BC 300 – AD 600
Pydnai
Gâvurağılı
A Hellenistic walled fort at the western end of Patara beach, fifteen of its towers still standing.
- Lycian League votes
- Not a member / unknown
- Location
- 36.3329° N, 29.2316° E
- Today
- Gâvurağılı · Seydikemer, Muğla
This city in history
The shape of the city changes
after 323 BC · 3rd c. BC
In the Hellenistic century the Lycian city is poured into the Greek mould: agora, theatre, gymnasium, council house. Walls are laid in dressed ashlar — the fifteen towers of Pydnai and the walls of Sidyma are the measure of that craft. The rock-cut tomb, meanwhile, stubbornly endures.
On the Lycian Way
Walls down to the sea
Sidyma – Pydnai – Letoon
The path drops from the mountain to the shore and Pydnai appears: a Hellenistic fortress with some fifteen towers and walls standing almost intact just behind the beach. A small place, but its walls are among the best preserved in Lycia — emptiness is sometimes the best conservator. From here the way turns into the mouth of the Xanthos valley, to the sanctuary of Letoon.
The whole Lycian Way — 12 stages, 540 km