Xanthos and Letoon

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Xanthos Letoon, 1988); The Capital Of Lycia And Its Federal Sanctuary, Four Kilometres Apart · Kinik, Antalya

Xanthos was the capital of Lycia and twice destroyed itself rather than surrender - Herodotus describes the population burning their own citadel with their families inside it rather than submit to the Persians, and the city did something similar again against Rome four centuries later. What survives is a hillside of pillar tombs, a Roman theatre, an acropolis over the river and the stump of the Inscribed Pillar, which carries the longest text known in the Lycian language and has still not been fully read. The famous carvings are missing: Charles Fellows shipped the Nereid Monument and the Harpy Tomb reliefs to London in the 1840s and they are in the British Museum, so what stands here are casts and empty plinths. Four kilometres away at Letoon, the federal sanctuary of the Lycian League has three temples side by side and a nymphaeum that is permanently flooded and full of frogs, which the local myth explains.

Kinik Mahallesi, Ksantos Oren Yeri, Kas, Kinik, Antalya, Turkiye

Both sites open daily with longer summer hours and an earlier winter close, and each has its own ticket booth. Letoon's sanctuary floods in winter and spring and parts of it are under water for months at a time, which is normal rather than a closure. Neither site has much staff presence out of season. Check before travelling.

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