Abstract:

The current paper discusses the site of Asarbaşı, located within the territory of ancient Selge (Pisidia) and situated on the steep cliffs flanking both sides of the Eurymedon (Köprüçay). Near the site runs a hitherto unknown stretch of the Roman road which probably connected Aspendos to the northern town of Timbriada, crossing the Eurymedon near Asarbaşı. Earlier search in Asarbaşı by G. Neumann and E. Fuhrmann had brought to light two inscriptions in Pisidian, dated by them between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. The most interesting feature of the site in Asarbaşı is not, however, the road and these two inscriptions, but the two rock-cut tombs to the east of the site, carved in the steep and nearly inaccessible rocks just above the western pier of the bridge and towering over the Eurymedon cascades. They are visible to all travellers on the road who can admire their impressive location. These tombs are exceptional for the region and Anatolia as a whole because of their architecture and the iconographic details of the reliefs with which they are adorned. The paper aims to frame the Asarbaşı rock tombs within the wider tradition of rock tombs as documented for Pisidia and the neighbouring regions of Phrygia, Lycia and Caria, and hopes to provide an answer as to the place of Asarbaşı within the accepted processes of cultural interaction between these regions. Finally the paper will investigate whether or not one can consider these tombs to be proponents of a funeral architectural tradition typical for the region in which they are located.

Keywords: