Xanthos (Xanthos) Ancient City is located near the Kınık village of Kaş district of Antalya. Xanthos, which is about 4 kilometers away from the Ancient City of Letoon, was the capital of ancient Lycia. Her name is mentioned as “Arnna” in the inscriptions written in Lycian language. Xanthos, the largest administrative center of Lycia in ancient times, was founded on two hills overlooking the plain. Homer tells that the Xathos people under the rule of Sarpedon participated in the Trojan wars. However, the findings obtained during the excavations do not allow us to date the settlement of the city before the 8th century BC.
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The city was besieged by the Persian Commander Harpagos in 545-546 BC. When the people of Xanthos became desperate despite their heroic resistance, they killed their women and children and set the city on fire, leaving an unmanned and ruined city in Harpagos. Between 475 and 450 BC, Xanthos encountered a fire disaster. In 334 BC, Alexander the Great took the city. Following the death of Alexander, Xanthos was ruled by the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Egypt from 309 BC, and then, like many Lycian cities, by the Syrian King III. He is forced to accept the sovereignty of Antiochus. Xanthos, the capital of the Lycian League in the 2nd century BC, was destroyed by the Roman Brutus in 42 BC. Then, it was reconstructed with the efforts of Emperor Marcus Antonius. In the 1st century AD, an arch was built in the name of Emperor Vespasian in Xanthos, which was under Roman rule, and most of the surviving Roman structures were built during this period. The city, which was a bishopric center during Byzantine rule, gained many new structures during this period. Arab raids after the 7th century caused the city to lose its importance, and it continued to live as a small village next to Kınık until Charles Fellows discovered it in 1838 and moved some of the ruins to London.
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There are two separate acropolises on two hills of the city. Both the Lycian Acropolis and the Roman Acropolis are surrounded by city walls with different knitting systems. There is a Roman theater in the north of the Lycian acropolis. The most interesting ruins of Xanthos are located to the west of the theater. One of them is; These are the reliefs of the family of the dead on a high, rectangular, monolithic pedestal and the harpy (a creature with a woman’s body and bird wings, believed to carry the souls of the dead to the sky) next to it. The Harpy Tomb Monument, dated to the 5th century BC, is currently exhibited in the British Museum. Next to this mausoleum is another Lycian sarcophagus with a base, dating back to the 4th century.
The large square-shaped area at the end of the theater is the Roman agora, surrounded by shops on three sides. In the northeastern corner of the agora, another mausoleum dating back to the 5th century BC rises, very similar to the Harpy Monument, with an inscription written in Lycian and Greek on its monolithic rectangular body. The inscription on the body of the monument is the longest inscription in the Lycian language found to date and tells the adventures of a prince from Xanthos named Kherei.
It is possible to see many rock tombs and pedestal tombs side by side in the Roman acropolis. All of them, except the bases of the Lion Tomb, Payava Sarcophagus and Merehi Sarcophagus located on the southern outskirts of this area, are exhibited in the British Museum. The temple-planned Nereid Monument, dating back to the 4th century BC, of which only the foundations remain on the right side of the ramp leading to the present-day ruins of the ruins, is another of the famous monuments of Xanthos exhibited in the British Museum.
Recommended as a world heritage site due to the originality of the Lycian civilization and the importance of the findings obtained during the excavations, Xanthos was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Letoon in 1988 due to their common importance.
Source: “Xanthos”, Antalya from Past to Today [II. Volume], Antalya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism (2012)
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Source: Antalya Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate
