Myra

At Myra the dead were housed better than most of the living. A grey cliff rises straight out of the plain and its face is cut into tomb after tomb, each carved to imitate a timber house with beams, joints and pitched roofs reproduced in solid rock, some with reliefs of the people who were buried in them. Below, a Roman theatre keeps most of its seating, and among the fallen blocks are carved theatrical masks the size of a torso. Two kilometres away in Demre stands the church associated with Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop here, its floor mosaics and stone sarcophagi now sheltered under a modern protective roof.

History

Myra was a member of the Lycian League, from 168 BC to AD 43, and Strabo counted it among the largest towns of the alliance; its protecting goddess was Artemis Eleutheria. An earthquake in 141 damaged the theatre, which was rebuilt, and Hadrian built a granary at its harbour, Andriake, now the Museum of Lycian Civilizations; the town of Kale here was renamed Demre in 2005 (Wikipedia, Myra).

What you'll find

• The rock tombs - house-shaped facades cut in tiers across the cliff.
• The theatre - Roman seating with carved masks among the fallen blocks.
• The carved reliefs - figures of the dead above several tomb doorways.
• The church of Saint Nicholas - mosaics and sarcophagi under a modern shelter.

When to go

Spring and autumn, and early or late in the day - coach groups from Kas and Antalya arrive around midday and fill both the theatre and the church. Summer heat in the plain is heavy and humid because of the greenhouses. Two hours covers the tombs, theatre and church without hurrying.

Good to know

The site is small and quickly seen, and you cannot climb to the tombs, so they are viewed from below. Demre itself is a working greenhouse town with little charm. The church is crowded with tour groups and pilgrim parties, charges its own fee, and much of what is on show is under scaffolding and roofing.

Nearby

The sunken ruins around Kekova, reached by boat from Ucagiz.

Key facts