Lycia covers an area in southern Turkey between Dalaman in the west and Antalya in the east. The area being dominated by the Taurus Mountains, which rise in places to over 3,000 meters. Whilst in summer temperatures rise to and above 40C, the Taurus Mountains are high enough to have their peaks covered in snow during the winter months.

A book by George E. Bean, “Lycian Turkey”, written in the fifties and sixties was instrumental in introducing me to the delights of this part of Turkey and this project is dedicated to his memory.

George E. Bean (1903 – 1977) was educated at St. Paul’s School and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. From 1926 until 1943 he taught scholarship Greek at his old school. He lectured in Classics for 25 years at the University of Istanbul and was elected to an honorary professorship in 1965. During 1969-70 Professor Bean did research at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He was a contributor to the Journal of Hellenic Studies, the American Journal of Archaeology, Anatolian Studies and numerous other journals. The companion volumes to Lycian Turkey are, Aegean Turkey, Turkey’s Southern Shore. Turkey beyond the Meander.

The aim is to record photographically as many of the sites as are possible. Professor Bean complained how difficult it was to travel in the region as roads were practically non-existent and guides were needed to navigate mountain trails. Today there are now two lane highways and bulldozed track ways that lead to formerly barely accessible mountain villages.

However it is this new found accessibility which tourism demands that is leading to the destruction of many of the sites, so it is imperative that an accurate and comprehensive record be made if future archaeologists and historians are to know what the sites looked like.

The Turkish museum authorities have realised that it is essential that excavations at the principal tourist attractions are undertaken and one can appreciate the efforts that the Museum authorities have already achieved at Cadyanda, Patara, Zanthos and Letoon. Overseas archaeological units from universities in France, Germany, Austria, Japan, the United States of American, and the United Kingdom continue to play an important part in the area as well as institutions like the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara. The BIAA has an extensive library for which scholars have ready access.

The map above is taken from a paper written by Jan Zahle, “Lycian Tombs and Lycian Cities” 1977 in which he categorised the various city sites by the presence or absence of certain types of tomb in their necropolis. He divided tombs into three groups, Pillar tombs, monumental ruler tombs and thirdly house type tombs which also included sarcophagi.

Whilst it is intended to try and visit nearly all the known Lycian sites, many are so over grown as to be inaccessible today. The principal sites are all on the tourist trail and can be visited from any of the tourist centres in Lycia. These sites are Xanthos, Tlos, Patara and Letoon. The others will require a car, a four wheel jeep type is preferable, a Turkish speaking guide and stout boots! Visits will also entail walking many kilometres, often uphill, to look at a collection of jumbled building stones. A handy guide “Lycia”, published in various languages including English by Dest Turistik Yayinlar which relies very heavily on George Beans “Lycian Turkey” is small enough to fit into a pocket. The history of Lycia is well recorded elsewhere so for those interested I give below an excellent paper by C.AKYEL of METU titled Lycia: A Forgotten Civilization.

1. LYCIA: AN OUTLOOK

LYCIA 
In south west Anatolia, between the bays of Antalya and Fethiye and extending out into the Mediterranean is the Teke Peninsula, known in ancient times as Lycia. The geographic boundaries of Lycia, which is hemmed in by the regions of Pamphylia to the north east, Pisidia and Phrygia to the north, and Caria to the west, cannot be precisely drawn, because they changed several times in the rapid currents of its complex history. Roughly, however, it may at one time stretched from Telmessos in the west to as far as Phaselis in the east.

Recent excavations and research have brought to light important information about the history, language, and art of unspoilt Lycia, famous for its rock-cut tombs, its sarcophagi, and its local script.

As a result of excavations conducted by a team of American archaeologists since 1963 in Karatas-Semahoyuk area near Elmali, the prehistory of the region has largely been filled in. Early Bronze Age examples of earthenware pottery reveal that the region was settled by 3000 B.C. Moreover, the fact that place names containing, "-nd", "-nt", "-ss" (Kalynda, Arykanda, Telmessos, Idebessos) occur in a number of Anatolian sites also dated to the fourth millennium B.C. verify this early settlement date linguistically.

