DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5542#0317
Chap, xlvii.]
FOUNTAIN OF ASMAB^JUS.
303
nor does any stream escape from it. The water is quite
cold, and emits a slight smell of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.
It was impossible on seeing this lake not to perceive at
once how completely it answered the apparently con-
tradictory descriptions of the two authors whom I have
mentioned. Ammianus says that there is a fountain in
a marshy plain near Tyana, in which the water rises
up, and, again disappearing, never overflows its hanks.
Philostratus says that near Tyana is the fountain of
Asmabarus, sacred to Jupiter, which is very cold, although
it bubbles up like a boiling cauldron. Every feature in
both these descriptions is correct, and at once identifies the
ruins of Kiz Hissar with those of Tyana,—an opinion also
confirmed by the mound on which it stands, and to which,
according to Strabo, the name of Semiramis was given.
With regard to this fountain of Asmaba;us, I have only
one remark to make, that the jet in the centre is perhaps
chiefly caused by the escape of gas.
About 300 yards S.E. from the lake a small hill rises out
of the plain, which is covered with masses, beds, and veins
of fibrous gypsum and compact white alabaster, while the
greater part of the rock is a brown brecciated sandstone.
It occurred to me at the time, and this was afterwards con-
firmed when I visited the salt springs at Kekrout, near
Eregli, that it marked the site of a mineral spring, where
the gypsum had been deposited round a central nucleus of
sandstone. There was an apparently anticlinal dip in the
alabaster, but whether owing to its protrusion from below,
or to the mineral spring flowing down both sides, I could
not determine. Lying on this hill was an elegant fluted
marble altar, with a large hole bored through it: this may
have been dedicated to the Divinity of the Fountain.
FOUNTAIN OF ASMAB^JUS.
303
nor does any stream escape from it. The water is quite
cold, and emits a slight smell of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.
It was impossible on seeing this lake not to perceive at
once how completely it answered the apparently con-
tradictory descriptions of the two authors whom I have
mentioned. Ammianus says that there is a fountain in
a marshy plain near Tyana, in which the water rises
up, and, again disappearing, never overflows its hanks.
Philostratus says that near Tyana is the fountain of
Asmabarus, sacred to Jupiter, which is very cold, although
it bubbles up like a boiling cauldron. Every feature in
both these descriptions is correct, and at once identifies the
ruins of Kiz Hissar with those of Tyana,—an opinion also
confirmed by the mound on which it stands, and to which,
according to Strabo, the name of Semiramis was given.
With regard to this fountain of Asmaba;us, I have only
one remark to make, that the jet in the centre is perhaps
chiefly caused by the escape of gas.
About 300 yards S.E. from the lake a small hill rises out
of the plain, which is covered with masses, beds, and veins
of fibrous gypsum and compact white alabaster, while the
greater part of the rock is a brown brecciated sandstone.
It occurred to me at the time, and this was afterwards con-
firmed when I visited the salt springs at Kekrout, near
Eregli, that it marked the site of a mineral spring, where
the gypsum had been deposited round a central nucleus of
sandstone. There was an apparently anticlinal dip in the
alabaster, but whether owing to its protrusion from below,
or to the mineral spring flowing down both sides, I could
not determine. Lying on this hill was an elegant fluted
marble altar, with a large hole bored through it: this may
have been dedicated to the Divinity of the Fountain.