Visit ancient cities in Turkey by night

As of this year, 2025, major archaeological sites remain accessible until late in the evening, often after sunset. The idea is for tourists to avoid excessive daytime temperatures. These late opening hours, which will also apply to several museums, will apply until 1 October 2025. 

I can’t help wondering how safe such nighttime visits will be. Museums should not be a problem, but ancient sites are another issue. I can imagine admiring the temples, theaters, and statuary lit by floodlights, although with some cautiousness, but walking over uneven pavement may be quite hazardous. 

An excellent example is, for instance, Mount Nemrud, which will open already at 4 a.m. and close at 9 p.m. Watching the sunrise or sunset from up there is a unique and unforgettable experience. But climbing the high-stepped stairs to the monument is a challenge by daytime, so much more so by dawn or dwindling light! 

Anyway, for the brave ones or daredevils, I am sharing the sites and museums that offer extended variable visiting hours. 

Closing times for archaeological sites and museums in 2025:

Istanbul
Galata Tower – 11 p.m.
Hagia Sophia History and Experience Museum – 10 p.m.
Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum – 10 p.m.
Archaeology Museums (excluding closed sections) – 10 p.m.

Adiyaman
Nemrud – 4 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Ankara
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations – 9 p.m.
Ethnography Museum – 9 p.m.

Antalya
Antalya Museum – 10 p.m.
Alanya Museum – 10 p.m.
Aspendos – 10 p.m.
Patara – 10 p.m.
Side – 10 p.m.
Nekropol Museum – 10 p.m. 

Aydin

Didyma – 9 p.m.

Denizli
Hierapolis – 11 p.m.

Erzurum

Erzurum Museum – 9 p.m.

Gaziantep
Zeugma Mosaic Museum – 9 p.m.

Izmir
Ephesos – 11 p.m. (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday)
Museum Izmir Culture and Arts Factory – 9 p.m.

Mugla
Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology – 10 p.m.

Nevsehir - Cappadocia
Zelve-Pasa Baglari – 9 p.m.
Derinkuyu Underground City – 9 p.m.
Kaymakli Underground City – 9 p.m.
Ozkonak Underground City – 9 p.m.

Samsun
Samsun Museum – 10 p.m.

Sanliurfa
SanliUrfa Museum – 9 p.m.
Haleplibahce Mosaic Museum – 9 p.m.

Who were the Parthians?

The name of the Parthians often raises questions, and their territory is hard to define. Scholars have established that the tribe of the Parthians may be closely linked to the Scythians who lived southeast of the Caspian Sea. 

The Parthians appeared in history after the death of Alexander the Great, when Seleucos inherited the largest portion of the lands he had conquered in the east, from the eastern Mediterranean to Bactria and India. Seleucos kept the existing Persian governing system of satraps in place, and at an early stage, Parthia became one of its satrapies. 

Seleucos founded the Seleucid Empire and soon discovered that ruling such a vast territory was a nearly impossible task. As the empire weakened, the Parthians revolted and established their independence. 

The first king of Parthia was Arsaces, who came to power in 247 BC. Not for long, as the Seleucid King Antiochus III managed to reconquer Parthia in 209 BC from Arsaces’ son, the new king Arsaces II. For some unknown reason, Antiochus did not want to kill his enemy and established him instead as satrap. This did not sit well with the Parthian nobility, and as soon as Antiochus left for Syria, they deposed Arsaces II and proclaimed Phriapatius as their new king in 191 BC. 

Meanwhile, the Romans subdued Antiochus III according to the Treaty of Apamea, signed in 188 BC. Now that the Seleucid King was no longer a threat, Phriapatius’ son, Phraates, took heart and conquered the territories between Hyrcania in the east and Media in the southwest. He created a solid base for his brother Mithridates, who succeeded him on the throne in 171 BC. 

At this point, Parthia started a new era. Mithridates conquered the Bactrian kingdom in 168 BC and then turned west. He took Media from Phraates in 151 BC and then focused on Mesopotamia. He captured the capital city of Seleucia, followed by Babylon in 141 BC, and Susa three years later. 

Phraates II, Mithridates’ son, continued the fight for power. A worthy successor to his father, but his power was short-lived as he soon died in an attempt to stop a Scythian mutiny. From then onward, Parthia would be torn by successive uprisings and battles. After the death of Phraates II, Parthia was ruled by his uncle, Artabanus I, who crushed several revolts in his short life. 

His son, Mithridates II, in turn, would become Parthia’s greatest ruler (124-91 BC). He strengthened his position in Bactria, Mesopotamia, Characene (on the Iran-Iraq border where Alexander had founded Alexandria-on-the-Tigris, modern Charax Spasinou), and the realm of Babylon. He also annexed the lands of Albania and Armenia, together with the vital Syrian city of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates. Roughly, the Parthian Empire now stretched from the Mediterranean all the way to China! 

No wonder Parthia was very much coveted by the rising Roman Empire and lost several territories, including Armenia. The tables were turned in 53 BC when Crassus invaded Parthia near Carrhae (see: Harran, better known under its Roman name Carrhae) and lost. Rome suffered a severe psychological blow. The situation worsened when Marc Antony was defeated in 32 BC in an effort to keep hold of Armenia. After decades of constant fighting, Emperor Augustus secured a peace agreement with King Phraates IV in 20 BC. Instead of fighting each other, both rulers agreed to unite their efforts against enemies outside their borders. 

No treaty lasted forever, and after several skirmishes back and forth, Emperor Trajan invaded Mesopotamia in 115 AD, looting the capital cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon. At about the same time, Parthia was invaded on its eastern border by the Kushans, who established their empire in Bactria. 

However, two years later, Parthia, now ruled by Vologases IV, was invaded by Hadrian, Trajan’s successor. Lucius Verus, the adopted son of Marcus Aurelius, followed suit and sacked Seleucia and Ctesiphon once again. The Parthians managed somehow to expel the Romans, but like a Jack-in-the-Box, they returned in 198 AD. 

This time, Emperor Septimius Severus invaded Mesopotamia and marched down to take the Parthian-held cities of Seleucia, Babylon, and Ctesiphon. It makes one wonder how often cities are destroyed and rebuilt over the centuries. 

I now better understand the significance of the Severan bridge I crossed many years ago on my way to Mount Nemrud. At that time, I wondered what could have been so important in this god-forsaken, steaming hot land to need a bridge! It crossed the Cedere River, a tributary of the Euphrates. It is possibly the second-largest still-existing Roman bridge, with a length of 120 meters and a span of 34 meters. Two Corinthian columns of 9-10 meters guard either side of the bridge. One set is erected in honor of Septimius Severus and his wife Julia Domna, and the other for their two sons, Caracalla and Geta.

 

The weakened Parthian Empire finally collapsed when it was overthrown by King Ardashir, the founder of the Sassanid Empire, in 224 AD. That is another story altogether (see: Sassanid reliefs tell a story of their own in Persia).

Palmyran Beauty in full color

It has taken time to get used to, but by now, the world has generally accepted the bright colors of ancient statues and monuments. The subject was first developed in my post, Ancient Greece in full Technicolor in 2013.

The wide range of colors is something difficult to imagine, and I love it when an occasional artifact is copied in its original colors or digitally reconstructed to help to rebuild our mental images. One such example that stands out is the Lion Horoscope at Nemrud Dag (see: Full color on the lion horoscope of Nemrud Dag).

These days, my attention goes to The Beauty of Palmyra that shines at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, a museum that holds the largest collection of Palmyrene tomb sculptures outside Syria.

From left, The Beauty of Palmyra today, with reconstituted elements, and in the final stage of digital reconstruction. Tahnee L. Cracchio/Ben Goddard/Cecilie Brøns/Lars Hummelshøj

[Picture from The Art Newspaper]

This unknown woman created between 190 and 210 AD was discovered in a tomb at Qasr Abjad in Syria in 1928. Over the past months, archaeologist Cecilie Brøns has painstakingly researched the original colors of this statue using the latest techniques in order to present it in its full glory to the general public.

Before tackling the pigments, the statue was digitally reconstructed, adding the missing fragments like the nose, lips, and her left hand. Only then was the Beauty of Palmyra enhanced with the colors to bring her back to life. Additionally, her jewels were revived digitally also inspired by the precious stones found during excavations at Palmyra.

For the true aficionados, it is interesting to know that a special exhibition The Road to Palmyra runs at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek till 1 March 2020.

