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National Geographic : 1961 Mar
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tall-of Antiochus and his gods. Apparently the North Terrace had been unadorned save for a guardian eagle and a wall of standing slabs. The workmen had piled the rock chipped from the terraces into a 150-foot high tumulus upon the mountain peak. Clearing 20 feet of debris from the plat form supporting the East Terrace statues proved a formidable task. The summit of fered no dumping area for the stones we re moved. Workmen had to carry them part way down the slope on litters fashioned from our small and precious supply of wood. Only the Goddess Kept Her Head That first excavation established the East Terrace with its Persian fire altar as the cere monial center of the shrine. Looking up at Antiochus and his gods - a ruined pantheon presiding over a ruined Olympus-none of us could escape a sensation of awe. The very size of the images was overpowering; upon their platform, itself 20 feet tall, they rose as high as a five-story building (page 390). These gods combined the deities worshiped by the king's Greek and Persian ancestors. At the south end of the platform, in ageless serenity, sat the Sun God - a fused Apollo Mithra-Helios-Hermes; beside him, the For tuna, or Fertility Goddess of Commagene; in the center, the "Thunder Shaker" and "Father of the Gods," Zeus-Ahuramazda; next, Antiochus; and finally at the north end, the Hero God of Strength, Herakles-Artag nes-Ares. The implacable ravages of the centuries had decapitated all but one: The goddess had kept her head. Staring at those statues, I marveled at the engineering skill revealed by Antiochus's 394
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