Finik is an archaeological site in southeastern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It is located on the rocky cliffs overlooking the eastern bank of the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

, 14 kilometers upstream from the city of

Cizre Cizre (; ar, جَزِيْرَة ٱبْن عُمَر, Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, or ''Madinat al-Jazira'', he, גזירא, Gzira, ku, Cizîr, ''Cizîra Botan'', or ''Cizîre'', syr, ܓܙܪܬܐ ܕܒܪ ܥܘܡܪ, Gāzartā,) is a city in the Cizre Dis ...

. It has been identified with the ancient ''Pinaka'', mentioned by Strabo as one of the principal cities of the region of Gordyene. The medieval Islamic medieval writers

al-Ya'qubi ʾAbū l-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer and perhaps the first historian of world cult ...

and

Abu'l-Fida Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shāhanshāh b. Ayyūb b. Shādī b. Marwān ( ar, إسماعيل بن علي بن محمود بن محمد بن عمر بن شاهنشاه بن أيوب بن شادي بن مروان ...

, who called the site ''Fenek'' or ''Fanak'', described it as the site of an impregnable fortress, the ruins of which still stand. It gained the attention of some scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but was not studied thereafter, perhaps in part due to the difficulty of accessing it, with only trails leading along the bottom of the cliffs allowing access. The site is primarily characterized by a prominent rocky outcrop overlooking the Tigris valley, upon which there are the scattered ruins of Islamic-era fortifications. These appear to correspond to the fortress mentioned by al-Ya'qubi and Abu'l-Fida. Some of these ruins also appear to be quite recent. There is also a Parthian rock relief carved into the face of a cliff rising perpendicular to the Tigris, facing northeast, towards the rocky spur that supported the old fortress. It depicts two people, in what appears to be a scene of homage or investiture, with the figure on the left appears to be nobility or royalty, bearing a sword and finely dressed. The relief was probably created in the second half of the second century CE or the beginning of the third, and resembles those found at the sites of

Hatra Hatra ( ar, الحضر; syr, ‎ܚܛܪܐ) was an ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The city lies northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul. Hatra was a strongly fortified ...

Palmyra Palmyra (; Palmyrene: () ''Tadmor''; ar, تَدْمُر ''Tadmur'') is an ancient city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early seco ...

, and

Dura-Europos Dura-Europos, ; la, Dūra Eurōpus, ( el, Δούρα Ευρωπός, Doúra Evropós, ) was a Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman border city built on an escarpment above the southwestern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the v ...

. The sculptor at Finik was probably familiar with the style and techniques used at those places. This relief was first noted by A.H. Layard in 1849. A second Parthian rock relief is also present, located on a concave wall cut into the rock of the north face of the main rock outcrop, although it is rudimentary and nothing but the outline can be discerned. It was probably carved hastily or by a less skilled sculptor.

References

{{reflist Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Parthian rock reliefs