GENERAL HISTORY OF GÖCEK

Göcek is one of the Lycian settlements developed in the past between the two Lycian civilizations Fethiye and Caunos. Regrettably there are only a few constructions remaining from ancient Kalimche for many reasons. The main settlement area is unknown therefore no further excavations could be made to search further.  It is still keeping its secrets because the main source of the history from writers has not told us about this region’s assets and history in detail. Examples of rock tombs, monuments, and baths can be found in the bays and on the Fethiye highway. There are also some ruins on the Tersane islands belonging to ancient and recent history. It can be imagined that the Daidalos and Ikarus legend would become fact in Göcek if the geographical situation is examined.

There are ancient cities of Krya, Lisai and Iydai on the Kapıdağ peninsula which can be reach by boat tours. Because of the transportation difficulties the region was not excavated earlier but there are several objects recently recovered from these settlements.

HISTORY OF GÖCEK NAME

The historical name of the region is Daidala. Göcek was named when the nomadic people stopped and settled here. There are two variations of where the Göcek name originated. Most local people will confirm these variations.

The first version is “Köçek”. Köçek means a male belly dancer dressed in women clothing who dances with musical instruments. They would employ a male belly dancer for wedding ceremonies or for other celebrations in this region. The male belly dancers would dance with musical instruments and entertain the people who were brought from Rhodes. This type of entertainment was used for such a long period of time in this region that the village name became known as “Köçekli” (meaning that with male belly dancers) by the surrounding villages. The villagers were so displeased about this name that they stopped using male belly dancers in their celebrations. The surrounding villagers started mocking the village name and for this reason the name was changed to “Göcek”.

The second version is “Göç” (meaning migration). The regions people had a nomadic life style, they would move to the plateau with due ceremony in the spring and return back in the autumn.  When the time came to move they would discuss the number of people and the date the move should take place.  Preparations would be made and after completion they would contact each other the day before the planned travel.  In the twilight of the morning the animals were loaded and the villagers would say to each other “göç” (meaning its time to move from here) or “Göcek” (meaning let us move from here). The Göcek name is said to originate from this. 

The local people believe the second version is the more likely origin of the Göcek name. The important point is by its very nature the name Göcek describes the facts of its historical association.

THE SOUTH WEST COAST OF TURKEY

The road from Muğla to Fethiye is scenically among the most beautiful in Turkey, owing chiefly to the splendid Carian pine-forests. It is also quite comfortably passable for a private car. A night-stop at Köyceğiz is not unattractive, if only for the lovely view over the lake. South of Köyceğiz the road crosses low and mainly level country as far as Dalaman, then turns sharply eastward and climbs high into the mountains, with fascinating glimpses of the sea by Göcek far below. This is the border country between Caria and Lycia. There is then a winding descent to the plain of Fethiye.

After passing the turning to Caunus the road, in about 6 miles, crosses by a modern bridge over the wide stony bed of the Dalaman Çayı. This is the ancient Indus, a very considerable river. Pliny says that it rises in the hills above Cibyra and receives as tributaries sixty perennial rivers and more than a hundred torrents. The first statement is correct; it does in fact rise south of Cibyra and fiows for a good hundred miles to the sea, bearing today at least five different names in its various parts. The sixty perennial affluent however, are certainly an exaggeration, though the map suggests that the hundred torrents may not be far from the mark.

Some 6 miles beyond the bridge is the village, formerly a nahiye of Dalaman, notable only for a large State Farm. The village is now officially Karaçalı but the familiar name is Dalaman From here a pleasant excursion can be made to the large medieval site on the coast at Baba Dağ to the south-west The road is dead flat across the plain, but there are two rivers to be crossed, and the traveller should know in advance how he proposes to manage. The Dalaman Çayı is usually fordable on horseback in summer, though not always without difficulty. The other stream, the Sarısu, is much less considerable; there is a İskele at its mouth where a boat is normally available.

'The site itself is remarkably extensive and utterly deserted among the woods. The very numerous buildings, many of them in good preservation, are of inferior masonry and clearly of medieval date. Among them are a Christian church with apse and aisles, a high fortification wall, and a reservoir. Near the centre of the site is a large pond holding water even through the summer. It is probable that these ruins represent the medieval town of Prepia mentioned in the Italian portolans. At the same time there is evidence that an ancient town previously stood on the site. At its northern end is a rectangular fortress of square blocks which appears Hellenistic, and near the centre, especially between the pond and the reservoir, are a number of column- drums and other ancient stones, one bearing an inscription in honour of the emperor Julian. The name of this earlier town remains uncertain; the most probable suggestion is perhaps Pisilis, which Strabo seems to place between Calynda and is much less considerable; there is a Caunus.

Near the Sarısu landing-stage, a short distance offshore, is the small island of Baba Adası. This is crowned by a remarkable pyramidal structure, of which about half is preserved, built entirely of brick. It is in two storeys, the upper consisting of a circular room divided into four compartments by cross-walls ; at the point where these cross is a round brick pillar three feet in diameter. The building has been variously understood as a mausoleum or a lighthouse; in view of the divided upper storey the latter suggestion appears more probable.

Just 4 kilometers, about 2| miles beyond Dalaman an abundant spring issues on the right of the road beside a disused coffee-house On a hill directly above this are the ruins of an ancient city which general opinion, including the present writer's, accepts as Calynda though it is not actually identified by coins or inscriptions. The place is now called Kuzpınar.

Calynda was a city that lived its good days early. In 480 B.C. It supplied a single ship to Xerxes' fleet at Salamis, but this had the misfortune to be rammed and sunk by a ship of its own side commanded by the Carian queen Artemisia.1 in the Delian (l for this curious incident see Turkey beyond the Masonder p. 103.)
                                                                                                                         
Confederacy Calynda (in the form Claynda) paid a tribute twice as large as that of Caunus But as Caunus increased in importance Calynda correspondingly declined. Until 200 B.C. it was still an independent city, but before 164 must have fallen under Caunian control, since in that year it is said to have revolted from Caunus and to have been given by the Roman Senate to Rhodes. By the first century A.D. it was probably incorporated in Caunus but when the province of Lycia-Pamphylia was finally established by Vespasian, Calynda, unlike Calms, was included in the Lycian League. Until then it had been reckoned as Carian As a member of the League the city was eligible for a donation of 9,000 denarii from the millionaire Opramoas of Rhodiapolis.

The hill at Kozpınar is of no great height; it is ascended by a gentle slope on the west, the other sides being much steeper or even precipitous. The upper part is encircled by a fortification wall of polygonal masonry from 7 to 9 feet thick; the style varies, but in part is of the 'coursed polygonal' variety which dates to the early Hellenistic period. It stands in places up to 3 or 4 meters in height, but this is partly due to a late addition in roughly squared blocks with cement. At the north corner is a tower or small fort of good regular Hellenistic masonry, divided into two clambers; it has a small door with a 'corbelled' arch, formed by cutting the top course of the jambs obliquely and closing the gap with a cap-stone. In the interior the whole site is strewn with vast masses of building-stones, cut or uncut; foundations of houses are discernible, but nothing is standing.

Great tales are told by the locals of the treasures of gold and silver found on the site, and a good deal of illicit digging has been done, but as usual none of the treasures are forthcoming.

The ancient evidence for placing Calynda on the map consists of two passages, from Strabo and from Pliny. Strabo says it is sixty shades, about 61 miles from the sea from Kozpınar to the coast is 6 miles Pliny records in order from south to north: Crya the river Axon, the town of Calynda the river Indus. On the map the first river after Crya is the Kargın Çayı a modest stream which passes close under the Kozpınar site ; between this and the Dalaman Çayı (Indus) there is no ancient site. It seems almost inevitable, therefore, that the Axon is the Kargın Çayı and that Calynda stood on it; in this case Strabo's figure leads exactly to Kozpınar.

From Kozpınar the road continues eastward. Near the village of İnlice at a point just beyond the sign marking 'Fethiye 29 km.' close beside the road on the left, is an interesting tomb cut in a rocky knoll. It is in the east face of the rock, and the traveller going towards Fethiye must look back in order to see it; from the other direction it is in full view. Rather unusually, the tomb is in the Doric order. Three steps lead up to the porch, which has two columns between pilasters; the columns are of one piece with the tomb, cut from the rock. That on the right is reduced to a foot or two at the top. Much of the Doric ornamentation survives on the right-a triglyph frieze with a dentil frieze above and mutules below. The pediment carried three acroteria of which that on the right is lost. There is no inscription. The entrance to the main chamber is broken wide open; the interior is a single room with stone benches round all three sides on which the corpses were laid, and a flat rather rough roof. As a whole the tomb does not appear to be very highly finished.

A little further on the attentive traveller may just discern, high up in the hills to the left, a group of pigeon-hole tombs cut in the hillside; they appear as tiny black squares. These mark the site of the city of Daedala. Here again the identity is not proved by inscriptions or coins, but the position agrees with the ancient notices and is generally accepted. The site requires a considerable effort to reach, and has in fact very rarely been visited. It is known as İnlice Asarı. The steep acropolis hill is surrounded on three sides by a wall of respectable ashlar masonry; the west side is too precipitous to need a wall. On the summit is a small fort. Also on the acropolis are rock-cut steps, foundations of houses, and a circular stucco-coated cistern sheet in diameter. A lower summit to the east was also included in the city. But the principal remains are tombs. Three of these are typical Lycian rock-tombs, and there are a few sarcophagi, but most are of simple pigeon-hole type, cut in the rock-face and in many cases quite inaccessible. These are especially numerous to the west of the acropolis.
                                                                                                      
Strabo gives Daedala as marking the boundary between Caria and Lycia, and both he and Livy describe it as belonging to the Rhodian Peraes (2) this is confirmed by an inscription found on the island of Tersane in the gulf of Fethiye, but stated to have come from a tomb at Daedala. It is a dedication by a, Rhodian governor of the second century B.C., and the form of the wording shows that he was functioning on territory actually incorporated in the Rhodian state, not merely subject to Rhodes. No other such territory is known between here and the bay of Marmaris.
There is some uncertainty whether the stone came from the Doric tomb by the roadside described above or from one of the Lycian tombs in the city itself; but in any case it appears that there was around Daedala an isolated enclave of the incorporated Rhodian Peraea.(3)

From Göcek an excursion may be made to the islands of the gulf of   Fethiye (ancient Glaucus Sinus), of which Tersane is the largest. Here there was formerly a prosperous Greek village, but following the exchange of populations after the First World War. Ancient remains include a ruined watch- tower and a handsome built tomb partially preserved. It is possible, though quite unproved, that the ancient name of Tersane was Telandria, an island on which, according to Pliny, there was a town which had already perished in his day. On most of the other islands, or islets, there are various remains of the Byzantine age, but they are not of much account.

