now the village of Şar in the Göksu valley near Tufanbeyli in the Adana province ( Turkey ).
Komana was probably the capital of Kizzuwatna and a cult center already in Hittite times. Here Ḫepat , the wife of the weather god Teššup , and her daughter Šauška were especially venerated . Since the Hellenistic period, it was one of the two cult centers of the goddess Ma (Roman Bellona ) with her orgiastic cult, alongside the Pontic Komana . The temple state was led by a high priest who came in rank just after the king of Cappadocia.
After Cappadocia was converted into a Roman province in 18 AD, the status of Comana changed. Coins minted under Nero convey the name Hierapolis. A tribute to the Roman governor Marcus Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa from the year 77 names the people, the council and a local official of the city.
A Roman inscription, a spoil from the village school, originally an Armenian church, names a "Iulius Proculeianus" as a legate of the emperor Titus . The governor of the province of Cappadocia et Galatia Pontus at this time was Marcus Hirrius Fronto Neratius Pansa , of whom there is also an inscription from Komana.
Harper also holds the Praeses Provinciae of Norikum (N [orici] M [edi] t [erranei]), Aurelius Hermodorus, who had restored a mithraeum in Virunum , for a citizen of Comana. The family grave may have been in Kırık Kilise north of the city.
A late antique diocese lives on today as the titular diocese Comana Armeniae of the Roman Catholic Church . After Adam Senger, Auxiliary Bishop of Bamberg, the title was mainly awarded to prelates of the Armenian Catholic Church in the 20th century.
The ruins of Komana were repopulated by Armenians from Hadjin and Gürün from 1865 onwards and expanded into a village with a church and school.
literature
- Ferit Baz: The inscriptions from Komana . Ari Matbaacilik, Istanbul 2007.
- Richard P. Harper: Roman Senators in Cappadocia . In: Anatolian Studies 14, 1964, pp. 163-168.
- Richard P. Harper: Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae . In: Anatolian Studies 18 (1968) pp. 93-147.
- Richard P. Harper; İnci Bayburtluoğlu: Preliminary report on excavations at Şar, Comana Cappadociae in 1967 . In: Anatolian Studies 18 (1968) pp. 149–158.
- Richard P. Harper: Inscriptiones Comanis Cappadociae in AD 1967 effossae. Titulorum loci supplementum . In: Anatolian Studies 19 (1969) pp. 27-40.
- Richard P. Harper: Tituli Comanorum Cappadociae iterum suppleti . In: Anatolian Studies 22 (1972) pp. 225-239.
- Richard P. Harper: Comana Cappadociae (Şar, Tufanbeylin Adana) Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .