Day 1 : Phaselis
We started our Lycian Way Trip from the undisputed capital of turkish Tourism Antalya heading south to Kemer which Is also a stronghold of Tourism at the green slopes of Mount Taurus.
Phaselis was a Greek and Roman city on the coast of ancient Lycia. Its ruins are located north of the modern town Tekirova in the Kemer district of Antalya Province in Turkey. It lies between the Bey Mountains and the forests of Olympos National Park,Phaselis has three harbours: the ‘Northern Harbour’, the ‘Battle Harbour’ and the ‘Protected (Sun) Harbour’, of which the last is the most important today. A 24-metre-wide ancient street runs through the middle of the city. The ‘Hadrian Waterway Gate’ is on the southern part of the street. There are ruins of shops and stores on the sides of the street and near these are ruins of public places such as Roman baths, agoras and theatres. These structures are dated to the 2nd century BC. There are water canals between the town centre and the 70 m plateau. There are also numerous sarcophagi.
The most prominent buildings are the Domitians Agora,the Tetragonal Agora the Hadrians Gate and the impressive Aquaduct.
Theodectes He lived in the period which followed the Peloponnesian War. Along with the continual decay of political and religious life, tragedy sank more and more into mere rhetorical display. The school of Isocrates produced the orators and tragedians, Theodectes and Aphareus. He was also a pupil of Plato and an intimate friend of Aristotle. He at first wrote speeches for the law courts though he soon moved on to compose tragedies with success. He spent most of his life at Athens, and was buried on the sacred road to Eleusis. The inhabitants of Phaselis honored him with a statue, which was decorated with garlands by Alexander the Great on his way to the East.
Overall the site is in a Place of exceptional Beauty
Olympos Beach and archeological site
Olympus or Olympos was a city in ancient Lycia.
The exact date of the city’s foundation is unknown. A wall and an inscription on a sarcophagus have been dated to the end of the 4th century BC, so Olympus must have been founded at the latest in the Hellenistic period. The city presumably taking its name from nearby Mount Olympus , one of over twenty mountains with the name Olympus in the Classical world.
The city was a member of the Lycian League, but it is uncertain when it joined the League. It started minting Lycian League coins from the end of the second century BC, possibly the 130s. At this time Olympus was one of the six largest cities of the League, which possessed three votes each.
Around 100 BC, Olympus started issuing its own coins, separate from the League. At this point Cilician pirates under Zekenites had taken control of Olympus’s Mediterranean possessions, which included Corycus, Phaselis and many other places in Pamphylia. His rule ended in 78 BC, when the Roman commander Publius Servilius Isauricus, accompanied by the young Julius Caesar, captured Olympus and its other territories after a victory at sea. At his defeat, Zekenites set fire to his own house in Olympus and perished. At the time of the Roman conquest, Olympus was described by Cicero as a rich and highly decorated city. Olympus then became part of the Roman Republic. The emperor Hadrian visited the city, after which it took the name of Hadrianopolis (แผฮดฯฮนฮฑฮฝฮฟฯฯฮฟฮปฮนฯ) for a period, in his honour.
Olympus is missing from the Stadiasmus Patarensis and the Stadiasmus Maris Magni. However, both include the already mentioned Corycus, which is described in ancient sources as a port of some significance. There is no evidence that Olympus was a maritime city prior to the 2nd century AD.
Olympus is now a popular tourist area. The ruins of the ancient city end in a valley that holds numerous pensions and guest houses. The valley is bound on the water side by Mount Omurga.
Limyra
Limyra was a small city in ancient Lycia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, on the Limyrus River. Already flourishing in the second millennium BCE, the city was one of the oldest and most prosperous in Lycia; it gradually became one of the most flourishing trade centres in the Greek world.
In the 4th century BCE Pericles, Dynast of Lycia supported a rebellion of satraps in Asia Minor against the ruling Persians and adopted Limyra as the capital of the Lycian League; subsequently it came under control of the Persian Empire. The Persians eventually regained rule through Mausolus, the Carian satrap at Halicarnassus.