We know from Egyptian, Hittite, and Ugaritic texts that the Lycians, whom these sources call "Lukka" or "Ruw-ku", were involved in acts of piracy against Cyprus around 1400 B.C., that they fought against Egypt in the ranks of the Hittites during the battle of Kadesh in 1295, and that they participated with the Libyans, possessed powerful sea and land forces by the second millennium B.C. and had already established an independent state.

Homer mentions the Lycians in "The Iliad" and tells that during the Trojan War, under commanders called Sarpedon and Glaucos, they battled heroically on the side of the Trojans against their enemies the Archaeans. It does appear to be true that Greek efforts to colonize Lycia during the first millennium B.C. were largely unsuccessful, in spite of the region's desirability, and the Greeks were able to establish only one important colony there, Phaselis.

In 545 B.C. the Persian commander Harpagos set foot on Lycian soil in the west, seizing Xanthos, its principal city, after a bloody struggle. Thus began Persian sovereignty over Lycia and the rest of Anatolia, a rule which was to last until the year 200 B.C. The Persians applied moderate policies, bringing about a state of calm that fostered the economic growth and strength of the region. The Lycians also took part in certain military campaigns on the side of Persia. Herodotos mentions that they joined the Persian king Xerxes' Greek campaign, contributing fifty ships, that their warriors wore garments of goat skin and headgear decorated with feathers, and that they used reed arrows and bows made of carnelian cherry wood.

Persian rule in Lycia came to an end when the region fell to the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. Crossing the Hellespont and landing in Anatolia, Alexander defeated the Persian forces in a battle waged at Granicos in the year 334. A small naval force accompanied him during the campaign. Because see travel in that period followed the coastline. Alexander intended to draw the Persian navy into the shore where he could attack it and deprive it of its bases. Marching rapidly through the cities of western Anatolia, he crushed resistance in Miletus and Halicarnassus, then passed on to Lycia. In spite of the moderate policies the Persians pursued, the Lycians must have been unhappy under their rule since they opened the gates to Alexander without offering him any resistance and so ushered in a new era in history. However, the Lycia we have seen up to now, with its distinctive indigenous culture, began to loose its native character during the course of the Hellenistic era. Let us observe one of the interesting local practices as described by Herodotos: "They have customs that resemble no one else's. They use their mother's name instead of their father's. If one Lycian asks another from whom he is descended, he gives the name of his mother".

After the death of Alexander the Great the history of the region becomes rather complicated. First Lycia fell by lot to the Macedonian Antigonos, after which it changed hands for many years between Ptolemies and the Seleucids. When Antiochos III lost to Rome at the battle of Magnesia, in spite of support from Lycia, the region was given to Rhodes, which had allied itself with Rome. The proud Lycians, resentful of being handed over to Rhodes like so much chattel, turned against Rhodes, and in 167 B.C., at the end of a long struggle, succeeded in regaining their liberty by a decision of the Roman Senate. This incident demonstrates that the Lycians were able to form a federation by uniting to fight for their freedom. Strabo tells us that 23 cities joined the Lycian League and that the six largest cities -Xanthos, Myra, Patara, Tlos, Pinara, and Olympos- each had the right to three votes, while the others each had one. The League had an assembly, or synedrion. In a general meeting held every autumn, this assembly, with the participation of the city representatives, selected a chief and other officials in a democratic election.

The second half of the first century B.C. was a time in which Lycia was affected by internal conflicts and disturbances in Rome itself, from time to time even suffering disaster as a result. However the area again recovered its propriety under Augustus (reigned 27 B.C. - 14 A.D.).

In 43 A.D. Claudius reduced Lycia to the status of a Roman province, and it was then administered by a governor whom the emperor appointed. During the first and second centuries A.D. a few of the Roman emperors, such as Vespasian, Traianus, and Hadrian, actually visited Lycia for various reasons. The period was again one in which the region developed and prospered and in which many public works were carried out.

As a natural outcome of this, culture, art, and daily life began to undergo a process of romanisation. Lycian aristocrats from this time to on began to adopt Roman names, there was a demand for the wild animal fights and gladiatorial combat peculiar to Roman culture, and the emperor cult spread rapidly.