Full color on the lion horoscope of Nemrud Dag - updated

In an earlier blog “The Lion Horoscope of Mount Nemrud”, I spoke in detail about this intriguing horoscope on top of the lion relief that has been deciphered recently.

In the frame of the present exhibition about Mount Nemrud at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, a special colored version of this relief has been developed and the result is quite amazing: the lion actually smiles! What is more, thanks to recent research the exact date of this horoscope has been established as being 14 July 109 BC (17h17 Universal Time).

Although the lion at Allard Pierson is only a copy, I think it is worth the visit as a full color picture is hard to imagine when facing it at the top of Mount Nemrud.

As always, the exhibition is well documented with clear maps and drawings showing the statues with their heads back in place. It seems the International Nemrud Foundation is working very hard to protect the ensemble against snow and wind, and they even seem to be in the process of hoisting the heads back on top of the sitting torsos - although the archaeologist are very well aware that the next earthquake may shake them from their support once again.

 

Museum to preserve Mount Nemrud?

In August 2014, The Hurriyet Daily News came with the news that copies of the oversized statues on Mount Nemrud will be made to be exhibited in a panoramic museum to be built in Adiyaman. The underlying idea is to preserve these precious sculptures should they disappear due to the severe weather conditions on top of this mountain. To me, it would make more sense to transfer the originals and put copies out there, but then the material is terribly heavy and there is no access road to the top. In fact, they are impossible to move.

The new Adiyaman Panorama and Archaeology Museum will reflect the heritage site as if the visitor stands on top of the mountain. An ambitious project but in my eyes nothing will equal the absolute fascination and unique feeling any visitor will experience standing there on top of the world, i.e. on Mount Nemrud.

The Lion Horoscope of Mount Nemrud

I already talked in detail about the unique location of Mount Nemrud in Mount Nemrud, as close as you can come to the gods, and referred to the Lion Horoscope in my discussion, Alexandria was born under a regal star.

Mount Nemrud is a colossal funeral monument built for Antiochus I Commagene at 7,000 feet in eastern Turkey. It must already have been an extraordinary place in the first century BC. The two terraces of this tomb are directed towards the summer and winter solstices. It has recently been figured out that the colossal (now beheaded) statues on the eastern side faced the Regulus Star on the 23rd of July, i.e., the date of Antiochus' ascent to the throne, as mentioned in the inscriptions on the monument. Additionally, Antiochus explicitly refers to Alexander the Great as his ancestor in the abovementioned inscriptions. 

 

The Lion Horoscope that once adorned the west terrace is absolutely unique. From what I understand, it is now locked inside a grave chamber that has not yet been excavated. Meanwhile, the wildest stories go around about the significance of this relief.

 [Picture from Nemrud Tourist Information]

The conclusions published on the site of Learning Sites are open for discussion. This is what they say:

• The site possesses the earliest extant Greek Horoscope in the form of a striding lion -   a reading of its date firmly fixes the site in time, a rarity in archaeological research. 
• The inscriptions on the back of the ancestor stela provide conclusive evidence, available nowhere else in the ancient world, for the sequence of Seleucid, Macedonian, and Persian rulers back to Alexander the Great and Darius I, making the steles on Nemrud Dagi crucial historical documents.
• Evidence exists here to demonstrate for the first time that Alexander was called "the Great" already in antiquity.
• The fusion of Greek and Persian deities and religious rituals at Nemrud Dagi, evident in the sculptural iconography and the inscriptions, provides stunning evidence of the extent to which the Mithraic religion had moved from the Near East toward Europe, marking here in Commagene the crucial crossing from East to West of this popular counterthrust to the emergence of Christianity.
• The attention Antiochus' craftsmen paid to precise historical details of regalia on the figures depicting rulers hundreds of years earlier than the Hellenistic age is unprecedented. [Read the complete story at the Learning Sites]. 

The relief, measuring 1.7 x 2.4 meters, is in itself rather intriguing. It shows a majestic-looking male lion covered with nineteen stars (in the shape of eight-pointed rays) set in such a way that they closely resemble the constellation of Leo. Above his back, three stars are depicted with sixteen points instead of eight. These are recognized as planets, i.e., Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter, labeled by their Greek names, Pyroeis Herakleos, Silboon Apollonos, and Phaeton Dios, respectively. An upturned moon crescent is under the lion's neck, symbolizing the New Moon. The star above this moon disk is Regulus, always associated with royalty throughout history, from Babylonian and Persian to Greek and Ptolemaic kings. ,

 

It is clear that in many ancient cultures, the lion was commonly used to symbolize power, magnificence, and dominance. It was first popular in the Near East, where we find lions on the walls of many palaces (Babylon, Susa, etc.) and on border stones. The lion definitely represented royalty at the time of the Commagene rulers. Also, many lions were found in Macedonia and Greece as symbols of royal power, later adopted by the Romans. 