After Alexander the Great ended Persian rule, most of Lycia was ruled by Ptolemy I Soter; his son Ptolemy II Philadelphos supported the Limyrans against the invading Galatians and the inhabitants dedicated a monument, the Ptolemaion, to him in thanks.
Augustus had adopted his grandson Gaius Caesar in 17 BCE (aged 3) as his heir. In 1 BC (aged 19) Gaius Caesar was sent to Syria and in 2 AD he went to Armenia, which the Parthians had recently invaded. Gaius successfully placed a pro-Roman king on the Armenian throne but was seriously wounded after being tricked. In 4 AD, during his return to Rome, Gaius died from his wounds at Limyra.
The lower city is at the base of the acropolis hill and includes two separate walled areas.
The five necropolises dating from the 4th c. BCE and before demonstrate the city’s importance. The mausoleum of Pericles is particularly notable for its fine reliefs and exquisite sculptures such as Perseus slaying Medusa and one of her sisters. A gate in the western city leads down through a marshy area towards the cenotaph of Gaius Caesar, grandson and heir apparent of Augustus, a massive structure standing on a stone podium and dating from around 4 CE.
The Roman Bridge at Limyra, east of the city, is one of the oldest segmental arch bridges in the world.
Myra
Myra was a Lycian city founded on the river Myros in the fertile alluvial plain between Alaca Daฤ, the Massikytos range and the Aegean Sea.
Although some scholars equate Myra with the town, of Mira, in Arzawa, there is no proof for the connection.[citation needed] There is no substantiated written reference for Myra before it was listed as a member of the Lycian League (168 BCโAD 43); according to Strabo (14:665), it was one of the largest towns of the alliance.
The ancient Lycian citizens worshiped Artemis Eleutheria who was the protective goddess of the town. Zeus,Athena and Tyche were venerated as well . In the Roman period, Myra formed a part of the Koine Greek speaking world that rapidly embraced Christianity. One of its early Lycian bishops was Saint Nicholas.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles (probably Luke the Evangelist) and Paul the Apostle changed ships here during their journey from Caesarea to Rome for Paul’s trial, arriving in a coastal trading vessel and changing to a sea-faring skiff secured by the Roman centurion responsible for Paul’s transportation to Rome.
Church of St. Nicholas at Myra
The earliest church of St. Nicholas at Myra was built at the time of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in the 6th century by Lycians. The present-day church was constructed mainly from the 8th century onward for the city’s Byzantine Lycian inhabitants
In 1863, Emperor Alexander II of Russia purchased the building and began restoration, but the work was never completed. In 1923 the church was abandoned when the city’s Christian inhabitants were forced to leave for Greece by the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey. In 1963 the eastern and southern sides of the church were excavated. In 1968 the former confessio (tomb) of St. Nicholas was roofed over.
The floor of the church is made of opus sectile, a mosaic of coloured marble, and there are some remains of frescoes on the walls. An ancient Lycian marble sarcophagus had been reused to bury the Saint; but his bones were stolen in 1087 by merchants from Bari, and are now held in that city, in the Basilica of Saint Nicholas.
Letoon
Letoon or Letoum, was a sanctuary of Leto located 4 kilometres south of the ancient city of Xanthos, to which it was closely associated, and along the Xanthos River. It was one of the most important religious centres in the region though never a fully-occupied settlement. Letoon was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
Letoon was the religious centre of Xanthos and the Lycian League. Inscriptions found at the site indicate that it was where Lycian rulers declared their decisions to the public. It was continuously occupied from the 8th century BC to the end of the Roman period of occupation.
The site was dedicated to the worship of the Letoidsโthe Greek goddess Leto, and her twin offspring, Artemis and Apollo. According to a myth, Leto was drinking at a lake in Lycia whilst fleeing with her children Apollo and Artemis from the anger of the goddess Hera. When local peasants tried to drive her away, she rebuked them and transformed them into frogs. Leto may have been identified with an early Luwian goddess whose cult was located with Letoon. The Letoids were designated as the Lycians’ national gods.