More interesting is the site on the west coast of the gulf at a spot called Taşyaka (formerly Charopia) to the north-west of Tersane. Near the shore is a group of temple-tombs a good deal damaged but remarkable because one of them carries an inscription not in Lycian but in Carian. As this language is not yet understood, it remains unknown what Carian dignitary was buried here. There are also some pigeon-hole tombs in the Clio- face. From the shore a rock-cut stairway led up the steep hill may be made to the islands of the Glaucus Sinus), of which Tersane is the gulf of Fethiye (ancient largest. Here there was it is now deserted (2) That is Rhodian territory on the mainland.

(The matter of the inscription is not free from uncertainly. The statement that the stone came from a tomb on the mainland may not be reliable; it is a dedication to Good Fortune and Aphrodite, which a governor would hardly set up in a tomb. It must have come originally from some other place altogether.

To a tiny acropolis on the summit, barely 40 yards long and half as wide. It is enclosed by an early wall of mixed ashlar and polygonal masonry. In the interior are the foundations of a, tower or small fort some 30 by 20 feet, and a large cistern. These scanty remains almost certainly represent the city of Crya. Yet again no inscriptions or coins have proved the identity, but the position agrees exactly with the notice in the Stadiasmus(4) which places it a, little over 5 miles north of Lydae. Very little is in fact heard about Crya in the ancient writers. Pliny calls her 'Crya of the fugitives', but the reason for this curious title is not known. She is said to have possessed islands in the gulf, two of which are named as Carysis and Alina but it is quite impossible to identify these. Crya was never more than a very modest city, and her citizens are very rarely met with in the inscriptions, so that a small site like that at Taşyaka seems perfectly suitable.

In the hill country to the north and east of Göcek are a great number of small ancient sites, but they are hard to reach, mostly unidentifiable and unrewarding when reached.

(4) A kind of ancient portolan, listing the places along the shores of the Mediterranean, with a note of the distances between them. It was composed probably in the first century B.C.

HISTORICAL SITES OF TURKEY MAP

TELMESSOS (FETHİYE)
BY R. M. HARRISON

Telmessos had an importance in antiquity which is belied both by its extant remains and by its modern successor, Fethiye, a small town whose chief export is chrome from local mines.
This importance was guaranteed by two geographical factors: the site commands the only overland route into western Lycia, and on a notoriously difficult coast it possesses one of the best natural harbours in Asia Minor.

Although politically Telmessos appears to have lain outside the Lycian League until the first century BC, early inscriptions in Lycian and the characteristic types of sarcophagi and rock-cut tombs demonstrate that the people of Telmessos were ethnically Lycians. Incorpo rated in the Persian Empire in the mid-sixth century BC, briefly tributary to Athens in the fifth, then again under Persia until Alexander's conquest (334-333 BC), and subject to Egypt in the third century, Telmessos shared much of Lycia's history. In AD 43 it was included in the new Roman Province of Lycia and Pamphylia, and later it was granted the official rank of Metropolis, a title also held by four other Lycian cities. In Byzantine times bishops of Telmessos attended the Church Councils, although the name was changed to Makri a name which was still used throughout the nineteenth century.

The site lies on the southern edge of the gulf. Of the theatre, said a century ago to be one of the finest surviving in Asia Minor, there is now little trace. It was built against a hillside near the shore, its form rather more than a semi- circle. The stage-building, an independent structure, was well preserved, with five high- level doorways onto the raised stage. The tombstone of a gladiator found at Telmessos suggests one kind of entertainment in Roman times. The Acropolis is crowned by a medieval castle with square and polygonal towers and an inner and outer ward. Its walls embody classical masonry, and the hillside has many typically Lycian 'hog's-back' sarcophagi and rock-cut tombs, the latter often in direct imitation of wooden prototypes. More remarkable, however, is the celebrated necropolis east of the town. Here three principal tombs present Ionic temple-facades carved in the sheer rock. Highest on the cliff-face is the fourth-century Tomb of Amyotas, (The name is given by an inscription on the left-hand anta. A portico of two Ionic columns in antis supports a stepped architrave, a heavy dentil-cornice and a pediment with acroteria. Inside, a mighty stone door, carved in imitation of wood and bronze, leads into the low burial chamber, which has benches on three sides. The tombs are covered with the signatures of travellers dating back to 1780.

MYRA (DEMRE)
BY BARRY CUNLIFFE

Myra (modern Demre) has two claims to fame: it is one of the earliest cities of Lycia and was reputedly the resting place of St. Nicholas until that is, his bones were removed by merchants to Bari in 1087. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra in the fourth century where he became renowned for his miracles - saving travellers and ship- wrecked sailors from certain death, helping prisoners and bringing the dead to life. His   fame soon spread as patron saint of shim and sailors but he is best known today in the West in his guise as the children's saint Santa Claus.

