The Kingdom of Commagene

The Kingdom of Commagene (163 BCE - 72 CE) was a Hellenistic political entity, heavily influenced by Armenian and ancient Persian culture and traditions, established in southwestern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) by Ptolemaeus of Commagene (r. 163-130 BCE) of the Orontid Dynasty who had formerly been satrap (governor) of the region under the Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE). The Seleucid Empire had been in steady decline since it came into conflict with Rome in 190 BCE and, by 163 BCE, no longer had the strength to maintain its earlier cohesion. Ptolemaeus seized on the weakness, declared Commagene an independent state, and became its first king.
The name derives from Kummuh, a Neo-Hittite kingdom of the Iron Age located in the same area, and Commagene would retain indigenous Luwian and Hittite traditions and motifs in its architecture. The region had been part of Urartu, the proto-Armenian kingdom, under the name Sophene, which became part of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE). The Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 330 BCE and, after Alexander’s death, the region became part of the Seleucid Empire at which point Sophene became its own kingdom.
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[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

What are your thoughts on this episode? Support the channel below! Get your SEA PEOPLES Mediterranean Tour Shirt Today! teespring.com/sea-peoples-mediterranean-tour Check out our new store! teespring.com/stores/the-history-shop Hittite Coffee Mug: teespring.com/HittiteEmpireMug To support the channel, become a Patron and make history matter! Patreon: www.patreon.com/The_Study_of_Antiquity_and_the_Middle_Ages Donate directly to PayPal: paypal.me/NickBarksdale Enjoy history merchandise? Check out affiliate link to SPQR Emporium! spqr-emporium.com?aff=3 *Dislaimer, the link above is an affiliate link which means we will earn a generous commission from your magnificent purchase, just another way to help out the channel! Join our community! Facebook Page: facebook.com/THESTUDYOFANTIQUITYANDTHEMIDDLEAGES/ Twitter: twitter.com/NickBarksdale Instagram: instagram.com/study_of_antiquity_middle_ages/ Facebook Group: facebook.com/groups/164050034145170/

[@dannyvanhecke]

Sea Peoples Mediterranean Tour sure has a cool design.. just got mail saying my hoodie is shipped.

[@GudeaTW]

Excellent video! The kingdoms of Commagene and Sophene are definitely overlooked.

[@alisaloria272]

Very informative. Thank you.

[@michellemarquez3874]

Really enjoyed this piece of history

[@shortnanehdooz]

Great as usual, though just would like to point out that I believe that's Mithradates II of Parthia coinage and not Mithradates II of Commagene in the visuals.

[@dannyvanhecke]

"Believing himself to be a God in human form, he created a royal cult based upon worship of himself"... Damn, guess it's safe to assume he was pretty naricissistic.

[@Goodkidjr43]

No. Actually, the religions of that time believed, like the Egyptians, that great leaders were gods because they were so successful i.e. were powerful, behaved and succeeded like the gods in heaven.

[@waynedombrowski7568]

Truly haunting images. Fascinating history. Thank you!

[@anahitpetrosyan1749]

Thank you for the unique video. I've always wanted to know the history of these extraordinary statues, but never found these details. Wish you all the best.

[@kaarlimakela3413]

I'd only seen the statuary fleetingly ... Tickled to know these details now. BTW ... I saw something about the Black Sea region during the latter part of the last Ice Age ... I will link it right here prob tomorrow. What do you have so far on the Black Sea Neolithic, even Mesolithic human presence around the lake? Didn't find anything on this yet just briefly poking around the videos on your channel... But you do have a ton of stuff!

[@theokaraman]

Epitaph of Antiochos, King of Kommagini C. P Cavafy - 1923 After the funeral of the scholarly Antiochos, King of Commagene, whose life had been restrained and gentle, his sister, deeply afflicted, wanted an epitaph for him. So, on the advice of Syrian courtiers, the Ephesian sophist Kallistratos (who often resided in the small state of Commagene and was a welcome and frequent guest at the royal house) wrote an epitaph and sent it to the old lady. "People of Commagene, let the glory of Antiochos, the noble king, be celebrated as it deserves. He was a provident ruler of the country. He was just, wise, courageous. In addition he was that best of all things, Hellenic*- mankind has no quality more precious: everything beyond that belongs to the gods." * translated also as "Hellenistic" Επιτύμβιον Αντιόχου, βασιλέως Κομμαγηνής Μετά που επέστρεψε, περίλυπη, απ' την κηδεία του, η αδελφή του εγκρατώς και πράως ζήσαντος, του λίαν εγγραμμάτου Αντιόχου, βασιλέως Κομμαγηνής, ήθελ' ένα επιτύμβιον γι' αυτόν. Κι ο Εφέσιος σοφιστής Καλλίστρατος - ο κατοικών συχνά εν τω κρατιδίω της Κομμαγηνής, κι από τον οίκον τον βασιλικόν ασμένως κ' επανειλημμένως φιλοξενηθείς- το έγραψε, τη υποδείξει Σύρων αυλικών, και το έστειλε εις την γραίαν δέσποιναν. «Του Αντιόχου του ευεργέτου βασιλέως να υμνηθεί επαξίως, ω Κομμαγηνοί, το κλέος. Ήταν της χώρας κυβερνήτης προνοητικός. Υπήρξε δίκαιος, σοφός, γενναίος. Υπήρξεν έτι το άριστον εκείνο, Ελληνικός - ιδιότητα δεν έχ' η ανθρωπότης τιμιοτέραν· εις τους θεούς ευρίσκονται τα πέραν.» Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης - 1923

