Perrhe (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: ) was an ancient city in the kingdom of

Commagene Commagene ( grc-gre, Κομμαγηνή) was an ancient Greco-Iranian kingdom ruled by a Hellenized branch of the Iranian Orontid dynasty that had ruled over Armenia. The kingdom was located in and around the ancient city of Samosata, which ser ...

. The remains of the city are located in the modern suburb of Örenli (previously the village of Pirin or Pirun) in the northern section of

Adıyaman Adıyaman ( ku, Semsûr) is a city and district in southeastern Turkey, and the capital of the Adıyaman Province. The inhabitants of the city are mostly Kurdish. Etymology An unverified theory is that the former name of the city ''Hisn-Mansur'' ...

, Turkey. Some authors identify it with

Antiochia ad Taurum Antiochia ad Taurum (lit. "Antiochia at Taurus") ( grc, Ἀντιόχεια τοῦ Ταύρου; lit. "Antiochia of Taurus") was a Hellenistic city in ancient Syria east of Mount Amanus of the Taurus mountain range. Later identified as 'ad Taur ...

History

According to the 1925 excavations of the Swiss anthropologist Eugène Pittard, Pirin was already inhabited in

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

times. In antiquity, Perrhe was one of the four core cities of the kingdom of Commagene mentioned in inscriptions, along with

Samosata Samsat ( ku, Samîsad), formerly Samosata ( grc, Σαμόσατα) is a small town in the Adıyaman Province of Turkey, situated on the upper Euphrates river. It is the seat of Samsat District.Marash Marash (Armenian: Մարաշ), officially Kahramanmaraş () and historically Germanicea (Greek: Γερμανίκεια), is a city in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean Region of Turkey and the administrative center of Kahramanmaraş ...

and Doliche. It lay on the route from the capital of Samosata over the

Taurus mountains The Taurus Mountains ( Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir ...

to Melitene. On account of a profuse spring, which was already famous in ancient times and which now issues from a Roman fountain in the middle of the town, Perrhe was an important staging post for travellers over the mountains. On the late antique Roman route map, the

Tabula Peutingeriana ' (Latin Language, Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire. The m ...

, the town appears as the second stop on the route from Samosata, after Comana. Under

Antiochus IV Antiochus IV Epiphanes (; grc, Ἀντίοχος ὁ Ἐπιφανής, ''Antíochos ho Epiphanḗs'', "God Manifest"; c. 215 BC – November/December 164 BC) was a Greek Hellenistic king who ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his deat ...

(r. AD 38-72) Perrhe was refounded as the

polis ''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...

of Antiochia on the Taurus. A votive relief of

Jupiter Dolichenus Jupiter Dolichenus was a Roman god whose mystery cult was widespread in the Roman Empire from the early-2nd to mid-3rd centuries AD. Like several other figures of the mystery cults, Jupiter Dolichenus was one of the so-called 'oriental' gods; tha ...

which was found in the city's necropolis in 2001 derives from this period. In AD 198/200, the city probably contributed financially to the construction of the Severan Bridge. A floor mosaic found in the city indicates the importance of the place during Christian times. Under the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, Perrhe was a bishopric. In the Middle Ages, the city lost significance in the face of the town of Hisn-Mansur (modern Adıyaman).

Description

Perrhe/Pirin is reached from the city of Adıyaman by travelling along Atatürk Bulvarı along a signposted route via Sakarya Caddesi. After about four kilometres, the necropolis appears on the left, stretching along the side of the street for almost a kilometre. After that one reaches the former village of Pirin. In the centre of the village is the Roman water fountain with a stone vault covering a water channel. Remains of the city walls also survive. The vast necropolis contains free-standing

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a cadaver, corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from ...

and simple vaulted burial niches, as well as catacombs, which often contain several rooms, with vaulted niches dug out of the cliff face and irregularly separated by pilasters. Most of the graves are grouped together in sections accessed by stairs carved into the cliff face at various points. Some of the tombs have remains of reliefs still surviving in front of the entranceways, but there is no other decoration.