The church in which the saint's bones were first said to have been laid to rest is a small triple apses Byzantine basilica restored in the eleventh century and on several subsequent occasions. The merchants of Bari had to dig below the floor to find the saint's tomb. Legend has it that after digging down for some way they came upon the white marble sarcophagus and, removing the lid, found the saint's bones swimming in oil of myrrh. The sarcophagus now displayed in the south aisle of the church probably dates from the late second century AD and the lid, displaying two much mutilated reclining figures does not belong if indeed it was the saint's tomb he cannot have been its original occupant!

Of the ancient city we know little: it is hardly mentioned by early writers and it now lies buried deep below mud and detritus at the foot of a precipitous cliff. Only the well-preserved and recently cleared Roman theatre serves to remind us of the community's civic glories. But it is the spectacular rock-cut tombs for which.

Myra is justly famous. Hacked into the cliff ' face, and copying temples and private houses, they are like a gigantic relief carving of a city. The solid limestone has been laboriously carved into faithful replicas of the timber-built houses of the living, providing marvellous structural detail of the kind the archaeologist is seldom likely to discover in his excavations of domestic structures. Many are enhanced with full-size relief carvings of figures which, according to the early travelers. Still retained much of their vivid painting. Now one has to look hard for surviving color, but as a document of city life dating back to the fourth century BC the tombs is of incomparable value.

XANTHOS
BY R. M. HARRISON

Xanthus was, until the end of the Roman period the principal city of Lycia. Its ruins were discovered in 1838 by Charles Fellows, and since 1950 it has been the scene of important excavations by French archaeology- ists. The first five volumes of Fouilles de Xanthos have already appeared.

Lycia is a wild tract of the Western Taurus, thrusting south into the Mediterranean between Fethiye and Antalya. Its mountains rise to 10,000 feet, and in its forests (pine, juniper and cedar there are still bears. Inland, roads are few, and external contact was chiefly by sea. The rugged coastline is relieved by three river valleys, of which the westernmost is the Xanthus. Eight miles from its mouth, on the left bank, the Acropolis rises sheer.

Of the earliest history of Lycia there are but tantalizing glimpses. Glaucus and Sarpedon appear in the Iliad as Lycian allies of the Trojans, and the 'eddying Xanthos' is mentioned. Archaeologists have sought traces of this period in Lycia in vain, and some scholars have argued that Homer's Lycians either dwelt elsewhere or are late interpolations. The systematic exploration of Lycia, however, is in its infancy, and Homer may yet be vindicated. Xanthos itself was first occupied Overseas contact was at first with Ionia later with Attica, and the Lycian alphabet appears to have come from Rhodes. In 546 BC the Persians, now masters of much of Asia Minor, turned to the south coast. Xanthos offered heroic resistance, vividly described by Herodotus, but Lycia was quickly incorporated in the Persian Empire. In 480 BC the Lycians contributed ships to the Persian fleet at Salamis.

Athenian Initiative after Persian's defeat won over the Lycians; who briefly paid tribute to Athens. By the end of the century they had reverted to Persia. Alexanders: conquest (334- 333 BC) was followed by the territorial rivalry of his successors. After quick changes of rule, Lycia passed to the Ptolomies for   century, and after further vicissitudes was finally declared free by emergent Rome (167 BC), During Rome's civil wars Xanthos was destroyed by Brutus (42 BC).

Lycia's foreign masters had required arms or tribute, but they interfered little in her internal politics. There developed an elaborate system of native federal government, whereby the twenty-three main cities were united to form the Lycian League. In AD 43 Claudius formally annexed Lycia, but it was characteristic of Rome's provincial policy that the League continued to regulate home affairs. Under the Early Empire Xanthos and her confederate cities achieved a high level of urban prosperity, primarily due to Lycia's position on the maritime trade-routes linking Syria and Egypt with the Aegean and Rome. In the fifth century Xanthos yielded her pre-eminence to Myra. In AD 655 a great naval conflict off Lycia between the Byzantine and Arab fleets signalled the end of peaceful development; henceforth Lycia assumed a strategic importance against first the Arabs, later the Turks.

The modern road from Fethiye to Kalkan passes through the ancient city, crossing a terrace which divides the Lycian Acropolis from the so-called Roman Acropolis. The former has strong natural defences on three sides, only on the north wire its wails all-important securing the Acropolis from this open terrace. This was the extent of the city until the Hellenistic period, when, under the   Ptolemies, a vast new circuit of wails was laid out to north and east, embracing the 'Roman' Acropolis and its southern slopes. These walls were maintained throughout Roman and Early Byzantine times, but the final Byzantine settlement was a retrenchment to the first small area of the Lycian Acropolis. With these facts in mind, it will be convenient to indicate the principal monuments in four groups.