[@theokaraman]

"I am also Hellenic/Hellenistic. Caution; i am not Greek, or Greek-like. I am Hellenic/Hellenistic" - C. P. Cavafy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_P._Cavafy

[@MasterMalrubius]

Great job. Where are those photos of the heads from? Reminds me of a 1970's rock album cover.

[@MacScarfield]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut

[@andybarry3435]

I believe they're in Turkey

[@Bogey1022]

I remember these heads from an old National Geographic book called "The World's Last Mysteries"

[@andybarry3435]

@@Bogey1022 one is depicted on the front cover of Comparative Mythology a book by Prof Jaan Puhval.

[@enzorocha2977]

Any attribution to the map you used @3:11? Can't seem to find the links here.

[@thecrew1871]

It would be nice to know what we are looking at in the videos of ruins you show us. I would also like to see pictures of the Gods & people you discuss if they can be found you have a few but they are not labeled so I assume they are of who you just mentioned. You share a lot of good information & present it in an easy to follow manner which I really like.

[@yaqubebased1961]

The very first scene, the bearded man is Zeus-Oromasdes.

[@armenpoghosyan4998]

That is Aramazd

[@kaloarepo288]

Philopappus monument in Athens on a hill near the Acropolis is the tomb of a descendant of a Commagene king who became a respected Roman citizen and lived most of his life in Athens.

[@Tyler.i.81]

Very interesting history we don't really hear about

[@phdtobe]

I’m wondering how much earthquakes versus intentional human destruction are responsible for the chaotic layout of the statue pieces at that preserved site at Mount Nimrut.

[@elainedaprano9130]

A documentary here about the original discovery said that had been plundering for many years before the initial archaeological expedition in late 1800s, I think, judging from the documentary 's old films.

[@user-yg1zj5dz9f]

with the holes in the sides of the statues heads i wonder if the originally had bronze laurel wreaths or something .diadems

[@user-yg1zj5dz9f]

crown of thorns

[@beanstaIkjack]

Were the statues made of blocks of stone, or one piece of stone?

[@rafaels.5374]

With insight of wordplay I theorize that the SELEUKIANS later Seleucians are the ancestors of SLEVKI or Slavik immigrants to Europe 200s-700s A.D. with the the rise of the Sassanians empire.

[@ian_b]

Thank you, Commagene!

[@honeyfungus4774]

BCE. When's that then?

[@c.tamircisi]

Komagene uygarlığı çiğköfte'yi bularak tarihin akışını değiştirdi.

[@mauricecalliss1303]

Just realizing how clever the search algorithms are when you search and comment .since I started to comment on my research materials I've been getting better directed in my search needs.

[@ruzannamartirosyan6430]

This is Armenian heritage.

[@cengooo787]

Kurds or arabs or persian ?

[@phdtobe]

The narrator mispronunces “Achaemenid” as “Ah-KAY-muh-nid”. It should be “Ah-KEE-muh-nid”. The vowel group “ae” in the second syllable should sound like the “ae” in the first syllable of “Caesar”.

[@gertmoelders8809]

The Romans pronounced “Caesar” as “Kaysar” and Achaemenid as “Ah-kay-meh-nid” so...?

[@Jivanmuktishu]

The vowel is somewhere between "ey" as in "hey" and "ie" as in "die". Your pronunciation would be written "Achimenid". "Joo-lee-us See-zer" would have been "You-lee-us Kai-sar" ("Kai" rhyming with "sky'). The compound became to avoid the expense of a special piece of movable type. It can be produced on a keyboard with number.keypad as Alt-0230.

[@sharonkeith601]

ChrisGeez / 🌹

[@phdtobe]

gert moelders True, but the commom pronunciations in the English language don’t follow Classical Latin rules. Else, among other things, we’d pronounce our “v”s like “w”s and vice versa.

[@phdtobe]

Jiva Das True if we spoke English in Classical Latin rules. But someone along the way in the development of Modern English, those pesky Brits established pronunciation rules for such vowel groups that were different from CL and internally consistent. That’s why the “ae” in words like “archaeology” and “Caesar” are commonly pronounced in both American and British English like “ee” in “street”.

