Humans in this part of the world have long blamed the Earth's sudden and violent changes on supernatural agents. Even Antiochus's statues were carved from uplifted limestone. Surrounding me are the constructs of geology, the real ruler of this land-limestone and shale that formed at the bottom of a deep marine basin and that, over time, were pushed up into mountain ranges. All these constructs of human imagination are laced with cracks or toppled on their sides. I pause before great stone heads of Zeus, Heracles, Apollo-and of the vainglorious king himself. And someday-an instant from now in geologic time-the king's tomb will be gone, his coffin laid bare by the ravaging tremors he thought he had risen above. The tumulus has shrunk to 150 feet (46 meters) as rocks have tumbled down the mountain. I nod, knowing I could never convince him how little power human actions have over the titanic forces of the Earth-even with the abundant evidence I find a few hours later at the pinnacle of Nemrud. They are pumping out the oil and the land collapses." Gesturing toward a cluster of oil wells on the rocky landscape, the driver declares: "That's why we have earthquakes. No doubt Antiochus's understanding of geology was as flawed as that of the driver who is now transporting me in his dolmuş from the Turkish town of Kâhta to Nemrud Dagh. On terraces around the tumulus stood a pantheon of colossal statues-gods and heroes with whom he expected to consort in the afterlife. He constructed a conical tumulus more than 200 feet (61 meters) high from fist-size rocks, hauled up and assembled with unimaginable labor. There, he proclaimed, his mausoleum would be "unravaged by the outrages of time." In the first century B.C., a self-absorbed kind named Antiochus I, ruler of the ancient land of Commagene, built an audacious tomb and monument to himself on top of a 7,000-foot-high (2,134-meter-high) mountain called Nemrud Dagh. Nowhere have civilization and nature waged more persistent war than in this part of the world-from easternmost Turkey to the western tip of Greece. But, in fact, I know what no one wants to hear: it will never be over. Geçmiş olsun-"May it be over." I've said that phrase so many times to survivors of the killing earthquakes near Istanbul. Heartache has followed me from the rubble piles along the Sea of Marmara to a bleak and rocky landscape in eastern Turkey.
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