Excavation

Otto Puchstein Otto Puchstein (6 July 1856, Labes – 9 March 1911, Berlin) was a German classical archaeologist. From 1875 to 1879 he studied philology, classical archaeology and Egyptology at the University of Strasbourg, where his instructors include ...

and Karl Sester visited the town in 1882, as Puchstein recorded in the volume ''Reisen in Kleinasien und Nordsyrien'' ("Travels in Asia Minor and North Syria) which he co-authored with Carl Humann. In 1925, Eugène Pittard discovered a Palaeolithic settlement at Pirin, which he investigated further in the following years. In 1945, İsmail Kılıç Kökten continued these investigations and found many new objects.

Friedrich Karl Dörner Friedrich Karl Dörner (born 28 February 1911 in Gelsenkirchen; died 10 March 1992) was a German classics, epigrapher and Classical Archeologist. Born in 1911 as son of the mining office Karl Dörner and his wife Klara in Gelsenkirchen, he studie ...

and Rudolf Naumann carried out investigations of the village of Pirin and the necropolis in 1938 in the course of their expedition to Commagene. They found only a little

spolia ''Spolia'' (Latin: 'spoils') is repurposed building stone for new construction or decorative sculpture reused in new monuments. It is the result of an ancient and widespread practice whereby stone that has been quarried, cut and used in a built ...

and a recently exposed floor mosaic, of which a single field consisting of an abstract pattern and an amphora with handles survived. This was further uncovered later and investigated by Hasan Candemir and Jörg Wagner in 1975. They were able to work out that it belonged to a

Basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

with a 10 metre wide nave and two 3 metre wide side aisles and they dated the mosaic to the fifth century AD on the basis of its motifs. Dörner and Naumann also documented new sections of the necropolis. Excavations undertaken in this necropolis by the

Adıyaman Archaeological Museum Adıyaman Archaeological Museum ( Turkish: tr, Adıyaman Müzesi) is an archaeology museum in Adıyaman, southeastern Turkey. It is located at the corner of Atatürk Boulevard and Cumhuriyet Avenue in the heart of the city. The museum displays ar ...

under the leadership of the museum director Fehmi Erarslan brought to light the aforementioned votive relief of Jupiter Dolichenus, along with numerous other archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic finds. Engelbert Winter of

Münster University Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state dist ...

's has worked on the epigraphic finds and the relief at the museum in collaboration with Margherita Facella of Pisa and

Charles Crowther Charles Crowther (1831 – 17 March 1894) was a member of the Western Australian Legislative Council from 1873 to 1887. Born in Lincoln, England, in 1834, nothing is known of his ancestry or early life. In December 1850 he arrived in Western ...

of Oxford.

Bishopric

Perrhe was a bishopric in the

ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United State ...

Hierapolis Bambyce Manbij ( ar, مَنْبِج, Manbiǧ, ku, مەنبج, Minbic, tr, Münbiç, Menbic, or Menbiç) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers (19 mi) west of the Euphrates. In the 2004 census by the Cent ...

.Entry on ''catholic-hierarchy.org''
/ref> As ''Perre'', it is a

titular bishopric A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

of the

Roman Catholic church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Joseph Marie Henri Belleau OMI held the titual bishopric as

Apostolic Vicar Apostolic may refer to: The Apostles An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission: *The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles *Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Churc ...

of Baie de James (

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

) from 1939 to 1976.

References

Bibliography

* Friedrich Karl Dörner, ''Der Thron der Götter auf dem Nemrud Dağ''. 2nd Edition. Gustav Lübbe, 1987, pp. 61–64 * Fehmi Erarslan: "Die antike Stadt Perrhe und ihre Nekropole," in Jörg Wagner (Ed.), ''Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene.'' Von Zabern, Mainz 2012, pp. 146–150 .

External links

Research Centre for Asia Minor - Perrhe
{{Coord, 37, 47, 30, N, 38, 18, 04, E, type:landmark_region:TR-02, display=title Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Roman sites in Turkey Commagene History of Adıyaman Province