Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 4.0
UNESCO World Heritage. Lycia’s largest city, with pillar tombs and a theatre above the river.
Set on a hill above the Eşen (Xanthos) River valley, Xanthos was the capital of ancient Lycia and is one of the region’s most impressive sites. Tombs raised on tall pillars, a Roman theatre and a pillar covered in Lycian script reveal the unique art of this ancient people. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Letoon since 1988, it makes an easy half-day trip from Kalkan.
Xanthos was among the oldest and most powerful cities of Lycia. According to the historian Herodotus, when the Persian general Harpagus besieged it in the 6th century BC, the citizens refused to surrender and chose a tragic last stand. A similar catastrophe struck during Brutus’s siege in the Roman civil wars of the 1st century BC. Each time the city was rebuilt, and it lived on through Roman and Byzantine times. Some works, like the Nereid Monument, are now in the British Museum.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 4.0The League’s sanctuary: temples of Leto, Apollo and Artemis beside a sacred spring.
Photo: Dosseman · CC BY-SA 4.0Hundreds of honeycomb rock tombs cut into a cliff on Mount Babadağ, with a quiet theatre.
Photo: Toksave · CC BY-SA 3.0City of the Pegasus legend; rock acropolis, stadium and Roman baths.