9-3-13. Kas, Turkey
My only site visit today was to the lonely mountain citadel of Cyaneae, located some twenty kilometers NE of Kas. Without a jeep, the ruins are accessible only by parking in the little village of Yavu and climbing two very steep kilometers. There is a path of sorts; but I missed it completely on the way up, and nearly lost it again going down. I was forced, accordingly, to rely on goat tracks, which led me up inaccessible slopes, through vast thickets of thorny scrub, and over slopes of loose rock before finally coming within sight of the gray city walls. Even then, it took me another half-hour of meandering to actually reach the ancient city.
My first reaction was disappointment. The ruins within the city walls have mostly been reduced to shapeless rubble, and any general overview is frustrated by the dense and clawing scrub. When I finally broke out into the open, however, my struggles were rewarded with a spectacular view of the necropolis and theater before long ranges of wooded hills. The Mediterranean shone through a distant gap in the southern hills; in the north hung the haze-shrouded peaks of inner Lycia.
With the partial exception of a few poorly-preserved Byzantine churches, the theater and necropolis are the only real reason to visit Cyaneae. The necropolis, which extends for a kilometer along the city’s east side, contains several hundred Lycian sarcophagi, arranged in ranks or clusters on the brushy slope. I was particularly taken with an example from the Roman era, carved with elaborate Corinthian pilasters; regrettably, the looter who opened this sarcophagus smashed directly through the inscription, preventing me from knowing the name of its occupant.
Aside from a few stretches of collapsed masonry, the theater is very well-preserved, though rather small. Like the other buildings of Cyaneae, however, its chief interest derives rather from the beauty of its location than from its architectural merits. Though Cyaneae prospered in a modest way under the Empire, its remoteness prevented it from ever becoming a really important city.
I finally found the path from Yavu on my way back down, but still took nearly an hour to make the descent, slowed by both the fear of slipping and occasional detours to view clusters of sarcophagi. Two roads led into the village. I carefully avoided the one I had followed in the morning, where I had been menaced by a guard dog. All my precautions were for naught; literally ten feet down the other road, another dog sent me scurrying.
I reached my car unscathed, and decided, for the sake of my nerves and feet, to spend the afternoon in Kas, where I was unlikely to have to scale walls or evade mastiffs. Kas, built on the site of Lydian and Roman Antiphellus, has a few ruins of own, which I spent a pleasant hour exploring. Though the Hellenistic theater is the most substantial remnant of the ancient city, I was most impressed with the so-called Royal Tomb, a huge Lycian sarcophagus now set in the middle of a row of shops. The monolithic “Doric Tomb,” set on a hill overlooking the city, displays an interesting mix of Persian and Greek architectural influences. It is also, as I discovered an excellent vantage point for photos of Kas.
As I look out my hotel’s front windows, I can see goat tracks, winding in and out of the scrub, tracing wild switchbacks up a 1500 foot slope. For the present, I have no urge to follow them. This evening, at least, I would like my scenery air-conditioned.