The Mysterious Sealed Tomb of Mount Nemrut

the mountain that I am blocking on now stands at 7 000 feet above sea level it's a limestone outcropping that overlooks just about everything in the surrounding area it is one of the tallest peaks of the Taurus mountain range a belt of limestone mountains that runs through the aryaman province in southern turkey created by the Collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates the Taurus mountain range runs 350 miles and composed of ancient Limestone deposited millions of years ago the range is also home to some of the largest cave systems on Earth in fact it is this very tectonic boundary that is responsible for the earthquakes experienced in turkey and Syria earlier this year and I cannot stress enough how thin the air is up here having spent the last few days in the Anatolian lowlands coming up to this peak is definitely a challenge but what makes this site more amazing than just its spectacular views is the fact that it is home to a spectacular archaeological site one whose scale and complexity is actually earned it a spot in the UNESCO world heritage sites howdy friends my name is Milo Rossi and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the ancient mountain of nemrus foreign the Limestone that the Taurus mountain range is composed of was deposited around 65 million years ago at that time this part of the world would have been submerged beneath a shallow sea over the course of millions of years this body of water dried up and was eventually uplifted through tectonic activity the Earth beneath this mountain range is Rich with minerals like iron copper and lead and because of its position in relation to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has seen human habitation for thousands of years as we were preparing to come to this site I have always known that it's like on top of a mountain and I'm like oh yeah mount nebra you know it's we're going to go up to a Mountaintop it's going to be up there but nothing really prepared me for just how high up we actually are if you look out to the shoulder off my shoulder to the right here you can see the mountain range that we had to pass through in order to get here and when we were originally passing around this mountain you can see in the distance I thought that that is the peak that we were going to be going to it was only after coming through badly on that side that we actually could see this mountain and you know it's only standing on top of it then we can see that this peak just pours everything around us we are currently at 6765 feet and climbing and it shows the air up here is thin and having gone to the previous archaeological sites that are all in much lower lands this one is certainly a challenge and it's made all the more entertaining by this enormous stretch of steps that lead all the way to the top of the mountain we are now at a 6977. and we are nearing the summit and you can actually see it just above me and now you may notice uh it looks a little more unusual than kind of all of the stones of the surrounding area and that would be because that is a man-made Summit and people seem to have this weird fascination with taking what nature does and then just trying to do something slightly more impressive so I find it absolutely hilarious that they have you know gone to the top of the highest peak in the area and just made like an ant hill on top of it on the shoulders of giants I guess we made it oh my God no way dude that's well worth the decline that's unbelievable mount em root has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years because of its position in the Fertile Crescent it has played host to countless civilizations throughout time some of the oldest people that we know of to have inhabited these mountains were the Hittites which some of you may remember from your history books as being one of the first civilizations to discover and produce iron however the most striking archaeological feature of Mount nemroot Bears a more Hellenistic and Persian influence the funerary and cultic complex that we see behind me was built in about the first century BCE this site was commissioned by Antiochus first after the Greek conquest of the area and it has a pretty unique style compared to a lot of other sites around here with a mix between Hellenistic Persian and Anatolian influences as we walk through this site we can see not only depictions of Antioch himself but also both Greek and Persian gods this site highlights an interesting meeting of cultures in the ancient world while Mount nemru does depict many Greek gods many of them are clad in Persian clothing this just further goes to show how this part of the world was such a Melting Pot at this time in history behind me here is the head of King Antioch Antiochus a fan of constructing large monuments to the Gods in the very high points in his land to show his connection to his affiliation with them you can see here that he has depicted himself seated alongside them although even he didn't have the audacity to position himself in the center as he is the one who is sitting the farthest to the left situated second from the left is the head of come again or if you're an American a comma Jean or comagini if you really don't know what you're doing like me I swear I did not break this sign it was like this when I got here comage was the goddess of fertility a status which is made apparent by her crown which is woven out of fruit and flowers in her lap she actually had a bundle of pomegranates but the main torso of the statue was destroyed in a lightning strike in the I believe in the 60s yeah gods were not happy about that one and lightning is actually a perfect segue into our next statue situated