
MEHMET ÖNAL (GAZIANTEP MUSEUM ARCHEOLOGIST)
For thousands of years, the Euphrates River has been flowing quickly in the canyons and coyly in the plains, greening the soil, giving fertility and abundance to its surroundings, and feeding various civilizations. The city of Selevkeia Euphrates (Zeugma) was founded on the hills overlooking the river in the Euphrates Valley, where the flow of the Euphrates becomes gentle and covered in green from top to toe. Seleucus Nikator I combined his own name with the name of the Euphrates, which was considered sacred, and named this city Selevkeia Euphrates. The mosaic master of the rich city of Zeugma, which is covered with wall-to-wall mosaics, worked not only on the mythological subjects of the ancient period, but also on the sanctification of the Euphrates River, which spreads abundance and abundance around it. Thus, the concepts related to love, holiness and worship reflected in the mosaics related to the Euphrates River have survived two thousand years ago in Belkıs/Zeugma. The most important feature of Belkis mosaics is that they remain in very good condition. The reason for this is that the houses from the Roman period, which were burned and destroyed by the Saesani attack and remained under the adobe walls of the first floor, were later covered with 3-4 meters thick erosion soil. Another feature of these mosaics is MSI and II. They were built in the 19th century, in a period when Roman art such as movement, lively expression on the body, and the play of light and shadow reached its peak. There are no marble deposits in the immediate vicinity of Belkıs / Zeugma. Mosaics and frescoes are made in the villas to give visual appeal and to satisfy the human soul. Since there are so many rich people, the city is paved with mosaics and covered with frescoes. Mosaic grains (tessera) in which every shade of the six main colors are used are made of natural stones collected from the Euphrates River. If the mosaic artist cannot find stones in colors such as light blue, light green and orange, he makes these colors from glass. Glass tessaras (grained) gave the mosaic more liveliness and appeal, adding extraordinary beauty to the paintings. The mosaics on the Euphrates River, which were unearthed during the emergency rescue excavations carried out in Belkıs/Zeugma between 1998 and 2000 under the responsibility of the Gaziantep Museum Directorate, are as follows.
The father of the Euphrates River is Okeanos and its mother is Tethis: In this floor mosaic, the parents of the Euphrates River (Euphrates) are depicted. The busts of Euphrates' father, Okeanos, and his mother, Tethis, are side by side. His father has a beard and a scimitar moustache, a double lobster is tied in his hair, and a rudder is leaning on his right shoulder. Tethis has a pair of wings on its head. Among them is the river monster. There are Eros capes on three corners, mounted on a dolphin and placed with their backs to each other. In the upper left corner, Pan is fishing. Oceanus is a universal river. His wife, the goddess Tethis, symbolizes the fertility of the sea. They are the children of the three thousand river gods Oceanus and Tethis. One of the sons of Okeanos is the Euphrates River. (For this reason, Fırat's father was highly respected in Belkıs/Zeugma, which was founded on the banks of the Euphrates River, and was engraved in mosaics.) These mosaics were unearthed in 1999 at the bottom of a shallow pool with columns in Belkıs/Zeugma Kelekağzıüstü location. Another mosaic depicting the parents of the Euphrates River was also unearthed in Belkıs/Zeugma. In this mosaic, the god Poseidon is sitting on a cart pulled by a pair of silver horses, holding a harpoon in his left hand, and at the bottom there are busts of the father of the Euphrates, Okeanos, the chief god of rivers, and his wife Tethis. The postures of these busts and the way they look in opposite directions are close to each other in both mosaics. There are two river monsters on his shoulders. These are depicted together with dolphins, octopuses and shrimps, giving the puno a marine appearance. The mosaic in question was found in 2000 at the base of the columned pool (Peristyle) of a Roman villa in Belkıs/Zeugma Mezarlıküstü location.
Euphrates, God of the Euphrates River: Euphrates, the god of the Euphrates River, is engraved on the floor mosaic of a shallow octagonal pool in Zeugma. In this mosaic, Euphrates is lying down on a divan. The Euphrates flows from the jug under his elbow and greenery gushes out from the soil that meets the water. He holds a branch in his left hand. His upper body is bare. There is a tree at the foot. This mosaic was unearthed together with the Euphrates River gods in the pool corridor of the Roman villa during the rescue excavation in 2000 in Belkıs/Zeugma Mezarlıküstü location. There are two shallow pools in this corridor.
Young river god and nymph related to the Euphrates River: The young river god, his upper body bare, lies slightly sideways on the grass with his elbow resting on a podium. In the upper left corner there is a picture of a building with a triangular pediment and courtyard walls on both sides. This young river god must symbolize a stream (Merzimen) that provides water to the Euphrates River. This mosaic is the floor mosaic of the pool corridor. It is depicted in a rectangular panel to the left of Euphrates. To the right of Euphrates, a nymph is lying slightly sideways with her left elbow on the grass. A spring flows below the elbow. This must symbolize the springs that provide water to the streams that feed the Euphrates.
Demeter, God of Fertility: Adjacent to the west of the gods related to the Euphrates, there is a mosaic with a bust of Demeter, crowned with wheat ears and flowers, with a horn of fertility on her left shoulder, in a square shallow pool. Here, the mosaic master first passed the water through the pool where the Euphrates River gods are located, and then conveyed it to the pool where Demeter, the goddess of abundance and abundance, depicted the abundance and fertility that the Euphrates offered to its surroundings, and established the product and production equation. In addition, the bust of Demeter is at the center of the decorations with an octagonal belt, an octagonal wave belt, two rhombuses rotated ninety degrees and intertwined, and the eight corners of these quadrilaterals with eight ax depictions between them. This composition, in which the number eight is given with geometric decorations, is surrounded by a circular belt placed in a square with floral decorations extending from the corners. The number eight in this panel must be associated with Demeter's daughter Persophone. Because Zeus decided that Persophone would spend two-thirds of the year (eight months), that is, the flowering and fruiting time, and her mother Demeter would spend the remaining one-third, that is, the winter, with her husband Hades. In the worship (legend) of Demeter, she is inseparable from Persephone. This mother daughter is also called the "first goddess". For these reasons, mother and daughter were not separated from each other in the Belkıs/Zeugma mosaics, where Persophone was represented with geometric decorations placed according to the rule of the number eight.
Acheloos, King of the Euphrates River: The abundance and abundance of the Euphrates is the subject of another Zefgma mosaic. The head of Acheloos, the king of the Euphrates River, is depicted with the horn of abundance scattering nuts and fruits. Acheloos has a wing-shaped moustache. She has flowers stuck in her hair. The forehead is crowned with a double cornucopia horn. In this mosaic, images of fruits such as grapes, pears, figs, pomegranates, loquats and sunflowers growing around the Euphrates are depicted surrounded by horns of abundance and branches.