The sanctity of the site is the purport of an anecdote related by the 2nd century Greek historian Appian concerning Mithridates VI of Pontus, who was planning to cut down the trees in the sacred grove for his own purposes during his siege of Patara, but was warned against this sacrilege in a nightmare. The site remained active through the Roman period. It was Christianised by the construction of an basilical church. Archaeological finds at Letoon date to at least the 6th century BCE, and pre-date the Greek cultural hegemony in Lycia. The sanctuary was connected to Xanthos by a road that led up from Patara to the south.
In 1973, a stele was discovered at the site. The stele’s inscription, dated to 337 BCE, features texts in the Lycian language, Ancient Greek and Aramaic. The so-called Letoon trilingual is now conserved in the Fethiye Museum It contains regulations for the establishment of a cult at Letoon. The text has contributed greatly to a greater understanding of the Lycian language. The text is unusual, in that, unlike most Lycian texts, it does not consist of consists of epitaphs
Historical importance
Letoon was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, along with Xanthos, in 1988. According to UNESCO, the archaeological sites at Xanthos and Letoon represent โthe most unique extant architectural example of the ancient Lycian Civilizationโ. UNESCO has acknowledged that the Lycian rock inscriptions are the languageโs most important texts, and have a crucial role in helping to understand both the ancient Lycian people, their civilization, and their long-lost language.
Xanthos
Xanthos was an ancient city near the present-day village of Kฤฑnฤฑk, in Antalya Province, Turkey. The ruins are located on a hill on the left bank of the River Xanthos. The number and quality of the surviving tombs at Xanthos are a notable feature of the site, which, together with nearby Letoon, was declared to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
The city of Xanthos was a centre of culture and commerce for the Lycians, and later for the Persians, Greeks and Romans who in turn conquered the region. Xanthos influenced its neighbours architecturally; the Nereid Monument directly inspired the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus in the region of Caria.
The acropolis of Xanthos dates from the 8th century BCE. The city was mentioned by ancient Greek and Roman writers. The Greek historian Strabo noted that Xanthos was the largest city in Lycia.
Telmessos
From Telmessos the army of Alexander the Great marched over the mountains to Xanthos. There representatives from each of the cities of the Lycian League, including the port of Phaselis, personally offered the Lycians’ submission, which was accepted. Alexander was encouraged when he found a sacred spring close to the River Xanthus, and obtained from there an inscribed bronze tablet that predicted that the Greeks would destroy the Persian Empire. Reports on the city’s surrender to Alexander the Great differ: Arrian reports a peaceful surrender, but Appian claims that the city was sacked. After Alexander’s death, Xanthos was captured by Ptolemy I Soter from Antigonos.
buildings, and they were repaired. The city wall was also reinforced because of the Arab threat. The city was subsequently destroyed and deserted.
Excavations at Xanthos have shown that wooden structures were destroyed in c.โ470 BC, probably by the Athenian Kimon. Xanthos was later rebuilt in stone. The Nereid Monument, the Tomb of Payava, and the original sculptures of the Harpy Tomb are exhibited in the British Museum. The Harpy Tomb itself is located in its original location at Xanthos, now with replica reliefs.
The archeological excavations and surface investigations at Xanthos have yielded inscriptions in both the Lycian language and Greek, including bilingual texts that are useful in the understanding of Lycian. The Xanthian Obelisk, otherwise known as the Inscribed Pillar, is a trilingual stele which was found in the city; it records an older Anatolian language conventionally known as the Milyan.
Tlos
Tlos was an ancient Lycian city near the modern town of Seydikemer in the Mugla Province of southern Turkey, some 4 kilometres northwest of Saklฤฑkent Gorge. It was one of the oldest and largest cities of Lycia.