In 141 A.D. Lycia was levelled by a large earthquake, and its cities were rebuilt by Rome, along with the help of wealthy Lycians of high rank. From written sources we lear that after the earthquake a certain Opramoas, a wealthy man from Rhodiapolis, made a donation of 500,000 dinars toward the rebuilding of cities.

After a second earthquake in 240 A.D. some cities were unable to recover, and we see them gradually beginning to decline. Later, during the early Christian ear, conflicts and spread of Christianity brought about important cultural and social changes. Under the Byzantines, nearly all the ancient cities in the region became Byzantine settlements of greater or lesser importance. Here, Byzantine architectural forms were generally adopted for religious buildings. It is interesting, however, that while one finds carefully constructed monumental churches in Lycia's mountainous area in settlements so small that not even their names are known, the buildings on the coast, even large churches, are by contrast remarkable for their careless construction, often of rubble masonry.

A FORGOTTEN CIVILIZATION

Ancient Greek institutions came to grief on one crucial problem: how to reconcile free government in the city-state with the needs of a larger political unity. Greek cities had democratic governments internally; nationwide, when they did not fight with each other, they were subjected to an alien city, a despotic king or (eventually) the Roman Empire. Until the American independence, western opinion held that democracy, even if desirable in theory, was only feasible in the city-state; a nation needed monarchical authority to hold it together.

The Greeks, however, knew and admired a nation which had in fact solved the conundrum which so baffled the ancient world. The institutions of the Lycian Union were studied and commented upon with envy by most classical writers. The Lycians were one of the few non-Hellenic nations of antiquity that could not be lightly dismissed as "barbarians". Their image was akin to that of the modern Swiss: a hard-working and wealthy people, neutral in world affairs but fierce in the defence of their freedom and conservative in their attachment to ancestral traditions.

They inhabited a compact, mountainous country. It was the last region on the entire Mediterranean coast to be incorporated as a province in the Roman Empire. They spoke a language of their own and used their own unique alphabet before they adopted Greek around 3rd century B.C. Their federation continued to function as a distinct entity even within the Roman Empire. Their monuments -above all the picturesque tombs which embodied their ancestor cult- dot every hill, valley, nook and cranny in the southwest coast of Turkey between the Gulf of Fethiye and Phaselis.

The Origins

In Greek legend the Lycians first appear as allies of Troy in the Trojan Wars. Thus Homer: "From distant Lycia and the whirling Xanthos came the Lycians led by Sarpedon and heroic Glaucus".

The Lycians themselves seem to have identifed with this version of the history. One of the greatest finds of Lycian archaeology, the relief’s of the Heroon of Trysa (now in the Vienna Museum), are unique in classical art in that they depict scenes of the Trojan War from a Trojan rather than Greek perspective.

Sarpedon and Glaucus were descendants of Bellerophon. Bellerophon was sent to Lycia to be punished for an improper love affair. He redeemed himself by killing the Chimaera, a fire-breathing monster that had been roaming the Lycian mountains, with the help of the winged horse Pegasus. He then married king Iobates' daughter, and from their offspring came the later rulers of Lycia. As for the Chimaera, it continued to exist in the form of a perpetually burning fire in eastern Lycia.

In more prosaic sources Lycian history can be traced back to the 14-th century BC, when Hittite records mention a nation of the Lukka, and the next century, when Egyptian tablets refer to certain raiders from Lukki. Strangely, the Lycians themselves never used any of these terms, calling themselves instead Trmmli (rendered in Greek as Termilae) and their country Trmmisa. Their early homeland was confined to the Xanthos River (modern Esen) valley. In classical times their country expanded north to the Indus River (Dalaman Cayi) and east to Phaselis.