[@trezinhadasilva7820]

I dont see the need for those bubbles and clouds

[@ezzovonachalm7534]

What does bee cee ee mean? Don' forget that Merica still does not rule the whole world 2) what does the bloody fume add to this vidioeou ? 3) out o which resources could the ruler o komageneee build so many monumental statues? In the middle of this rocky region without water ?

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

It means Before Common Era.

[@ezzovonachalm7534]

@@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449 Which era ? The end of the west Roman imperium ? The conquest of Jesuralem by the Islamics ? The scism between the oriental and occidental church ? The renaissance ? The french revolution ? The avent of Marxism ? The landing on the moon ? As You see there are many more eras who could mark a fundamental or decisive change, the most important of they all being definitely the birth of Jesus Christ .

[@turxanazimzade3917]

@@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449 prolific content.if its not a problem, can you make a video about Manneans a d Atropatene which were formed as a kingdoms in a modern day south Azerbaijan(north of Iran)?there are to few info about them(spesifically Manneans).as i read Some historians claim that there can be connection between caucasian tribes with Manneans.

[@Sargis-tq5hz]

Легендарная армянское нагорье страна арии

[@mauricecalliss1303]

You people out thete have to listen to story of ahikar .it seems to relate to pyramid technology and ninguzita the anunaki built great pyramid spkinx also it could relate to ninguzita the one who would instigate the will of the gods /anunaki. It's all ancient history it all related.

[@papazataklaattiranimam]

Commagene became çiğ köfte..

[@anahitagahajanyan561]

Armenia Tank you❤💙💛

[@arifrahman9024]

Im sure these statues has bodies buried 30 feet under..

[@gotian6649]

For some reason you skip kurdish while you talking about kurdish region !!!!! Turkey or Iraq is new countries and this fake border are not historical

[@nuradinnuradin7332]

Это синтез культуры Курдских и Греческих народов...

[@EngineerFromTf2]

True

[@elainedaprano9130]

Excuse me, the Iranian faith did not replace Zoroastrianism. It still exists throughout the world, and is tolerated in Iran, though the Towers of Silence are prohibited.

[@wiretamer5710]

My god! Isn't non-marxist ancient history a bore. This king defeated that king who ruled from when to then etc. It goes on and one without giving the reader any insight as to what made these people tick. Love to know where the people who made these statues got their food and water from Is it fair to dismiss these people a derivative culture, based on the remains of their monumental sculpture? What distinguished them as a distinct group for so many centuries?

[@yaqubebased1961]

Zeus-Oromasdes bless you

[@Mihrdad]

I am from these commagene kingdom and I want sure you that these kingdom are a parthian branch and bucause the kingdom are quite dependent with history of kurdish people. because the medes=parthian=kurdish people

[@NNNGun]

Will you stop dreamig about big civilisations as your own?this ancient civilisations were persian

[@Mihrdad]

@@NNNGun تاریخ پارس روشن هست، اگە میدونی. اونجا مجسمە میثرا، ویریثرغنە و احورا مزدا هست، با مجسمە های خداوند های گریکی. در اساطیر پارسی نامی هیچ از این خداوند ها نیست. پارسی ها "اورامەزدا" و اناهیتاپرست بودند. نە زرتشتی نش میثراپرست نبودند. سنگنوشتە های پارسی داریوش بهترین نمونە و شاهد این حقیقت هستند. ان خداوند های کە اشارە بهشون کردم همش خداوند های ماگوهای ماد یعنی موغای ماد، خداوندهای پارث هستند مثل نودگان ماد ها. این ئەشکانی و پارت یا پارث، همون واژەی پارتکینو است کە هرودت مث یە ایل ماد ازشان نام می برە، بە پارس ربطی ندارە. دولت کوماگنە همون مغ ها درست کردند کە از دست داریوش خونخوار گریختن و پنهاه بە مناتق آنتولیا بردە بودند. داریوش خیلی از مغ ها رو کشت کە خود زرتشت هم یە مغ بود و اولین کسی کە اوستا را سوخت همون پارسهای خونخار بودند کە کشتار موغ گەئومات در سنگنوشتە های داریوش دروغگو و قاتل و همان نوشتە های هیرودت بهترین و ملموصترین شاهد این کشتار و خونریزی هست. قبل از این کە کامنت بنوسی بهترە در بارە تاریخ کمی بخونی...

