Our first itinerary was sparked by a longing for seeing the gods on Mt. Nemrut in situ. After a spontaneous journey to the area, an itinerary slowly took shape following the physical terrain, rather than administrative divisions. After all, political boundaries are nothing if not transient compared to a climate, or a geography, measured by geological time. Our main idea was to contrast the vast flatness of the plain with the steep incline of the mountain where gods reside. Therefore, we started our journey at the break of dawn by looking over the horizon to the Euphrates river from the summit of Mt. Nemrut, and having travelled hundreds of kilometres through rapidly changing landscapes, ended up at Göbeklitepe, where people built a dwelling for gods before they were residents themselves.
“Yet I think that our Roman ancestors were mistaken about the meaning and the sounds emanating from the tectonic gaping. Since they didn’t understand the commotion emanating from the dark bowels of the ground, they interpreted the yawning that came out of the fault as the words of phantoms coming back from the depths of the Underworld. They acted like we,citizens, do; they humanized, they politicized the World. No, the dead don’t speak or sing or weep or howl; their dust and bones remain silent forever. This commotion, this noise, this rumbling emanating out of the cavern and its dark masses comes from the world itself, without any superfluous masks, dead or gods.”
Michel Serres, “Earth and Mountains,” Biogea, 2012.
