Travel is Travels With Sheila’s education. For example – What is a tumulus? An artificial mound over a grave, barrow. Out of the bus parking lot where the first sight was an eagle on top of a column at the Karakus Tumulus….View image…, rather underwhelming if truth can be told. This memorial burial mound was built in 36 B.C. for the women of the Commagene royal family, an ancient kingdom of the Hellenistic Age.

There are only a few columns left on this site since the remainder of the limestone blocks were taken by the Romans to build the Cendere bridge (to be seen after the Karakus Tumulus). The group walked around while Oz explained. This 35m/114′ high monument was constructed by Mithridates II, as a memorial to his mother, Isas. Four columns surround the site, each around 10m/32′ high. Large figures of an eagle and a lion stand on top of two columns…….View image. A third had an inscribed slab on top explaining that the burial mound holds female relatives of King Mithridates and showed the king shaking hands with his sister, Laodike…View image.

Almost a sister to the ruins of Arsameia, the former capital to the Commagene empire that we’d visit tomorrow; one of the columns here looked east, another looked west, and surprisingly, it was all original. Nothing has been restored. I think (Oz really lost me during his explanations) that standing on a small rise near two of the columns, Arsameia would have been visible with sharp vision. No matter how I tried (even with a telephoto lens), nothing was visible to me. I also have no idea exactly what the eagle and lion represented.

Karakus Tumuli is important historically but the “Big Picture” was completely boring. Give me a Pistachio nut field any day. Others disagreed… If you visit, let me know what you think.