The labeling of the Lion Horoscope may be a far-reaching one. What we actually have here are three elements: the lion or the constellation Leo (representing royalty, military, and political power), an inscription identifying the three planets (Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter), and the crescent symbolizing the moon goddess (source of fertility known as Tyche/Commagene). According to one theory, the Lion Horoscope was meant to contribute to the self-divination of King Antiochus I, placed at the center of this relief and depicted as a conquering lion. But then, there are a thousand and one other theories losing themselves between astronomy and astrology, although with interesting retro-active calculations placing the constellations in the skies of two thousand years ago. 

More details but not necessarily convincing elements can be found in this article by A. Öncü Güney, "An Iconological Study on the Lion Horoscope Relief of Nemrut Dag Hierothesion and on the site of Learning Sites mentioned above.

Arsemia, the summer capital of the Commagene Kingdom

Very few people have heard of the Commagene Kingdom, and even less of Arsemia. Well, to be honest, I hadn’t either till I visited Mount Nemrud (see: Nemrud, as close as you can come to the gods) a few years ago.

 

Arsemia, once the summer residence of the Commagene kings, is located sixty kilometers from Adiyaman. At the foot of this ancient city, there is a magnificent relief representing Heracles (or maybe Artagnes, a Persian deity whom the Greeks identified with Heracles) shaking hands with King Mithridates of Commagene from around 50 BC, and next to it is located the greatest Greek inscription of Anatolia. This sounds interesting enough for anyone to make the detour to visit the place, I would say.

There is a special path, once used for religious ceremonies that leads up the mountain with a statue pointing towards the temple. About one hundred meters farther stands what is called a Dexiosis relief, i.e. the abovementioned handshake. Nearby are several rooms cut from the rocky cliffs that were used for religious ceremonies. Further uphill still, one discovers the large Greek inscription telling about the political intentions and the religious beliefs of the Commagene Kingdom and mentioning Arsemia as its capital. It also states that Mithridates, the father of King Antiochus I, was buried here. Just beneath this inscription is a stairway running 158 meters down into the depth of the rocks and this once was the entrance to Arsemia which is now blocked. It would be interesting to learn what future excavations may reveal. Above the inscription, another path runs up the mountainside towards the remains of the Arsemia Palace and its mosaic floors.

 

It was King Antiochus I (Theos – signifying his divinity -  Dikaios Epiphanes Philoromaios Philhellen of Commagene) who built the city in honor of this father, King Mithridates I Callinicus. Due to its location, it soon became a military fortress, now to be found next to the modern town of Eski Kale and still showing well preserved walls and parapets. Antiochus’ mother was nobody less than Laodike, daughter of the Seleucid King Antiochus VII Grypos who ruled Commagene from around 69 to ca 31 BC.

 

About a mile outside Arsemia there are the remains of a Roman bridge built in honor of Septimius Severus around 200 AD. Here I can pick up the link for I crossed this very bridge on my way to Mount Nemrud. It has been erected at the narrowest point of the River Cedere and it is said that its 34 meters clear span makes it the second largest extant arch bridge ever built by the Romans.

 

There must be a second Arsemia on the Euphrates, at the modern location of Gerger, where Antiochus I set up a similar religious centre in honor of his father. Gee, there is still so much to discover and to see!

[Pictures from The Velvet Rocket Magazine]

Mount Nemrud, as close as you can come to the gods

The road to getting there is a unique experience as tension and expectations are building up all along the way!