at the center as you will not be surprised is none other than Zeus himself Zeus the statue of Zeus is the largest at the mount nemrude funerary complex it is situated front and center of all of the Gods and Towers more than a shoulder's height above all of them I think it's fairly safe to say that I don't need to exactly explain who Zeus is and you can also probably infer it by the fact that he is the largest and the most Center of all of the statues off of Zeus's right shoulder is the statue of Apollo oh off of Zeus's oh man this is his left shoulder off of Zeus's left shoulder is the statue of Apollo this is why I need you here I need you to be able to tell my left from my right Apollo's statue has more youthful features than Zeus who Sports a massive beard and some spectacular sideburns but Apollo is portrayed as being clean shaven and wearing a beautiful pointy hat wow I do like his crown yeah pretty sick yeah the band around his head is what is known as a diadem Apollo was the god of poetry music and art and I think that you could tell that just by the fact that he's wearing such a spectacular headpiece and last but not least in our statuary row we have the head of Heracles as the son of Zeus Heracles portrayed strength he was a symbol of Mankind's resolve and his dominion over all around him you'll also notice that in his torso he is armed carrying a spear in his left hand there's also a couple honorable mentions that sit to the flank of these main characters on this side we have an eagle and a lion head and I believe it's actually mirrored on the oh no there's only an eagle on the other side but on this side we have an eagle and a lion on the other side is another eagle notice that every single one of the statues at Mount root has been decapitated these heads were created to be on the enormous thrown torsos that you see above me and there are several theories as to why this is there are some theories that it was done as some of the ritualistic decapitation and it had some sort of significance to the site itself but there is a more running Theory and one that I am a little bit more uh willing to believe that these were done sort of when a new influence came to this area and the statues were decapitated because they were either hedonistic or they were seen as being some form of sacrilege this desecration of a site is known as iconoclasm the concept that it is important to destroy all iconography that supports a differing religion or political view examples of iconoclasm can be found all throughout the world from the destruction of Idols by early Christians to the desecration of indigenous American sacred sites by The Conquistadors to even contemporarily the destruction of archaeological sites by terrorist groups like Isis while its motivations and perpetrators have changed throughout time the concept of iconoclasm has irreversibly changed our world but either way at some point in their history these statues had their heads removed the setback up now for our human pleasure what's up guys are you enjoying the video because you better be I'd like to introduce you to the sponsor of this video it's me I'm the sponsor of this video you want to know why because I wrote a book as some of you may know I wrote this book over here the one that's right here it's called the Encyclopedia of the weird and wonderful and uh at the time of me recording this it is the number one best-selling book on Amazon's uh trivia section an achievement I never thought that I would hold but here I am holding this the Encyclopedia of the weird and wonderful is a collection of weird and wonderful facts about history humanity and uh humankind as a whole you want to learn about some of the oldest board games in the world I got you want to learn how to make uh how to how to make dye out of cow piss of course you do have you ever wondered whether or not neanderthals like finger painting of course you have are you kidding me the Encyclopedia of the weird and wonderful is available for pre-order Now link to that is in the description of this video now this book has kind of a unique structure and format that I wanted to try but I'm not gonna bore you with it here because you're clearly already watching something that you know was interesting or whatever but if you want to learn more about the encycloped the weird and wonderful before you inevitably pre-order it you can check out this video right here I'd like to thank me for sponsoring this video and now let's get right back to it [Music] it is no small wonder why the ancient people decided to build here from this vantage point you can see the edge of the Taurus Mountains stretching into the Anatolian lowlands and what you now see is a lake is actually the Damned Euphrates River meaning that from this Mountaintop you are overlooking the cradle of civilization itself the philosophy behind building here is on this Terrace the East Side the gods will be the first thing that the sun would see when rising in the morning and on the West Side of the Mountain they would be the last thing that the sun would see before it sets wow that is I'm gonna go see what this is okay we're gonna take a quick detour because this looks interesting I don't know what this is all about it's made out of Fruity Pebbles yeah really my God damn snap crackle pop that's beautiful to my left is the most prominent feature of Fountain rooms the enormous man-made pile of stones that midcom bearing complex now it is just spectacular for me not only the size of the Colossal statues which sent just on the other side but just how enormous this plant is I'm sorry about the wind up here and there is nothing I can do about that but this burial tomb is especially interesting while many burial sites of