Perrhe (

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

: ) was an ancient city in the kingdom of

Commagene Commagene () was an ancient Greco-Iranian kingdom ruled by a Hellenized branch of the Orontid dynasty, Orontids, a dynasty of Iranian peoples, Iranian origin, that had ruled over the Satrapy of Armenia. The kingdom was located in and around the ...

. 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 () is a city in southeastern Turkey. It is the administrative centre of Adıyaman Province and Adıyaman District. Its population is 267,131 (2021). The inhabitants of the city are mostly Turkish and Kurdish. The city was one of the ...

, Turkey. Some authors identify it with Antiochia ad Taurum.

History

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

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

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

Samosata Samsat (, Ottoman Turkish صمصاد ''Semisat''), formerly Samosata () is a small town in the Adıyaman Province of Turkey, situated on the upper Euphrates river. It is the seat of Samsat District.Marash and Doliche. It lay on the route from the capital of Samosata over the

Taurus mountains The Taurus Mountains (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar,'' Greek language, Greek'':'' Ταύρος) are a mountain range, mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal reg ...

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 known as Peutinger's Tabula, Peutinger tablesJames Strong (theologian) , James Strong and John McClintock (theologian) , John McClintock (1880)"Eleutheropolis" In: ''The Cyclopedia of Bibli ...

, the town appears as the second stop on the route from Samosata in the direction of Comana. Under

Antiochus IV Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( 215 BC–November/December 164 BC) was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during Antiochus' reign include his near-conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of ...

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

polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...

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; th ...

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 known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

, Perrhe was a bishopric. In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, 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 (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek σάρξ ' meaning "flesh", and φ� ...

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 In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

. 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 Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

) 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 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 for 'spoils'; : ''spolium'') are stones taken from an old structure and repurposed for new construction or decorative purposes. It is the result of an ancient and widespread practice (spoliation) whereby stone that has been quar ...

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 (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

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

Bishopric

Perrhe was a bishopric in the

ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction in Christian churches, including those of both Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity, that have traditional hierarchical structures. An ecclesiastical province consist ...

Hierapolis Bambyce Manbij (; ; ) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, west of the Euphrates. The 2004 census gives its population as nearly 100,000.

.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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. 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 Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

) 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 . * Fehmi Eraslan, Engelbert Winter:
Perrhe (Pirun) – Geographische Lage, Topographie und (Forschungs-) Geschichte
" in: Engelbert Winter (ed.), ''ΠΑΤΡΙΣ ΠΑΝΤΡΟΦΟΣ ΚΟΜΜΑΓΗΝΗ. Neue Funde und Forschungen zwischen Taurus und Euphrat.'' Habelt, Bonn 2008, pp. 179–187.

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 towns and cities in Turkey Commagene History of Adıyaman Province