BC 450 – AD 500
Trysa
Famous for its friezed heroon; the relief band depicting the Trojan War and Amazon scenes was carried off to Vienna in the 19th century.
- Lycian League votes
- Not a member / unknown
- Location
- 36.2674° N, 29.8998° E
- Today
- Gölbaşı · Demre, Antalya
In mythology
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.
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.