Their language was of indo european origin. The Lycian alphabet came into use in the early 6th century BC, around the same time as that of the Greeks. I had some letters in common with Greek; other letters were unique and included nasal sounds like \~n and \^e. Lycian is now understood to a reasonable extent thanks to the work of Professor Hans Stoltenberg. A bilingual inscription known as the Xanthos Obelisk and the "Letoon Trilingual", now displayed in the Fethiye Museum, were instrumental in solving the puzzle. Here is a sample:

eke:trmmisi:khssadrapazate:pigesere:
katamlah:tideimi:sennentepddehade:
trmmile:pddenehmmis:iyeru:senatrbbiyemi
seyarnna:asakhlazu:erttimeli:
mehntitubede:arus:seyepewetlmmei:
arnnai:mmaite:kumeziye:dde:khntawati:
khbidenni:seyarkazuma:khntawati:
sennaite:kumezu:mahana:

"When Pigesere son of Katamla (Hecatomnus) was 
Satrap of Trmmisa (Lycia) and Iera and Natrbbiyemi
were archons of the Lycians and Erttimeli was
magistrate of Arnna (Xanthos), the citizens 
and squires of Arnna resolved to erect an altar
for the King of Caunus and King Arkazuma."

This is probably related to Luwian -a language that was spoken in western Asia Minor before the arrival of Hittites. This fact seems to rule out the Greek belief, echoed by Homer and Herodotos, that the Lycians were originally immigrants from Crete.

Fighting For Freedom

The early history of Lycia is a chronicle of dogged struggles against would-be invaders and dominators. The first recorded instance of Lycian resistance fighting was around 540 BC, a time when Persians overran all Asia Minor. Persian general Harpagos was sent to reduce Xanthos, the chief city of Lycia; rather than surrendering in disgrace, the Xanthosiers gathered their wives, children and possessions in the acropolis and committed mass suicide by setting fire to all. Yet, Persian rule proved a mild and benevolent episode. It was in this period that the Lycian alphabet came into widespread use and the first monumental rock-tombs were carved.

The Athenians had less success than the Shah in establishing control over Lycia in the following century. Several Athenian expeditions, including the famous one under Melesander in 430 BC, were defeated by the Lycians. Alexander the Great, by contrast, got a friendly reception in 333 BC: he was welcomed, it seems, as a deliverer of the Lycian cities from the hostile designs of the Carian dynasts of Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum). The period following Alexander witnessed the adoption of the Greek language, the popularization of sarcophagus-tombs to replace the earlier rock-tombs, and most importantly, the growth of the Lycian Union.

The Union consisted, eventually, of 23 cities. Depending on its size, each elected one, two or three representatives to the Federal Assembly. Six -Xanthos, Patara, Pinara, Tlos, Myra and Olympus- had the maximum of three votes. The Assembly met each year in a different city and elected the Lyciarch and other federal officials including the jurors in the federal courts. For all intents and purposes, this system of rule by elected representatives was unique in the ancient world.

Rome entered the Anatolian scene in 189 BC by defeating Antiochus III of the Seleucids in Magnesia (modern Manisa). The victorious Romans "awarded" Lycia to Rhodes which had supported them during the war. The Lycians however, did not think much of this settlement and spent the next two decades fighting the Rhodians and bombarding the Roman Senate with petitions. The Senate belatedly recognized the independence of the Lycian Union, and it was not before 74 AD that Lycia was finally incorporated in the Roman Empire.

To judge by the number of sumptuous monuments and public works dating from the Roman period, imperial rule must have again served Lycia rather well. Most urban architecture in the Lycian cities date from the Roman period, specifically from the 2nd century AD. The Union survived, albeit with reduced powers involving civic affairs and justice. As trade expanded, Lycian millionaires distinguished themselves by their generosity and public spirit. One of them, Opramoas of Rhodiapolis, financed out of his pocket nearly 60 major monuments in all Lycian cities. His donations included the money to construct the theatres of Xanthos, Tlos and Limyra.

A sense of separate Lycian nationhood seems to have survived well after the arrival of Christianity in the 4th century. The most important figure of the early Christian period was Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who was revered throughout the Byzantine world as the patron saint of the children. His cult was brought to Europe by Italian sailors in the Middle Ages. His feast day on the 6th of December eventually coalesced with the celebration of the birth of Christ, and Santa Claus turned into an indispensable element of the western Christmas.