Tlos lies on the east side of the Xanthos valley atop a rocky outcrop that slopes up from a plateau from a modern village and ends on the west, north and northeast in almost perpendicular cliffs.
The Greek name Tlos comes from the earlier Lycian name Tlawa. The city is mentioned as Dalawa in Hittite documents.
In mythology, it was the city inhabited by hero Bellerophon and his winged horse Pegasus. It is known that the king-type tomb in the necropolis is dedicated to Bellerophon. The Byzantine grammarian Stephanus of Byzantium reports a mythic tradition that the city was named after one of the sons of the nymph Praxidike and Tremilus .Praxidike was a daughter of Ogyges.
Fethiye
Fethiye was formerly known as Makri . Modern Fethiye is located on the site of the ancient city of Telmessos, the ruins of which can be seen in the city, e.g. the Hellenistic theatre by the main quay.
A Lycian legend explains the source of the name Telmessos as follows: The god Apollo falls in love with the youngest daughter of the King of Phoenicia, Agenor. He disguises himself as a small dog and thus, gains the love of the shy, withdrawn daughter. After he reappears as a handsome man, they have a son, who they name ‘Telmessos’ (the land of lights).
From 1867 until 1922, Meฤri was part of the Aidin Vilayet of the Turkish Empire. The town grew considerably in the 19th century, and had a large Greek population at that time.] Following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the Greeks of Makri were sent to Greece where they founded the town of Nea Makri (New Makri) in Greece. The town was resettled with Turks from Greece. At nearby Kayakรถy, formerly Levissi, the abandoned Greek Orthodox church is still standin
Fethiye is one of Turkey’s well-known tourist centers and is especially popular during the summer. The Fethiye Museum, which is rich in ancient and more recent artifacts, displays and testifies to the successive chain of civilizations that existed in the area, starting with the ancient Lycians.
Some of the historical sites worth visiting are: Kadyanda (Cadyanda) ancient city, Kayakรถy – the abandoned Greek village, Afkule, Gemiler and Aya Nikola. Fethiye is also home to the Tomb of Amyntas, a large tomb built in 350 BC by the Lycians.
The most popular tourist towns of Fethiye are: รlรผdeniz, รalฤฑล Beach area, Hisarรถnรผ and Ovacฤฑk, Fethiye. Butterfly Valley is in the Fethiye district.
The island of Kฤฑzฤฑlada in the Gulf of Fethiye, 4 mi (6.4 km) off the city, is a popular stopover for boat tours. Alternatively, there are great diving sites, Afkule being one of the most famous. The Kฤฑzฤฑlada Lighthouse on the island houses a seafood restaurant and a hostel with nine rooms.
The Tomb of Amyntas, also known as the Fethiye Tomb, is an ancient Lycian rock-hewn tomb at ancient Telmessos, in Lycia, which was at the time a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire.
Modern Fethiye is located on the site of the Ancient Roman, then Hellenoroman, city of Telmessos, with the Tomb of Amyntas located in the south side of the city in the mountainside, in the base of the mountain. The impressive looking tomb was built in 350 BCE, and was named after the Greek inscription on the side of it which reads “Amyntou tou Ermagiou”, which translated to English means “Amyntas, son of Hermagios”.
The tomb was built by the Lycians, the people who lived in this satrapy of the Persian Empire at the time. The Lycians were a tightly knit confederation of independent city-states, including Telmessos.
Do not mistake the name Amyntas for the Macedonian king Amyntas I of Macedon, satrap of Skudra, and Ancestor of Alexander the Great. Amyntas in this context might be the descendant of the King maker of Cyrus the Great, the Median General Harpagos, who became satrap of Lycia, the first of the Harpagid Dynasty, for his services to Cyrus in his conquest. Compared to many other tombs carved into mountainsides in the area, the interior of the Tomb of Amyntas is very spacious.