the ancient world have been raided for archaeological knowledge or personal gain this one had a unique problem when archaeologist tried to explore this tomb they were faced with a massive challenge presented by cavins and so the central burial chamber was never reached with these loose Stones almost working to continually heal all of the attempts to dig further and further into the tomb so it's kind of amazing to think that in this pile of stones behind me is a completely undiscovered burial chamber that we know almost nothing about currently even least exciting but most windy of The Terraces in the North Terrace the North Terrace features this beautiful corrugated steel building and nothing of archaeological significance that we can see but behind this block that I'm about to fly open the North Terrace also has this long line of broken Stella uh which are very heavily weathered from being exposed on this Mountaintop 2000 years as far as The Terraces go at nemroot this one is probably the one that is the least photogenic year after year of snowfall has caused the Stella to fall over all in the same direction while this is unfortunate for archaeological context it has revealed a interesting part of their construction you can actually see here the base into which the stellai would have been placed as well as this raised bottom that would have fit into that spot it's interesting because we actually saw similar construction like this at quebeco Tepe so this style of constructing and holding up large Stones has been something which has been in practice for literally tens of thousands of years the reason that this building sits here now is because the North Terrace is the site of an ongoing conservation project within this corrugated metal building is a large-scale relief of the constellation Leo what's so unique about this particular carving is that it is insanely accurate archaeologists working alongside astronomers have been able to analyze this carving and be able to give an exact date to the site finding that the carving depicts the night sky as it was on the very date of antiox coronations I've talked before about using stars to date archaeological sites and in previous instances where I've talked about this the use of stars to date sites has been nefarious at best so it's important to look at this site as being an actual representation of a constellation that we know is a constellation and that being a much more reliable way to date a site whereas hypothetically looking at a single thought and saying that it's a star is not a good way to date a site no shade and a lot of wind let's keep moving thank you [Music] we are now on the West Terrace which faces the direction of the Setting Sun the West Terrace is composed exactly the same way as the East Terrace consisting of all of the same statues in the same order however the statues here are a little bit smaller and yet they are better preserved if you look behind me you can see that many of the statuary heads are in a much better condition than a lot of the statues on the other side of the feudary complex oh [ __ ] what the [ __ ] do you say homage how do you do it how do you say it there we go thank you I need you around more this is great for example uh come again is fruit uh Crown is far better preserved you can actually see the pomegranates along the side of it as well as a bunch of grapes the head of Antioch himself is also much better preserved and you can see a lot more detail that probably would have been consistent on the statue on the other side had it not been absolutely obliterated thank you and something that we see at both uh this Terrace and the Terrace on the other side is the depictions of both Eagles and lions to my right here is uh one of the eagle heads and just on his other side is a lion head well these are not the heads of gods they are seen to be protectors with both the eagle and the lion representing strength and protection over this site the head of Zeus is also much better preserved on the other Terrace the entire bottom of Zeus's head was broken off when it collapsed and so there was no beard or much of his lower half of his face preserved but here you can see the detail uh it is mustache and in the rest of his facial hair that's the nemroot picture right there if you Google nemrun you will see exactly what is behind me this is like the postcard uh postcard picture of the site you gotta take a picture prove I was really there [Music] oh [Music] nehru is one of the most spectacular and compelling sites that we have seen so far in our travels to Turkey oh Jesus and the altitude is definitely one that makes it even more enjoyable and the thing that to me is the most compelling about it is that there is still so much to learn while we know plenty about the person who designed it and its construction we know literally nothing about the interior meaning that for all intents and purposes the burial chamber at Mount nemroot remains a complete mystery however Mountain root remains a unique site one that highlights a Confluence between Persian Greek and Anatolian influences that dominated this area nearly 3 000 years ago I'd like to thank you all very much for watching my name is Milo Rossi represent serious distant and most importantly remember but sometimes it's okay to have no head [Music] thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: Miniminuteman

Views: 536,047

Keywords: History, Archaeology, science, education, documentary, ruins, ruin, ancient, discover, discovery, interesting, video essay, adventure, fact, Persia, Greece, turkey, classical history, explore, world history, news, geopolitics

Id: LRw2NBabjNM

Length: 16min 57sec (1017 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023