(1) The Lycian Acropolis. In its final phase the wails are Byzantine, but there are splendid stretches of classical masonry (early fifth century BC), particularly at the south-east corner (outside which is a be Hellenistic tower) and on the south and west sides. Excavation has been carried to bed-rock in many places, and the earliest pottery is of the late eighth century BC. In the south-east sector is a angled complex of dwellings of the seventh to fifth centuries, with clear traces of burning in the early fifth century. North of these is a palatial courtyard building (fifth century AD) flanked by a church with southern apse and curious side-chambers?

Elsewhere are several early temples: one (sixth century) has a triple cella with an eastern wall of orthostats another (fifth century) has four conspicuous orthostats and was perhaps dedicated to Artemis, a third fifth century) lies in the south-west sector and had figured friezes and projecting eaves carved in imitation of timber, while on the westernmost tip, perched high above the river, are the foundations of yet another fifth-century shrine.

(2) Theatre Area. Lying outside the Lycian walls, this was at first part of the necropolis; most prominent is the Harpy Tomb, a monolithic pillar (eighteen feet high) set upon a pedestal and supporting sculptured reliefs beneath a projecting cornice. The reliefs (these are casts of the originals in the British Museum) depict a dynastic family of the early fifth century, perhaps even Cybernis who comman- ded the Lycian squadron at Salamis. The tomb-chambler is cut into the top surface of the monolith. Beside it is a smaller pillar surmounted by a typical Lycian sarcophagus (fourth or third century BC). The auditorium of the Roman Theatre (later Amphitheatre) was deliberately curtailed to accommodate these monuments. The Roman Forum, lying north of the Theatre, is a great court surrounded by four colonnades. In it was later inserted a small Byzantine church and adjacent chapel. Near the north-east corner of the Forum is the Inscribed Pillar, a great funerary monument similar to the Harpy Tomb. It was crowned by a frieze, projecting cornice, and an enthroned statue, and the shaft has enormous inscriptions in Lycian and Greek recording the exploits of a Xanthian prince towards the end of the fifth century BC.

(3) Lower City. Near the ancient street running south from the foot of the 'Roman' Acropolis is the platform of the Nereid Monument an exquisite Ionic building of marble (c.
400 BC. lts figured friezes and female statues ('Nereids') are in the British Museum, but the quality of the carving can be gauged from a recently discovered fragment of moulding, which lies in front of the archaeological depot nearby. Across the modern road can be seen the Arch of Vespasian   and traces of the Hellenistic gateway.

(4) 'Roman' Acropolis. Lycian tomb: crowd its eastern flanks. Most conspicuous is a pillar tomb (fourth century BC) with   fune group of rock-cut facades in the immediate vicinity. On the summit stand a medieval monastery and the spectacular view southwards is well worth the climb: in the foreground are the theatre, pillar-tombs and Lycian Acropolis, with the river winding far below in the distance the sand-dunes of Patara and the sea. Some four miles south, hidden by a low hill, is the sanctuary of Leto which has a fine Hellenistic temple and theatre a Roman temple and nymphacum and a sixth-century church.
  
XANTHOS - THE LETOÖN
BY JOHN DANCY

(A Letoön is a shrine in honors of the goddess Leto. The word is made up of the name of the goddess plus the termination -on, and so it has three syllables).

The Letoön is the chief shrine of Xanthos. Like the Heraion at Samos and the Artemision at Ephesus, it occupies a low and peaceful site blow and away from the hurly burly of the city - doubtless because all three deities were originally earth-goddesses.

The temple of Leto is the westernmost of three temples parallel to each other in the centre of the sacred enclosure. What the visitor sees is what is left of an Ionic temple of 150 BC. Beneath it however can be descried the remains of an earlier one c. 400 BC, modelled on that of Athena Nike on the Acropolis of Athens.

Next to it, in the middle of the three, is a strange building whose original layout the French archaeologists have recently been able to reconstruct. It consisted chiefly of a solid cella cut from the natural rock with crude limestone blocks on top to bring it to a height of 2 metres. It had no peristyle i.e. columns round it, only a façade of three pillars and an architrave on top. One of the limestone blocks (now re-erected) has an inscription of c.350 BC. The inscription contains three lines of Greek recording a dedication 'to Artemis', followed by a longer text in Lycian mentioning the equivalent Ertemit- for the Lycian language is related to Greek.

The third, easternmost, temple is Doric. What the visitor sees is of c. 100 BC, and a black-and-white pebble mosaic of a bow and a lyre suggests that it was dedicated to Apollo. Beneath it again can be descried a Lycian temple. But more important than the temple it is another fascinating inscription carved on a low cut rock-face just beyond it. This time the inscription is in three languages: Greek, Lycian and Aramaic   was the chancery language of the Persian Empire - and the language in which half the book of Daniel is written. This inscription records the establishment c. 350 BC by the Persian Satrap (governor) Pixodarus of a cult in honour of two Lycian deities from elsewhere: any slight to either of them will be punished by the combined forces of Leto, Artemis, Apollo and the Nymphs. The wording proves that the Letoön was the cult- centre not only for Xanthos but for the whole Lycian League within the Persian Empire. The trilingual inscription is now re-erected against a low cliff to the east of the temple.