As I'm approaching Kâhta in south-eastern Turkey,  I first glance at the mountains topped by the perfect conically shaped Tomb of Mount Nemrud. I have no idea what to expect, for I only know the pictures of the colossal heads from many a travel magazine. Kâhta isn't much; a few hotels and car rental companies - sum it up. Yet it's the last town of any significance before reaching my destination, Mount Nemrud. From here onward, it is impossible to travel by bus, and I have to board one of the smaller vans. This is where the actual climb starts, a winding dirt road with short stretches of asphalt. I pass through settlements of about a dozen houses amidst generally bleached land. Higher up from one of the hilltops, I view the immense surrounding landscape stamped by the Euphrates River, which, because of the many dams built for irrigation purposes, looks as wide as a succession of lakes. Occasionally I pass patches of cultivated land fed by a scarce mountain stream. I don't see a single soul, although the houses seem occupied.

When the van stops, I appear to be in a place called Karakuş, i.e., a kind of tumulus framed by two columns with an eagle on top keeping watch. This is the Tomb of King Mithridates II (124-87 BC). In the back of the tumulus, I discover another set of two columns that were once topped by lions. Halfway in between stands a lonely column carrying a relief of King Mithridates holding the hand of his wife, Laodike. Mithridates ruled over the Commagene Empire, just like Antiochus I, the builder of Nemrud, and his tomb is a discreet promise of what lies ahead. Since this is the first time I'm confronted with the Commagene, I  need to dig back into history.

This region was included in the Persian Empire from the 6th century BC until Alexander the Great's victory at Issus in 333 BC. After he died in 323 BC, this part of his empire fell to Seleucos I Nikator (see: In the wake of Seleucos Nicator I). When, in turn, the Seleucid Empire was conquered by the Romans in 189 BC, it didn't take long for new kingdoms to emerge. Commagene, one of the successors of the Seleucids, occupied the area between the Taurus Mountains and the Euphrates River. The kingdom of Commagene was founded in 162 BC. In 109 BC, Mithridates Kalinikos I, who ruled over the Persians and Macedonians (descendants of Alexander the Great), joined both countries into a mighty buffer zone between the Parthians in the east and the Romans in the west. The peak of this kingdom was reached under Antiochus I Epiphanes (69-36 BC), the successor of Mithridates and thus the builder of Nemrud. Eventually, in 72 AD, the territory was annexed by Emperor Vespasian to the Roman province of Syria.

A tributary of the Euphrates, the Cendere, is a wide but short watercourse that lies across my road. It has been bridged on its narrowest point. This is not just any bridge but one that dates back to the 2nd century AD, built by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. I am allowed to walk across the bridge on foot, a hugely gratifying experience! Imagine threading over a 2,000-year-old bridge. It makes you wonder about its role and purpose in this isolated and steaming hot place – it definitely commands high respect for the builders as far as I'm concerned.

The van drives on for another hour to stop at an idyllic mountain terrace with eating facilities situated amidst apple orchards. The view is superb, and I have no idea how much further or higher I'll have to climb, for it already feels like I have reached the mountain range. The black ribbon of our road winds away in the landscape and disappears beyond the horizon into the unknown. Picking up the drive again, the van rattles over occasional brick-paved or totally unpaved roads. On a steep hill, it suddenly comes to a final halt; this is the end. The last stretch has to be climbed on foot, although I still fail to see the colossal heads that must be out there somewhere. After half an hour of huffing and puffing, scrambling over high steps up the rough slope, I finally reach the top at 7,700 feet.

I arrived at the very foot of a clean conical heap of loose gravel, approximately 50 meters high and 150 meters in diameter, piled up on top of the existing mountain, presumably covering the Tomb of Antiochus. In fact, this cone has been built with the material left over from carving the giant statues and many friezes that I'm about to see.

On the east and west sides, I discover the enormous statues and heads I recognize from the pictures. On the east side, a row of styled sitting figures that originally stood 8-10 meters high is facing me, their decapitated heads resting at their respective feet. From left to right, I'm identifying Apollo (equaling Mithra, Helios, Hermes); Tyche, Commagene's goddess of fertility; Zeus (equaling Ahura Mazda); Antiochus in person (why settle for less!), and Heracles (equaling Artagnes or Ares). These are, in fact, all the most important Persian and Greek gods of Antiochus' empire, and it is generally accepted that he attempted to unify his multi-ethnic kingdom to secure his authority. On either side of this group of statues stands an eagle, the symbol of freedom. Next to it is a lion, a symbol of courage. An identical group of figures stands on the western side, all decapitated as well, but catching the full sunlight this time of day. Whereas the statues on the eastern side are decorated with Asian attributes, those on the western side show European accessories – a sign of Antiochus' goal of joining the East and West.