[@NNNGun]

@@Mihrdad i can't understand lol

[@Mihrdad]

i think you are from iran. Sorry The history of Persia is clear, if you know. There is a divine of Mithra, Verethraghna and Ahura Mazda, with a divine of the Greek gods. There is no name for any of these gods in Persian mythology. The Persians were worshiper of "Oramuzda" and Anahita.they not were Zoroastrians and not are worshiper of mithra. Darius' Persian inscriptions are the best example of this fact. The gods I mentioned are also the Magi of the Medes, that is, the Magi of the Medes, the gods of Parthia like kurds the descendants of the Medes. This Ashkani and Part or Parth, the same word Paratkino that Herodotus refers to as the Medes, don't have any relation with the Persian people. The government of Commagene created the same magi who had escaped from the bloodthirsty Darius and taken refuge in the region of Anatolia. Darius killed many of the median magus, Zoroaster himself was a magi or magus, and the first person to burn Avesta was the bloodthirsty parsian man. . Before you write a comment, it is better to read a little about the history ... sorry because my English is not very well

[@NNNGun]

The video it self said everything with deatils, these gods were persian-greek and they were either created by armenianis, greek,Romans or persians there could not possibly be any kurdish god or something like,for having a god kurds had to have a mythology to start with.Did they have a one

[@Goodkidjr43]

Great content. Just subbed. The only thing that bothers me to no end is the BCE CE revision. It is so confusing and linguistically mumbled. The earlier BC AD was so much easier on the ear, clear and distinct. Sadly, even history worships at the feet of political correctness.

[@georgiansandc2476]

you made a mistake by naming urartu as a proto armenian kingdom. urartians were not armenianns you should be aware of that

[@studyofantiquityandthemidd4449]

Technically Armenians developed from this population as well. No mistake made.

[@Mat-S86]

How they were not proto Armenian when thousands of common words can be found between modern Armenian and Hurro-Urartian scripts and historians knew about the kingdom from the "History of Armenia" Book that was written by Movses Khorenatsi in 5th century ?

[@georgiansandc2476]

@@Mat-S86 if you borrow something from someone it does not mean that they are related. Like English has thousand of borrowed words from Latin but it is language germanic languge. the most important uratiian language is not an indo European and is not related to Armenian. Then a question to you? are Greeks from anatolia proto turks? that is the same example as with urartian and armenian. when urartu collapsed armenians setteld in those lands like Turks did in Anatolia. simple. and if ne comeres borrowed lots of old stuff does not make them old ones.

[@Mat-S86]

@@georgiansandc2476 Modern English is a mixture of the old English (Anglo Saxon) and Normand French(Latin) , it was formed in 13th century when Britain fell into Normans. The royal family of Urartu spoke Hurrian which is not considered indo-european language but part of the urartu population was proto-Armenian, Urartu was a mixture of few older kingdoms such as Nairi,Hayasa Azzi and Arme-shupria which was know as (Armina/Armenia) by akkadians, in 6th century B.C the power was transfered from the hurrian ruling family of Urartu to Orontids which were the rules of Arme-Shupria before the establishment of Urartu kingdom, the name "Urartu" is assyrian and means Ararat, Urartus called themselves Bianli or Kingdom of Van, Van is very common name among Armenians, it also means place in Armenia, the capital of Armenia "Yerevan" is Urartian name. Todays Armenian language was formed in 6th century B.C it is a mixture of Proto Armenian(Phyrigian,Hittite,Luwian) and Hurrian(Urartian), so there is some similarity between how modern English and Armenian languages were formed as a mixture of two older languages but the difference is that todays Armenian is 1900 years older than todays English.

[@inna835]

Genetic studies have confirmed that they indeed are proto-Armenian. Period!

[@redoryoussef9657]

I hope that you say the word Kurdish once in your report or the word Kurdistan in your report. You don't lose anything, you create credibility for yourself. And do not ascribe civilizations that have no income or relationship with any of the Armenians, Arabs, Turks, and Persians. I believe that those who listen to you understand the path of false civilizations, played with books, falsified books, and usurped the rights of people and the rights of the Kurds. Like you, you now speak of all civilizations and do not mention the Kurdish civilization, which was the foundation and mother of civilizations in the world.

[@koordrozita7236]

Amazing! Talking about Kurds and their ancestors but labelling them as Persians or Armenians 😁 ridiculous outdated historians and their books. You need to update your books as new methods such as generic and linguistic findings shows Urartians are not Proto Armenians, Persians have no domination in western kingdoms of Iranians and all Iranian speaking nations are not Persians it is claimed. Genetic and linguistic researches show most of these are related to Kurds and are Proto Kurds.

[@berzecdy8882]

Ancient Kurds - as descendants of Mesopotamia - Kingdom of Subartu and Mittanis and The Kingdom of Commagene. This is Kurdistan ☀️

[@warrenpowell4085]

what is this BCE and CE crap its BC AND AD ok! sick of this PC crap!

[@gotian6649]

For some reason you skip kurdish while you talking about kurdish region !!!!! Turkey or Iraq is new countries and this fake border are not historical