To the south of these three temples is visible a Roman Nymphaeum or Shrine of the Nymphs. Most of it is now under water and the excavators believe that it was in fact originally created in order to save the temples from inundation when the water table rose in antiquity (as it has continued to rise since). The Roman poet Ovid in his metamorphoses pro- duces a sophisticated version of the cult-legend of the Nymphaeum. Leto, still fleeing the wrath of Juno after giving birth to Apollo and Artemis, came here with her twins, found water, and asked permission of the locals to quench her thirst. They rebuffed her, with insults; whereupon she turned them into the frogs who (stil1) live in the pool and continue to swear at her from under water: quamvis sint sub aqua, sub aqua maledicere tentant.

Ovid's famous line has provided many generations of European schoolboys with the locus classicus of onomatopoeia.

But it is to the north of the temples that the excavators are now working. They have already found an extensive complex of buildings going back to the sixth century BC, and that is the part of the site from which we may expect the most interesting new discoveries.

PATARA
BY ANTHONY BRYER

The Xanthos river mouth demands a port for Lycia, which Patara offered 5 km to the west with a harbour which once stretched almost 1.5 km inland. Despite ancient Greek ingenuity to seek more classical origins for its name, and the absence of any Lycian inscription on the site, there is no doubt that it was a Lycian foundation, from the 6th century BC with a Lydan name: Pttara - or simply 'town'. The place housed, however an oracle which early rivalled Delphi's Accordmg to Herodotus, Apollo per- formed an annual transhumance from Delos, spending the six winter months at Patara, where the god was served by a priestess but was largely silent. An inscription of the second century AD reveals that the oracle was finally gingered into life under Antoninus Pius, when a local benefactor, Opramoas, presented the Patarans with 20,000 denarii, 'to the account of their ancestral god Apollo, whose oracle, after a long period of silence, has now again begun to prophesy' But the rest is silence.

Patara otherwise shared the history of Xanthos. Alexander surrender in accepted its surrender in 333 BC. It passed through the distant hands of his successors who controlled Lycia from Syria, Egypt and Pontus. In 42 BC Brutus, fresh from his frightful attack on Xanthos, imposed the same terms on Patara whose citizens chose to lose their money rather than their lives?

Roman Patara to which period most of its upstanding monuments belong, became a Christian metropolis of Lycia as important as had been its place in the former Lycian League. Even before the oracle of Apollo finally fell silent, St. Paul visited Patara in about 55 AD, sailing from Rhodes to Tyre. It was the birthplace of the shadowy St. Nicholas of Myra, which gave it an attraction that sup planted the memory of Apollo from the fourth century; but it is the historical Life of another local St. Nicholas, of Sion, in the sixth century which gives the most vivid impression of early Byzantine Lycia. A sign of the wealth of the province then is still tangible, for the silver treasure of its monastery of Holy Sion (Kumluca) is now displayed, divided between the museums at Antalya and at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington D.C.)

Judging by its surviving monuments, the harbour of Patara may have been choked from the sixth century by now stupendous sand dunes, which today even encroach its theatre.

There is no obvious sign of later Byzantine or Turkish settlement. lts ancient bishopric survives, but the present Orthodox Metropolitan of Patara resides in Birmingham, England. The port has moved east to the former fishing village of Kalkan, which by the early 1990s will be dominated by new tangible wealth: the Club Patara. This is a vast but well-ordered holiday villa complex, largely developed for foreigners. From Kalkan to Patara the traveller passes through villages of an intermediate era, where households discreetly advertise marriageable daughters by embedding bottles on roof gables.

Today ancient Patara is a large, deserted and virtually unexcavated site, its monuments almost incidental features of a broad valley which is both cultivated and grazed. For the Hellenic Traveller it is therefore a rare plea- sure: an amble through melon gardens, or scramble with goats and sheep in the scrub, to find most of the expected Roman and Byzantine features of a Lycian city. There is the reward of a bathe off the dunes beyond.

By road Patara is approached through a brief and apparently undefended gorge. Lycian tombs lie outside its handsome triple-arched Gateways constructed by (according to its north face inscription) 'the People of Patara metro- polis of the Lycian nation'. Six consoles on either side once carried busts of Mettius Mod- estus governor of Lycia and Pamphylia in c: 100 AD, and his family. It may be that the mound to the west marks the site of the temple of Apollo. More evident are Roman vaulted buildings (baths?) blow it. The road then skirts the apse of a substantial basilica. Of some quality and apparently single build, this perhaps represents the 5th/6th-century cathedral of Patara.

Over a field to the west of the road is a substantially preserved bath complex, ascribed by inscription to Vespasian (69-79 AD). The apology for an acropolis, and car park, lie south. But the acropolis is worth climbing for the fine views it affords of the dunes and site, and to speculate on what its features represent- there may be a temple (of Athene?), lighthouse and guard tower. There is certainly an ancient cistern with single central column rising from a formidable depth (fresh water must always have been a problem).

To the north of, and below, the acropolis, lies a very neat theatre, originally   of 34 rows of seats, a single diazoma a 5-door stage set, and an orchestra lost under the sands. Already repaired by Polyperchon, prophet of Apollo - under Tiberius (14-37 AD), another benefactor gave its staging to Patara in 147 AD. The scrub north of the theatre is littered with evidence of dense settlement, early Byzantine wails round the harbour, and an exquisite Corinthian temple. Its cella door over 6 m. high and other decoration reveal no sign of its dedication. Thence the traveller may plunge west over the now cultivated harbour to the impressive Granary of Hadrian: eight clambers stretching almost 80 m. It stands in bushes along with other buildings including a vaulted temple or mausoleum with coffered panels, which once lined the busiest quay in Lycia.

