BC 1400 – AD 700
Pinara
Pilleñni · Pinali
Known for the hundreds of tombs cut into its sheer rock face like a honeycomb. It is said to have been founded by the overflow of Xanthos; its name means “round” in Lycian.
- Lycian League votes
- 3
- Location
- 36.4917° N, 29.2582° E
- Today
- Minare köyü · Fethiye, Muğla
Monuments and buildings
The acropolis
The upper city on top of the great rock · 5th c. BC – AD 7th c.
The summit of the huge, almost cylindrical mass of rock rising to the northwest of Pinara. This natural tower looking towards Xanthos was the refuge of the community that founded the city; on top of it are cisterns, stretches of wall and a few building foundations. The climb is so hard that the settlement moved early on to the ridge below.
The “pigeon-house” tombs
The honeycombed east face of the rock · 5th–4th century BC
Pinara’s signature, and a sight without equal in Lycia: hundreds of small rectangular cavities cut into the sheer eastern face of the great rock, tens of metres above the ground. From a distance they look like a dovecote, which is how they got their name. How they were cut and what they were for is still argued over — the commonest view is that they are burial niches for urns.
The agora
The square of the lower city · Roman period
The level ground in the middle of the ridge on which the city was built. An odeon, a church and blocks of housing stand around it, with terraces set against the slope holding the square in place. Pinara’s inscriptions were found here — this is how we know the city held three votes in the Lycian League.
The Lycian sarcophagus
A monumental tomb with a pointed lid · 4th century BC
A large sarcophagus standing on a high base at the northern end of the city. Its pointed lid, imitating the curve of an upturned wooden boat, is the classic form of the Lycian sarcophagus. There are traces of relief on the lid, and a funerary inscription on the chest.
The Bull’s Head Tomb
A rock tomb with a bucranium · 4th century BC
A house-type rock tomb with a bull’s head (bucranium) carved in relief above the door. In Anatolia the bull’s head is a sign of sacrifice and of protection — here it reads as a warning to anyone who would violate the tomb. Stone imitations of timber beam-ends are plainly visible across the façade.
The Royal Tomb
With reliefs of walled cities · 4th century BC
Pinara’s most important tomb, and one of the most valuable documents in Lycian archaeology. Four walled cities are carved on the inner walls of its two-storey house-type façade: walls with tower after tower, gates, houses and human figures. It is the only visual source we have for what the Lycian cities that no longer stand actually looked like.
The rock tombs
The necropolis of the eastern slope · 5th c. BC – AD 2nd c.
House-type and temple-type rock tombs strung along the slope east of the city. Most have beams and bands imitating timber construction across the façade; some carry Lycian inscriptions setting out the fine for opening the tomb. Sarcophagi with pointed lids are scattered among them.
The theatre
A cavea facing the rock · Roman period
Northeast of the city, in a separate valley across the stream, stands one of the best-preserved theatres in Lycia. Close to twenty-seven rows of seating survive almost intact, and much of the stage building still stands. The cavea faces west, towards the great rock looming over the city — the audience saw that vast rock face along with the stage.
This city in history
The Yalburt inscription
~1500–1200 BC · c. 1230 BC
The Hittite king Tudhaliya IV had his Lukka campaign carved into a spring monument. The inscription names the settlements of the region one by one — and those names will still be standing a thousand years later. It is the strongest evidence we have for the continuity of the Lycian cities.
Surrender without a battle
334–333 BC · 334/333 BC
Arrian writes that Telmessos, Pinara, Xanthos, Patara and some thirty smaller settlements opened their gates without a fight. To a region weary of Persian tribute, a Macedonian master was no different from a distant one. Lycia changes hands in the course of a single winter.
The Koinon Lykion is founded
168 BC · after 168 BC
Freedom does not scatter the cities, it draws them together: twenty-three of them found a common assembly. Its name is the Koinon Lykion — the League of the Lycians. Each city runs its own affairs; war, coinage, foreign relations and the high court are held in common.
Three votes, two votes, one vote
168 BC · 2nd c. BC
The League’s invention is weighted representation: the six largest cities hold three votes each, the middling ones two, the small ones one. Costs and taxes are divided in the same proportion. Neither do the great crush the small, nor the small live off the backs of the great.
One coinage, one army
168 BC · 2nd–1st c. BC
The League strikes its own silver: the head of Apollo on one face, a lyre and the legend ΛΥΚΙΩΝ on the other — with the initials of the minting city along the edge. One currency, one army, thirty cities each with its own square: here the idea of federation takes solid form.
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 century of marble
AD 2nd–4th c. · AD 2nd c.
The cities rise more splendid than they had been before they fell: Hadrian’s granary at Patara, a theatre for fifteen thousand at Myra, five stacked terraces at Arycanda, baths and a stadium at Tlos. Most of the ruins walked through today are the work of this century.
In mythology
Letoon is founded
Leto
Leto is taken in where she found the water, and there she stays. In time three temples rise: Leto in the middle, Apollo and Artemis to either side. The sanctuary is the house not of a goddess but of a family — and for the Lycians the hearth not of one city but of the whole country.
Lycia’s son-in-law
Bellerophon
At last Iobates accepts the truth: this young man is under the protection of the gods. He shows him the letter, gives him his daughter Philonoe, and grants him half his kingdom. Bellerophon becomes the founding ancestor of Lycia — the lines of both Sarpedon and Glaucus run back to him. On the façade of his tomb at Tlos he is shown in flight on the back of Pegasus.
A mortal son
Sarpedon
Sarpedon is the son of Zeus and the mortal Laodameia, and king of Lycia. Homer introduces him as the noblest of all the allies who come to Troy. We hear the reasoning of his kingship from his own mouth: if the best land and the fullest cups are ours, then fighting in the front rank is our debt.
The man who recited his lineage
Glaucus
Glaucus is Bellerophon’s grandson, and he leads the Lycian army together with Sarpedon. In the Iliad he recites his descent from beginning to end, and it is thanks to this that the oldest telling of the Bellerophon legend has come down to us. It is the first family tree of Lycian history in literature.
Why so high?
The Harpies
Lycia’s pillar tombs are always up in the air — the monument does not stand on a base, it is the base. The dead are not put in the ground but set on high. One reason may be the belief that the soul would be taken up by birds. The rock tombs, with their façades at unreachable heights, carry the same idea on.
Nearby cities
Sidyma · Xanthos · Tlos · Karmylessos · Pydnai