It is unclear whether the statues have suffered from the frequent earthquakes or if some odd archaeologist tried to blow up the pile of gravel to find the still-eluding tomb of Antiochus I. The path connecting the east and west sides runs along the northern slope, where several reliefs with unrecognizable artwork have been aligned. It appears they were fitted in the ground with a kind of wedge, an intriguing feature. On the west side, a few original reliefs are still in situ, representing King Antiochus in person together with Apollo on one, Zeus on the other, and finally, Heracles on the next one.

What a place, however, for a sanctuary! It's hard to come any closer to the gods, I think. The view from up here beats everything I have ever seen and surpasses any possible description. It is too grand, too wide, and too panoramic to comprehend. I take pictures, perfectly realizing that the eye sees far more than my camera, but the temptation is far too big. I'm genuinely standing on top of the world! Who says that's in the Himalayas? I doubt you'll have such a view from there! What a beauty.

The big attraction is visiting these altars by sunrise or sunset. The thought of witnessing the sun peeping above the horizon in the great silence and peace that comes with it must be awe-inspiring and rewarding. Yet, you will not be able to enjoy the exceptional panorama I've been treated to. Besides, to get here before sunrise, you'll have to be on your way before the crack of dawn, and if you want to arrive by sunset, you'll have to face a long, scary, and dangerous drive back in the dark. I'm not sure I would like that.

Alexandria was born under a regal star

With Christmas just around the corner and the stories about the star of Bethlehem flaring up once again, the time feels right to talk about the "birth" of Alexandria in Egypt, the first grand-scale city built by Alexander the Great.

Alexander founded Alexandria in 333 BC, and it is generally considered the first of the "king's towns." Recent studies by members of the Faculty of Civil Architecture in Milan, Italy, have revealed that the main longitudinal axis of the city, the Canopic Way, is oriented towards the rising sun on the day Alexander was born, and if that were not enough, to the Regulus star that rose in the same direction. This is not a coincidence but an achievement where astronomers and architects, or diviners and builders, worked hand in hand. An exciting revelation that incites us to have a closer look at the foundation of Hellenistic cities.

Despite the statements made by Plutarch and Diodorus, the location of Alexandria was not particularly suitable for building a city. In fact, it was set on a narrow strip of land squeezed between the sea and the marshy lands at the mouth of the Nile's Canopus. Preliminary works are required if we believe what is written in the Alexander Romance, the drainage of several canals before covering the area with streets – at least three of such canals have been located during recent excavation works. Moreover, other excavations in the early 20th century revealed that the Canopic Way was deeply carved out of the underlying bedrock. Nothing was left to chance. 

Alexander never saw his city completed (achieved by Ptolemy, who inherited this part of Alexander's Empire after his death), as it became the home of the famous Lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the incomparable Library of Alexandria. Still, from its very start, the place was very unique.

Hippodamus of Miletus, who had revolutionized ancient town planning by introducing a plan that answered to rigorously right-angled streets at mathematically equal distances, had been widely used throughout Greece and Asia Minor since the fifth century BC. Alexander took the very concept one step further in Egypt by adding an element of "cosmic" order.

From the very beginning, the city was designed in all its details with a rather huge perimeter. It was divided into five quarters, labeled with the first five letters of the Greek alphabet. The main east-west road was called the Canopic Way, and the main crossroad was, strangely enough, a dyke (Eptastadion) that connected the isle of Pharos to the mainland. The particularity of this city plan is that this Canopic Way played the role of the city center, with all the official buildings and temples aligned along its 30-meter-wide street instead of being around a central agora. Yet the most striking factor is that this road was not laid out according to local topography but ran slightly off a parallel with the coastline of the Mediterranean.

Thanks to computer calculations, Italian researchers determined the sun's position in the fourth century BC, taking into account that the sun's path in the sky has changed over time because of the variations in the Earth's orbit. This is how they determined that on July 20, 356 BC, the day Alexander was born, the sun rose in near-perfect alignment with the Canopic Way – the "near perfect" being less than half a degree off, a negligible difference. On top of that, they established that "Regulus," the so-called "King's star," i.e., the brightest star in the constellation of Leo located near its head, also rose along the same alignment. This is a clear statement that the city of Alexandria was born under its very own stars, if you include the sun in stardom.

Who would have expected Alexander to take his planning to such a divine stage? And why would he have gone through so much trouble?

One would expect that the Egyptians were responsible for this kind of calculation. After all, they had a long history of associating the sun god Ra with their pharaohs and built the Great Pyramids perfectly oriented to the four points of the compass. Yet that was ignoring the thorough knowledge of Greek mathematicians and astronomers. Only now do we realize that the city's planners did not use the Egyptian solar calendar, which counted 365 days per year, but the Greek lunisolar calendar. Alexander was born on the sixth day of the first month of the New Year, and New Year's Day was the day of the first new moon after the summer solstice, which eventually led us to July 20 in 356 BC. Additionally, the Greeks used the rising of the stars as forerunners of important festivals, which might very well apply to Alexandria.

Is it a surprise or a coincidence that "Regulus," the star associated with the kingship since Babylonian times, rose at the same azimuth on that same day? Knowing Alexander, he would not have missed the opportunity to include such a symbolic moment in the foundation of his new city. After all, he had just returned from Siwah, where he had been declared the son of Ammon-Zeus. Researchers now agree that Alexandria in Egypt was, in fact, the prototype for later Hellenistic towns designed as "king's towns," meant to refer to the divine power of their founder (and probably to the memory of Alexander).

It is interesting to hear that the Italian team has taken their research one step further to see if this same solar alignment occurred in other cities of the same period within the same cultural context. For that purpose, they examined the foundation of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris and the magnificent funerary monument at Mount Nemrud in today's eastern Turkey.

Seleucia-on-the-Tigris was founded in 300 BC by Seleucos, one of Alexander's generals, who by 305 BC became king of eastern Asia as Seleucos I Nicator (see: Seleucos Nicator, in the wake of Alexander). Seleucia, located as the name says on the banks of the Tigris River in modern Iraq, may be more symbolic than expected at first sight. The city is not far from Babylon, where Alexander died in 323 BC and where Seleucos built his new capital. Just like Alexandria, the foundation of this city is lost among many legends. Seleucos himself was acclaimed as a god, the son of Apollo, and it is obvious that this divine power rubbed off on this city. 

Diodorus described Alexandria's shape as "similar to a chlamys," and Pliny records that Seleucia resembled an eagle. But focusing on Seleucia's main street, the Italian team discovered that its Canopic Way was entirely inspired by that of Alexandria. Archaeological maps and satellite images established that if Alexandria and Seleucia had been on the same latitude, the sun with a flat horizon would have risen in Seleucia in alignment with its Canopic Way on the very same day as it rose in Alexandria. There is, however, a slight difference in latitude between both cities, and the match would occur on July 27 instead – a minimal difference, but still close enough to Alexander's birthday. On top of this solar match, there is also a close concordance with the famous Regulus star.

The Italian professors are therefore tempted to declare that the foundation of Seleucia has been inspired by Alexandria's practical and symbolic perspectives. Being located so close to where Alexander died, it is not difficult to attribute an identical reference to his power several years later. The King's Star only adds to the magic and mystique of the site.

And then there is the case of Mount Nemrud, where a vast funeral monument was built for Antiochus I Commagene. The same story of Hellenistic divinity applies here, although different because we are talking about a tomb and not about a city. Today's location at 7,000 ft is off the beaten path in a relatively remote area of eastern Turkey, but must have been an exceptional place in the first century BC when this monument was built. The two terraces of this tomb are directed towards the summer and winter solstices, and it has been recently figured out that the colossal (now beheaded) statues on the eastern side faced the sunrise on July 23, being the date of Antiochus' ascent to the throne as mentioned in the inscriptions on the monument. Moreover, there is another striking coincidence with Alexandria since Antiochus explicitly refers to Alexander the Great as his ancestor in the inscriptions mentioned above.

Only a few people know this tomb includes a peculiar "lion horoscope" depicting Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and even the crescent moon in Leo. Most notable is the presence of the Regulus star, which, like in Alexandria, rose at this latitude around July 23 during the reign of Antiochus I.

The above analysis clearly shows that nothing was left to chance when building new cities or important monuments. They include more astronomical elements and references to Megas Alexandros than we would suspect. It would be interesting to see more "Alexandria's" investigated similarly, for I wouldn't be surprised if we found more similar evidence in every Alexander city.

[For pictures, please refer to this article in the Archaeology News]