KAŞ (ANTIPHELLOS)
BY R. M. HARRISON

Beneath precipitous cliffs a narrow rocky peninsula projects obliquely from the coastline, on one side enclosing a deep narrow inlet, on the other affording a wider anchorage requiring moles. A road here climbs steeply to the skyline ridge and then passes by easier stages to the Elmalı plateau. Antiphellos one of the smaller cities of the Lycian   League, occupied this peninsula and served both coastal traffic and an extensive hinterland. The small modern town of Kaş lies on the neck of the peninsula, between the city-site to the west and the necropolis to the east. Of the ancient city not much now survives. Apart from the multitudinous rock-cut and free-standing tombs (a particulary fine pillar sarcophagus stands in one of the streets of Kaş), the most conspicuous monument is a small Hellenistic theatre, of fine masonry mainly well-preserved, but lacking the stage building. Texier, the nineteenth-century French architectural historian, saw a large   peristyle court (angora?) and basilica about l 50 yards east of the theatre, and east of these again a Byzantine church of circular plan. No trace of these remains: one hundred years ago there were but two modern houses, and the accent growth of the modern town has naturally absorbed ancient masonry. Lying about three miles offshore is the small. Greek island of Castelorizo is (modern Turkish Meis Ada, ancient Greek Megiste), an anomaly of treaty terms.

HISTORICAL SETTLEMENTS OF SOUTH TURKEY MAP

CAUNUS (DALYAN)
BY DAVID BOMGARDNER

The ancient port city of Caunus, situated near the modern town of Dalyan, lies today some three kilometers from the coast. As with many a coastal port at the head of an Anatolian river, Caunus has suffered from the silting-up of the Dalyan estuary, which eventually closed its harbour and pushed the coastline to its present position. The area must always have been marshy for Caunus is recorded as being extremely unhealthy by Strabo, who mentions the heat and the abundance of fruit - thought to be a contributory cause of fever by Galen. The role of mosquitoes in carrying malaria was unknown to ancient medicine, but this spot has been prone to malaria until systematic eradication efforts in 1948 eliminated the disease here.

The malarial curse of the ancient site has meant the wide-scale preservation of the remains today, as at Paestum in southern Italy.

The word Dalyan in modern Turkish means 'fish-weir' and these may be seen along the meandering course of the river today where large quantities of mullet and bass are harvested each season as they attempt to swim back to the sea after spawning. Indeed a fragmentary inscription recording details of catches of fish here may record a similar system in operation in antiquity. Strabo says that Caunus exported large amounts of salted fish.

 The Caunians considered themselves to have come from Crete, but Herodotus reckoned they were naive Carian stock. Certainly examples of the language spoken by the Caunians and preserved as inscriptions resemble the Carian tongue, but there are also additional characters unattested in extant Carian inscriptions. What- ever the origins of the Caunians, they were soon deeply influenced by the neighbouring cultures of Caria and Lycia. A spectacular series of Lycian-style temple-tombs (mainly 4th century BC from pottery finds and anegipraphic except where later reused in Roman times) carved into the cliffs can be seen as one approaches by boat. In addition Carian-type tombs, consisting of a grave-pit sunk vertically into the solid rock and covered with a separate lid, are also found at Caunus Herodotus (1.172) recorded with dismay that the Caunians thought it be finest thing in the world for men, women or children to organize large drinking parties of friends of similar age'. To a Greek such symposia would offend cultural values in two ways: 1) groups of children or women drinking together; 2) groups of men all of a similar age - Greek symposia consisted of younger and older men, the older men eyeing the younger ones for homosexual contacts later.

The site was certainly selected for a settlement owing to the convenient juxtaposition of a good harbour, an easily defensible saddle of high ground salt flats for the production of the valuable commodity salt, a river rich in spawning fish and a fertile hinterland easily accessible up-river. The earliest history of the site is obacure but the first historical mention of Caunus concerns the heroic, stiff-necked resistance, likened by Herodotus to the suicidal stand at Xanthos, offered by the Caunians against the Persian invasions (6th century BC). The Caunians eventually joined the Ionian revolt along with most of Caria and suffered the consequences. As a member of the Athenians' Delian League Caunus contributed a scant half a talent in tribute annually thus indicating its insignificance at this time. Undisclosed troubles perhaps rebellion, are hinted at by two pieces of evidence. First Ctesias refers to the fact that, during the so-called Simian War, an Athenian squadron on watching station off the Carian coast attacked Caunus where the famous Persian deserter Zopyrus son of the famous general Megabyzus met his death as part of the attacking force (441/40 BC). Second, the tribute for Caunus is reassessed in 425 BC at tea talents, the same as the fine levied by Cimon (c. 467 BC) on Phaselis for its refusal to join the League (Plut. Cimon 12.3-4). It is perhaps possible that here we have evidence for a successful Persian subversion of Caunus from the   League in preparation for an Aegean offensive with the Persian fleet mustered in Pamphylia (c. 467 BC). An estimate of the size of the harbour here can be gleaned from the fact that in 397 BC a small Persian fleet of forty vessels under the command of the Athenian Conon was based here. From this statistic we can say that the harbour must have been at least twice as big as the military harbour at Knidos which serviced a small fleet of twenty triremes. Strabo in the 1st century AD mentions dockyards as well as a harbour which could be closed by a chain or boom. Already there are signs that the silting of the harbour was causing problems for the Caunians A 1st century AD inscription records that a group of citizens had donated 60.000 denarii for the remission of harbour duties evidently, according to Bean, so that merchant vessels might be encouraged to use a subsidized port.

