Cornucopia 24

The Wild East
by Min Hogg with photographs by Manuel Citak

Home to the world's oldest settlements, land of biblical prophets - the Tigris and Euphrates basin is a fabled but forgotten frontier. In a thirty page celebration, Manuel Citak captures the splendour in photographs, while Min Hogg keeps a wry diary on her sortie into this hard-baked corner of Anatolia

The giant heads of Nemrut Dagi, once attached to enthroned figures, are the folly of the brief rule of the kingdom of Commagene. They were part of a vast mausoleum built on a remote mountain top by Antiochus I (64-38 BC) who was deposed by the Romans. Claiming descent from both Darius the Mede and Alexander the Great, he combined Greek and Persian deities in his pantheon. The eagle in the foreground was a temple guardian.