BC 400 – AD 900
Kyaneai
A ridge city reached only on foot; around it lies the densest gathering of sarcophagi in Lycia. Its theatre is cut into the northern slope of the hill.
- Lycian League votes
- 1
- Location
- 36.2461° N, 29.8156° E
- Today
- Yavu · Kaş, Antalya
This city in history
The age of twenty-three cities
~168–43 BC · 2nd–1st c. BC
For a century Lycia governs itself and grows rich. Twenty-three voting cities, together with the dozens of towns around them, make up a single political body. The region’s population, its buildings and its trade stand at the height of their history.
The fortune of Opramoas
AD 2nd–4th c. · c. AD 125–155
After the earthquake, Opramoas of Rhodiapolis rains money on dozens of cities: theatres, baths, granaries, dowry funds. The inscription covering the walls of his mausoleum records what he gave to each city, one by one — the longest record of benefaction in the ancient world.
In mythology
One relief, twelve figures
The Twelve Gods
On the southern coast of Lycia, and above all around Kyaneai, there is a strange cult: reliefs of twelve similar figures standing in a row with a god before them. The inscriptions address them by a collective name — the “Twelve Gods”. Their individual names are written nowhere.
Where they were worshipped
The Twelve Gods
Their cult places are not in city centres but out in the country and at road junctions. That suggests the gods were held to be the protectors not of a city but of a region. They were the gods of borders, of passes and of flocks.