Under the terms of the King's Peace (387 BC), Caunus along with the other cities of Asia Minor passed over into the control of the Persians. It is far from clear how or even when an indigenous city of Carian/Lycian cultural traits came to regard itself as a Greek polis with citizens bearing Greek names and participating in civic institutions wholly in keeping with Greek practice. Bean thinks that the early history of the city to the 4th century BC is dominated by the Carian nature of the population but that under Mausolus satrap of Caria (377/6-353 BC) and ambitious creator of a Hellenized Carian Empire, the process of Hellenization began in earnest and was essentially complete by the 3rd century BC. Probably at this time a strong circuit wall consisting of two unequal stretches, one is linking the double acropolises southeast of the harbour and a longer stretch (some three km. in length) which clung to the high ridge to the North and East of the harbour and which ended at a cliff above the river. There is evidence of great variety in the construction of these walls: Bean notes in particular the lower parts near the city which he feels' are Hellenistic rebuilding’s. If Bean's interpretation of an attack by Ptolemy on Caunus (309 BC), as recorded by Diodorus (20.27), is correct, then the higher, steeper (c.

500 feet) hill topped by a small fort should be identified as the Heraklion and the lower as the Persikon The area immediately adjacent to the harbour and the acropolis was thickly occupied by monuments, but much of the rest of the area within the circuit of the walks seems devoid of habitation.

Throughout the 3rd and early 2nd century BC Caunus was mainly under the control of the Ptolemies of Egypt. This was a time of internecine warfare among the Hellenistic monarchies which formed after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC). The city seems to have prospered and grown into an important centre for the export of salt, fruit (esp. figs) salted fish, resins (naval stores) and slaves (evidence of piracy?). Perhaps at this time the dockyards referred to by Strabo were first built as part of the Ptolemaic ship construction programme of the 3rd/2nd century BC in this part of Asia Minor.
Shortly before 189 BC the Rhodians bought Caunus from the generals of Ptolemy for 200 talents. The Romans soon confirmed this situation when Rhodes was given Caria and Lycia in 189. Henceforth the destiny of the city was periodically to be bound up with the fate of the   Island of Rhodes and her sphere of influence in southwestern Anatolia Apparently this first half of the 2nd century BC saw the acme of Caunian prosperity under Rhodian influence: in 167 BC the Rhodians claimed to have derived 120 talents of tribute in one year from Caunus and Stratonicea alone. The Caunians soon entered the sphere of Roman political influence and by 129 BC it became part of the province of Asia on the frontier of Lycia - much later it was transferred to the province of Lycia. For a time during the mid-1st century BC, it rearmed to the control of the Rhodians. But by the end of the century it was declared an oppidum   liberum (a free community) by Rome. The orator Dio Chrysostom (c. AD 70) records an unspecified enduring double servitude of Caunus to her former masters Rome and Rhodes.

Although perennially troubled by malaria and the silting-up of its harbour Caunus survived into the Byzantine period where it formed part of Lycian territory with a bishop attested and further emphasized by the evidence of a fine basilical church here. Traces of Medieval walls on the summit of the Heraklion would suggest at least sporadic re-occupation or garrisoning at this time.

The site is best approached by a short boat trip down the Dalyan Çayı past the aforementioned temple-tombs in the cliffs which tower above the over. The imposing citadel of Heraklion forms the spectacular backdrop to a Greek-style theatre whose cavea partly rests upon the hillside and is partly supported upon barrel-vaulted substructures in ashlar on its northern side. Near this structure stand three other large-scale remains: a Byzantine church, Roman baths, and perhaps a palaestra. The agora, including a poorly preserved stoa, lay near the harbour, as was usual in a port. In this vicinity were uncovered a well-preserved nymphaeum (now re-erected) and a dedicatory ascription to the emperor Vespasian which was found in front of it. In the forecourt of the temple in antis is situated one of the more intriguing monuments at Caunus. It resembles a sunken circular basin lined with water-proof plaster of which a small segment of the circle has been made into a raised podium. Inside the basin a round, flat-topped stone of purple marble rested and around the perimeter of the basin was a grille-work barrier. Its function is unknown, suggestions of an outdoor bathing pool or reservoir have been made, it may perhaps be associated with the religious struc tures adjacent. In addition, at least three other temples, cisterns and reservoirs’ and many as yet unidentified structures of late date have been uncovered.

Since 1967 professor Baki Üğün and Ö. Serdaroğlu have been conducting extensive fieldwork, survey and excavations here.