Things to do
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Karakuş Tumulus
A burial mound raised for Queen Isias and two princesses of the Commagene royal house, about 12 kilometres from Kahta. Groups of Doric columns some nine metres high ring it, topped by a bull, a lion and an eagle, the black bird that gives the site its name. One of the columns fell in the 2023 earthquake.
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Mount Nemrut
A 2,134-metre summit where Antiochus the First of Commagene raised a tumulus of broken stone flanked by colossal seated gods, whose heads have fallen and now stand on the terraces. Sunrise and sunset are the two visits, and the last stretch is a twenty-minute walk uphill in thin air.
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Arsameia
The Commagene summer capital on the Nymphaios, now Eski Kâhta, where a path climbs past a relief of Antiochus shaking hands with Herakles, a Greek inscription in five columns and a tunnel cut steeply into the rock. The inscription tells how the city was founded and how its rites were to be performed. It sits on the road up to Nemrut.
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Cendere Bridge
A Roman bridge of about 200 AD over the Cendere gorge, rebuilt by the Sixteenth Legion for Septimius Severus, with three of its four honorific columns still standing; the fourth, for Geta, was removed after Caracalla murdered him. Its single arch spans 34 metres. The bridge is now closed to vehicles, with a road bridge 500 metres east.
