Ankara University and the Adıyalam Municipality have initiated a joint georadar project aimed at the visualization and unravelling of the mysteries of the 2,000-year-old Karakuş Tumulus situated.
The aim is to gather data through georadar imaging in the region where the tumulus is located, then reveal the locations and depths of possible burial sites with two- and three-dimensional imagining, said Selma Kadıoğlu, the head of the study team.
Pointing out that the georadar study will provide significant contributions in identifying priority areas before archaeologists commence their excavation works, Kadıoğlu also noted through imaging at depths ranging from 35 to 45 meters, the team can ascertain the presence of any structural problems or fractures within the site.
Yusuf Kaan Kadıoğlu, the dean of Ankara University’s Engineering Faculty, also said they will be able to carry out ground structure detection using area imaging without the need for excavation.
“Previously, some excavation works were partially conducted in this area, but subsurface imaging has not been comprehensively undertaken. Through this study, we will determine what lies beneath the surface without the need for digging,” he noted.
About Karakuş Tumulus
Karakuş means black bird in Turkish, and the monument received this name as there is a column topped by an eagle. The tumulus is surrounded by groups of three Doric columns, each about nine meters high. The columns are topped with steles reliefs and statues of a bull, lion and eagle. An inscription indicates the presence of a royal tomb that housed three women.
The monument has Greek honorific inscriptions on the external faces of the two drums of the central column of the northeast. Skipping a couple of phrases where restoration has been doubtful, the inscription reads:
This is the hierothesion [sacred site or foundation] of Isias, whom the great King Mithridates (she being his own mother) … deemed worthy of this final hour. And … Antiochis lies herein, the king’s sister by the same mother, the most beautiful of women, whose life was short but her honours long-enduring. Both of these, as you see, preside here, and with them a daughter’s daughter, the daughter of Antiochis, Aka. A memorial of life with each other and of the king’s honour.
Sometime after the Kingdom of Commagene was annexed in 72 CE by the Roman emperor Vespasian, the vault of the tomb was looted.
