Karakuş Tumulus

A royal funerary monument (hierothesion) built by Mithridates II of Commagene between 38-20 BC for his mother Queen Isias, his sister Antiochis, and his sister Laodice, queen of the Parthian Empire. The artificial mound stands 35 metres high and was originally flanked by three groups of Doric columns about 9 metres tall, topped with sculptures of an eagle, lion, and bull. In 1967, Friedrich Karl Dorner discovered a burial chamber 13 metres below the summit, though it had been looted after Commagene's Roman annexation in 72 AD. The site is near Kahta, Adiyaman Province, Turkey.