Patara – Kalkan
Kalkan is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Kaล, Antalya Province
Kalkan is an old fishing town, and the only safe harbour between Kaล and Fethiye; it is known for its white-washed houses, descending to the sea, and its brightly coloured bougainvilleas.
Until the early 1920s, nearly all of its inhabitants were Greeks and the town was called Kalamaki. They left in 1923 during the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War and emigrated mainly to Attica, where they founded the new town of Kalamaki. Abandoned Greek houses can still be seen at Kalkan. Patara , Lycian:, Pttara; Greek: ฮ ฮฌฯฮฑฯฮฑ) was an ancient and flourishing maritime and commercial city that was for a period the capital of Lycia. Saint Nicholas was born in the town in 270, and lived most of his life in the nearby town of Myra.
The city was said to have been founded by Patarus, a son of Apollo. It was noted during antiquity for the temple and oracle of Apollo, second only in importance to that of Delphi. The god is often given the surname Patareus. Herodotus says that the oracle of Apollo was delivered by a priestess only during a certain period of the year, and Servius mentions that this period was the six winter months. It seems certain that Patara received Dorian settlers from Crete; and the worship of Apollo was certainly Dorian.
Ancient writers mentioned Patara as one of the principal cities of Lycia. It was Lycia’s primary seaport, and a leading city of the Lycian League, having 3 votes, the maximum.
The city, with the rest of Lycia, surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 BC. During the Wars of the Diadochi, it was occupied in turn by Antigonus and Demetrius, before finally falling to the Ptolemies. In this period the first city walls were built. Strabo informs us that Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, who enlarged the city, gave it the name of Arsinoรซ after Arsinoe II of Egypt, his wife and sister, but it continued to be called by its ancient name, Patara. Antiochus III captured Patara in 196 BC and it became the capital of Lycia. The Lycian League was formally established in 176 BC.
The Rhodians occupied the city and as a Roman ally, the city with the rest of Lycia was granted autonomy in 167 BC. In 88 BC, the city suffered siege by Mithridates VI, king of Pontus and was captured by Brutus and Cassius, during their campaign against Mark Antony and Augustus. It was spared the massacres that were inflicted on nearby Xanthos. Patara was formally annexed by the Roman Empire in 43 AD and attached to Pamphylia.
Patara is mentioned in the New Testament as the place where Paul of Tarsus and Luke changed ships. The city was Christianized early, and several early bishops are known; according to Le Quien, they include:
โข Methodius, dubious, more probably bishop of Olympus
โข Eudemus, present at the Council of Nicaea (325)
โข Eutychianus, at the Council of Seleucia (359)
โข Eudemus, at the Council of Constantinople (381)
โข Cyrinus, at the Council of Chalcedon (451)
โข Licinius, at the Council of Constantinople (536)
โข Theodulus, at the Council of Constantinople (879-880)
Saints Leo and Paregorius were martyred at Patara around 260 AD. Nicholas of Myra was born at Patara around March 15, 270 AD. In 1993 the Stadiasmus Patarensis was unearthed, a monumental Roman pillar on which is inscribed in Greek a dedication to Claudius and an official announcement of roads being built by the governor, Quintus Veranius Nepos, in the province of Lycia et Pamphylia, giving place names and distances, essentially a monumental public itinerarium. The pillar is on display in the garden of the Antalya Museum
Sagalassos
Sagalassos, is an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, about 100 km north of Antalya (ancient Attaleia) and 30 km from Burdur and Isparta. The ancient ruins of Sagalassos are 7 km from Aฤlasun (as well as being its namesake) in the province of Burdur, in the Western Taurus mountains range, at an altitude of 1450โ1700 metres. In Roman Imperial times, the town was known as the “first city of Pisidia.
The urban site was laid out on various terraces at an altitude between 1400 and 1600 m. After suffering from a major earthquake in the early sixth century CE, the town managed to recover, but a cocktail of epidemics, water shortages, a general lack of security and stability, a failing economy and finally another devastating earthquake around the middle of the seventh century forced the inhabitants to abandon their town and resettle in the valley.
