Olympos
Akdere Creek
It is a fifteen minute walk along the
pebble beach from Çıralı
to the site of the ancient city of Olympos. The first thing to notice
about the site are
the extensive Byzantine-Genoese fortifications that overlook the beach.
A bit further along the beach the Akdere brook, bordered with flowering
oleander and laurel bushes, ends in the sea. Here, the scanty ruins of
ancient Olympos overgrown by wild figs and grapevines are
scattered on both banks of the Akdere creek.
Little is known about the early
history of Olympos, or Olimpos as it is correctly spelled in Turkish. During the second century BC it was an important Lycian city, being one of the six primary member of Lycian League.
Inspired by the nearby eternal flames of the Chimaera, the Olympians
worshipped Hephaistos (Vulcan) as their principal deity.
Like nearby Phaselis, Cilician pirates
led by Zenicetes overran Olympos and introduced the cult of Mithras.
Zenicetes made Olympos his headquartes, but in 78 BC he was defeated by
the Romans. In 43 AD Olympos was absorbed in the Roman Empire and
Christianity became the prominent religion. Olympos remained a trading
place under Byzantine, Venetian, and Genoese rule, but by the fifteenth
century it had been abandoned.
Next to the beach entrance are the
harbour memorial tombs that date back to the end of the 2nd century AD and
were used for a second time in the 5th century. One burial chamber
contains two sarcophagi, of which one can be attributed to an Olympian
named Marcus Aurelius Zosimas and the other to his uncle Captain Eudemos.
The latter is decorated with a relief of a ship, an inscription that
tells of the voyages made by Captian Eudemos and an emotional poem.
Following the Akdere river, there are
the ruins of a bath house, some remnants of early Christianity and a
well-preserved marble door-frame. It takes about half a day to visit
the site.
Click on the thumbnails to get a greater picture
