Join us for this IAAM session with Peter Mark Adams on Mount Nemrut’s ritualised landscape, astronomical alignments, and on seeing from pre-modern perspectives!
Saturday, 16 May 2026, 5:00 pm UTC
https://astromagia-org.zoom.us/j/83612732156?pwd=70v1xeGgaFCqIotlmqTmOPGobW3P9d.1
Meeting ID: 836 1273 2156 | Passcode: 729221
10:00 am PDT / 12:00 am CDT / 1:00 pm EDT / 6:00 pm BST / 7:00 pm CEST
please note, our website is in Universal Time Coordinate
The ritual complex, or Hierothesion, high on the summit of Mount Nemrut in South Eastern Türkiye was one of the three sacred sites of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Commagene. Too often dismissed as a grandiose folly, recent studies of the site’s astronomical alignments and their connection with the dynastic gods and ancestral beings point to its fulfilling a far more potent spiritual purpose.
This illustrated talk will provide a resume of the site’s astronomy but will focus primarily on their metaphysical meaning and significance.
The ritual complex, or Hierothesion, high on the summit of Mount Nemrut in South Eastern Turkiye was one of the three sacred sites of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Commagene. Too often dismissed as a grandiose folly, recent studies of the site’s astronomical alignments and their connection with the dynastic gods and ancestral beings point to its fulfilling a far more potent spiritual purpose. This illustrated talk will provide a resume of the site’s astronomy but will focus primarily on their metaphysical meaning and significance.
A World Heritage site, Mount Nemrut is an outstanding example of a fully ritualised Hellenistic landscape evincing strong celestial alignments. The significance and purpose of this site, however, has never been addressed from a pre-modern perspective.
The idea is to view the site through the eyes of its designers and seek to understand their deepest beliefs and thought processes and to answer the question, “what did they seek to achieve?”.
The astronomical model of the organisation of Mount Nemrut is not my own (I'm not an astronomer); but I will present the best technical account of the astronomically shaped ritual landscape of Mount Nemrut available to us.
Peter Mark Adams is an author, poet and essayist specialising in the ethnography of ritual, sacred landscapes, esotericism, consciousness and healing. A Philosophy graduate, Peter pursues advanced studies in iconology, iconography, Renaissance art and material culture with the Warburg Institute’s School of Advanced Studies. Published works include: ‘Visible Gods: Astro-Ethnography and the Cult of Mithras’ (forthcoming); ‘Ritual and Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras’; ‘Two Esoteric Tarots’ (with Christophe Poncet); ‘The Hagia Sophia/Sanctum of Kronos’; ‘The Power of the Healing Field’; Mystai: Dancing out the Mysteries of Dİonysus’; ‘The Game of Saturn: Decoding the Sola-Busca Tarocchi’.
Contact: petermarkadams@gmail.com - @petermarkadams on FB - @petermarkadams on Insta