Despite the strong earthquakes that struck the southeastern region of Türkiye on Feb. 6, the monumental stone heads of Mount Nemrut and other statues listed by UNESCO were not harmed.
The archaeological and UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site on Mount Nemrut, towering 2,150 meters (about 7,050 feet), survived the earthquakes undamaged.
Footage captured by Anadolu Agency (AA) showed the massive heads, each weighing tons, on the eastern face of the mountain in Adıyaman province.
Irfan Çetinkaya, head of a local culture and tourism association in the province’s district of Kahta, where Mount Nemrut is located, noted that the earthquake caused severe damage in the region.
“The only thing that makes us happy is that the statues on Mount Nemrut were not affected by the tremors. I went to Mount Nemrut two days after the quake and saw that the statues were not damaged even though Adıyaman suffered a great disaster,” said Çetinkaya.
Inviting visitors to the region, Çetinkaya said: “Hundreds of thousands of people come to the region every year. But, especially this year, we want more people to visit Mount Nemrut. We want them to come to the region to give us morale, heal our wounds and see Mount Nemrut.”
Meanwhile, artifacts in the Yesemek Open Air Museum and Sculpture Workshop, an archaeological site in the southern Gaziantep province that was also severely hit by the quakes, survived the Feb. 6 tremors unscathed.
The historical area included on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Tentative List and located in the town of Yesemek in the Islahiye district is home to artifacts from the early Hittite civilization, which existed in the 13th century B.C., with stone statues weighing up to 10 tons.
“I was curious about the state of the museum after the earthquake as they (the tremors) were so severe. So I went to the museum. There was no destruction here. All the artifacts were still standing,” museum officer Ali Çiçek told AA.