Lycia was devastated by a series of earthquakes in late antiquity; Arab raids in the 8th century finished it off. The country lay desolate and almost uninhabited for nearly a thousand years afterward. The Turks, led by the lords of the Teke Dynasty, claimed the area in the 13th century, but Turkish immigrants settled mainly in the high plateau (as indicated by many fine Turkish monuments in Elmali and other highland towns) while the coast remained a prey to pirates and outlaws. At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman government adopted a policy of repopulating the coast with Greeks from the Aegean islands so as to balance the power of local feudal lords. Many towns like Andifli (now called Kas), Kalamaki (Kalkan) and now-defunct Livissi (Kaya) came into existence in this period. The Greeks, however, were obliged to leave as a result of the war of 1919-22.

Tombs and Robbers:

All pre-Greek peoples of Anatolia excelled in building monumental tombs associated with some form of ancestor worship; the Phrygians, Carians and Cilicians had their distinctive styles. The Lycians, however, developed this tradition to its artistic perfection. The landscape of Lycia is thoroughly marked by their strange, evocative and beautiful funerary monuments.

Lycian tombs come in three major types. Visually the most striking are no doubt the rock tombs -more or less elaborate funeral chambers carved directly from the rock, usually into a cliff. The oldest of these are simple pigeon-hole cubicles of the sort best viewed in Pinara. More commonly, the graves are fashioned like the facade of a timber house with one, two or three stories -evidently copying the residential architecture of the time. The most elaborate ones are those carved in the form of Ionic temples. The have two columns, a porch and usually elaborate reliefs.

Pillar tombs from the second general type of Lycian tombs, the most prominent specimens of which are in Xanthos. These consist of a massive rectangular block of stone, topped by a grave chamber which is surmounted by a "roof". Sarcophagi (sculpted caskets) constitute the third and most common category. Some of these, eg. one in downtown Kas and another in Pinara, are imposing structures; others stand like so many mysterious treasure boxes in the midst of the wilderness -or in the sea, as at the sunken city of Simena (Kekova).

Each tomb was originally put under the custody of a committee called mintis which took care of the safety and comfort of the deceased. Tampering with the tombs was subject to cash fines payable to the mintis, the amount being proportional to a premium paid at the time of death. The mintis gone, there was little left to deter grave robbers, and the thousands of Lycian tombs have all been broken into in the course of the intervening centuries. The obsession with buried treasures still haunts these sites: "unathorized diggers", read tomb strippers, ravaged several ancient cities (particularly Cadyanda and Bubon) very recently. Every other person around Elmali seems to possess a metal detector and other gadgets of the digger's trade. Their time does not seem all wasted: in 1984, a splendid cache of 1900 silver coins belonging to the Delian League was discovered near Elmali by some villagers and smuggled out of the country. The world numismatic market was thrown into turmoil when the coins turned up in American auction houses.

The greatest robbery of all, however, was perpetrated in the loftier name of scholarship. Lycia was discovered for the modern world by Sir Charles Fellows, the British orientalist, who visited the region in 1838. The beautifully illustrated account of his travels created an instant sensation in London. In 1842 the British Museum agreed to send out a Lycian expedition abroad the HMS Beacon. The research party led by Fellows and Lieutenant Spratt returned to England with 70 huge crates full of archaeological finds, including practically everything that was worth seeing in Xanthos. Did they by so doing save these artworks from neglect and further destruction, or were they little better than treasure robbers themselves? The controversy rages on.

Archaeological interest in Lycia in the 20th century has been limited compared to the more famous sites Aegean Turkey. Many Lycian cities remain virtually untouched since Fellows and Spratt's visits. Serious excavations were done only by a French team in the Letoon and a German team in Limyra. In most other places, there are no tourist crowds, not even guards or markers and signs to disturb the peace of the ruins. What may be lying under the ground is hinted by the case of formerly obscure Arycanda: here, the work of Turkish archeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoglu has begun to reveal what may turn out to be one of the most spectacular ruin sites in all Turkey.

The list of these Lycian sites are as follows

George Been includes Lydae, Lissa.