Human settlement in the area goes back to 8000 BCE, before the actual site was occupied. Hittite documents refer to a mountain site of Salawassa in the fourteenth century BCE and the town spread during the Phrygian and Lydian cultures. Sagalassos was part of the region of Pisidia in the western part of the Taurus Mountains. During the Persian period, Pisidia became known for its warlike factions.
Sagalassos was one of the wealthiest cities in Pisidia when Alexander the Great conquered it in 333 BCE on his way to Persia. It had a population of a few thousand. After Alexander’s death, the region became part of the territories of Antigonus Monophthalmus, possibly Lysimachus of Thrace, the Seleucids of Syria and the Attalids of Pergamon. The archeological record indicates that locals rapidly adopted Hellenic culture.
The Roman Empire absorbed Pisidia after the Attalids and it became part of the province of Asia. In 39 BCE it was handed out to Galatian client king Amyntas, but after he was killed in 25 BCE Rome turned Pisidia into the province of Galatia. Under the Roman Empire, Sagalassos became the important urban center of Pisidia, particularly favoured by the Emperor Hadrian, who named it the “first city” of the province and the center of the imperial cult. Contemporary buildings have a fully Roman character.
A study involving mitochondrial analysis of a Byzantine-era population, whose samples were gathered from excavations in the archaeological site of Sagalassos, found that Sagalassos samples were closest to modern samples from “Turkey, Crimea, Iran and Italy (Campania and Puglia), Cyprus and the Balkans (Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece).
Kas
Kaล is a small fishing, diving, yachting and tourist town
In the Hellenistic period and under the Roman Empire it served as the port of Phellus called Antiphellus, the name by which it was known at that time. In 1923, because of the forcible exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War, population of Greek origin in the area left for Greece.
About 6 km offshore from Kaล is the Greek islet of Kastelรณrizo served by a Turkish ferry daily with the option of same day returns.
Kalekoy Simena Ucagiz Teimioussa Kekova
Kalekรถy or Simena faces the island of Kekova, and can be reached by sea or on foot from รรงaฤฤฑz. The village lies amidst a Lycian necropolis, which is partially sunken underwater. Kalekรถy is overlooked by a Byzantine castle, built in the Middle Ages to fight the pirates who nested in Kekova. The castle contains a small theatre. Kalekรถy is a popular yachting destination.
Kekova is a small island which faces the villages of Kalekรถy (ancient Simena) and รรงaฤฤฑz (ancient Teimioussa). It has an area of 4.5 km2 and is uninhabited. It was known as Dolichiste in antiquity.
On its northern side are the partly sunken ruins of Dolchiste/Dolikisthe, an ancient town which was destroyed by an earthquake during the 2nd century.
The Tersane (meaning “dockyard”, as its bay was the site of an ancient city Xera and dockyard, with the ruins of a Byzantine church) is at the northwest of the island.
The Kekova region and encompasses the island of Kekova, the villages of Kalekรถy and รรงaฤฤฑz and the four ancient towns of Simena, Aperlae, Dolchiste and Teimioussa.
รรงaฤฤฑz (ancient name, Teimioussa) is a village one km from Kalekรถy, north of a small bay by the same name, with the ruins of Teimioussa to the east. The name “รรงaฤฤฑz” means “three mouths”, referring to the three exits to open sea.
Doliche or Dolichiste was an island noted by ancient geographers in the Mediterranean Sea off the Lycian coast, in Asia Minor, now called Kekova.
Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.) describes Doliche as an island close to the Lycian coast, on the authority of Callimachus; and he adds that Alexander, in his Periplus of Lycia, calls it Dolichiste. It is mentioned by Pliny (v. 31) and Ptolemy (v. 3). Pliny places it opposite to Chimaera (geography); and both Pliny and Ptolemy name it Dolichiste. Doliche or Dolichiste, is a long island, as the name implies.