Kayaköy
Kayaköy
The deserted Greek town of Kayaköy
(Kaya Köyü) at 8 km from Fethiye constitutes
without doubt the largest ghost town of Asia minor. The town was settled
near the site of ancient Karmylassos probably during by people seeking
refuge from the Arab invasions during the 10th and 11th century and was
named Levissi. Levissi prospered and just before 1923 it supported a
population of over 6000 living in about 1000 houses.
After the turmoils of the Greek-Turkish
war, the town was abandoned by its Greek population on 30th June 1923 in the
compulsory Greek-Turkish population exchange. The
Greeks mainly moved to the Nea Makri region near Athens where they founded a new settlement Nea Levissi. The Macedonian Muslims
who were supposed to occupy the
abandoned village considered the land to poor as compared to their homeland
in Macedonia and decided not to stay, leaving Kaya Köy a ghost town.
Present Kayaköy forms a hillside
covered with about a thousand ruined buildings of which the most prominent is the Panayia Pyrgiotissa basilica, dating from 1888. An
exceptional macabre view near the church, is the charnel house which is
piled with human leg bones. The departing Greeks took the exhumed skulls of
their ancestors with them, leaving the other remains behind.
More information about Kayaköy, its
history and archeology can be found on the very
informative site
www.kayakoy.net by the local archeologist Hüseyin
Köktürk.
Click on the thumbnails to get a greater picture
