Termessos

Antalya occupies the site of ancient Termessos (30 km northwest of Antalya), an important Lycian city (also known as Termessus) which was already famed in the time of Croesus for its soothsayers. Due to its location at a height of 1050 mt. at the Taurus Mountains, Termessos is one of most interesting ancient cities to visit. You must have both time and a courage for a short vertical hike in order to visit Termessos.

According to Strabo, an ancient Greek Historian, the city was actually built by the Pisidians. Alexander the Great surrounded Termessos in 333 BC but he abandoned the conqurence because he probably knew that he would not be able to capture the city due to its geographical situation. After Alexander Termessos was an ally of Rome. It was granted independency by the Romans in 71 BC.

It is now difficult to find any traces of ancient Termessos in the modern town after two earthquakes and the subsequent rebuilding. The boundaries of the Hellenistic and Roman towns are no doubt marked out by the almost vertical rock face to the west, the Roman tombs on the east side of the town and the Lycian necropolis to the south. The discovery of sarcophagi near the edge of the modern town indicates the course of the ancient coastline.

On the castle hill, occupied in the Middle Ages by the Knights of St John and by the Genoese, there are remains of much earlier buildings. The remains of houses on the northwest side of the hill, with a number of cisterns and water-supply channels suggest that there was an unwalled Lycian settlement here, though in a later period the focus of urban life moved down to the coastal plain. Of the ancient theater, which was located and described by the French traveler Charles Texier before the 1856 earthquake, nothing can now be seen but the outline of the cavea (auditorium).

Termessos lies in a natural park. Numeous animals and plants that is in danger of extinction live here protected by the laws. The park, with its wild nature and distinctive flora, has a magnificent view.