According to the 1925 excavations of the Swiss anthropologist Eugène Pittard, Pirin was already inhabited in Paleolithic times. In antiquity, Perrhe was one of the four core cities of the kingdom of Commagene mentioned in inscriptions, along with Samosata, Marash and Doliche. It lay on the route from the capital of Samosata over the Taurus mountains to Melitene. On account of a profuse spring, which was already famous in ancient times and which now issues from a Roman fountain in the middle of the town, Perrhe was an important staging post for travellers over the mountains. On the late antique Roman route map, the Tabula Peutingeriana, the town appears as the second stop on the route from Samosata, after Comana. Under Antiochus IV (r. AD 38-72) Perrhe was refounded as the polis of Antiochia on the Taurus.[1] A votive relief of Jupiter Dolichenus which was found in the city's necropolis in 2001 derives from this period. In AD 198/200, the city probably contributed financially to the construction of the Severan Bridge. A floor mosaic found in the city indicates the importance of the place during Christian times. Under the Byzantine Empire, Perrhe was a bishopric. In the Middle Ages, the city lost significance in the face of the town of Hisn-Mansur (modern Adıyaman).