The Photography of Nicolas Sapieha: Turkey's Lycian Coast


Turkey's Lycian Coast 3	"The Photography of Nicolas Sapieha" February 13, 1998

Myra, Lycian Méré, is some 16 miles west of Finike, our next port. There are few early references to Myra. Strabo says it had three votes in the Lycian League. In 42 B.C. Brutus' lieutenant Lentulus Spinther extorted money from Myra to support the pro-Republic forces during the Roman civil war. Paul changed ships at Andriake, Myra's harbor, on his way to Rome in A.D. 60. In the fourth century it was the bishopric of St. Nicholas; the church of St. Nicholas is in the modern town of Demre adjacent to Myra. Only the crypt may be from the time of Nicholas, whose bones were taken by Italian merchants in 1087 and placed in a shrine in the cathedral at Bari.

Theatrical masks ornamented the stage building of
the second-century A.D. theater at Myra.

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While most theaters were constructed by cutting seats into a convenient hillside, Myra's theater was built from the bottom up, its seats supported by two vaults. Scattered on the ground around the theater are numerous carved heads and theatrical masks that once decorated the facade of the second-century A.D. stage building. A cliff face just west of the theater is honeycombed with fourth-century B.C. tombs.

Lycian tombs at Myra [LARGER IMAGE]

A second group, facing the Myrus River to the east, includes the so-called Painted Tomb. Studied by Fellows in 1843, the tomb has exceptional carvings. Outside the doorway the tomb owner and family members and servants are depicted in low relief. Within the portico are carved panels showing the deceased reclining at a banquet and his wife standing with their children. Sheltered by the portico, the carvings have preserved traces of the original red, yellow, and blue paint. We climbed up the cliff face to this tomb, perhaps not an appropriate action, but I felt it was important to have Nick photograph the painted sculptures, documenting their condition 150 years after Fellows first described them.

The Painted Tomb at Myra shows a man, standing and reclining at a banquet, and his wife, seated and standing, with their and children.

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Six miles northeast of Finike is Limyra, the capital of the fourth-century B.C. ruler Perikles who led Lycian resistance against the satrap Mausolus. Sculptures from Perikles' tomb are now at the Antalya Museum. Jurgen Borchhardt of the Institute for Classical Archaeology, Vienna, recently found a marble frieze block from the cenotaph of Gaius Caesar reused in a house wall in the village at the site. Gaius, the adopted son and heir apparent of Augustus, died at Limyra in A.D. 4 while returning to Italy after being wounded in Armenia. His death helped clear the way for Tiberius, and Caligula after him, to become emperor. Borchhardt is now investigating the site's residential areas and a Roman fort, while conservation efforts are being directed at the Byzantine episcopal church and necropolis. In an unusual preservation move, a helicopter was used to move a heroon (hero shrine) from its isolated location to the site museum.

Strong winds kept us from landing at Olympos, so we continued on to the marina at Kemer, taking a car to the ancient harbor city of Phaeselis on the eastern boundary of Lycia where it merges with the ancient district of Pamphylia. Until the founding of Attaleia (modern Antalya) in the second century B.C., Phaeselis was the chief port of the region. Plutarch notes that the Athenian commander Kimon "liberated" an unwilling Phaeselis from Persian domination in 468 B.C. The port returned to the Persian fold, however, even aiding the Persian satrap Mausolus when Lycia rebelled under Perikles. Phaeselis joined the Lycian League after the Roman Senate freed Lycia from Rhodian control in 167 B.C. The city was later occupied by the pirate Zeniketes whose depredations were ended by a Roman force under Servilius Isauricus in 78 B.C.

The main avenue through ancient Phaeselis extended from the city's south harbor and Hadrian's gate north to the central harbor. [LARGER IMAGE]

Phaeselis' ruins are within a pine forest on a low coastal promontory. Beyond a series of arches from a Roman aqueduct, a broad avenue runs the length of the site. On either side of the ancient street are first- and second-century A.D. structures: a rectangular agora with a later basilica built into it, a bath with brick pillars that supported a heated floor exposed, and a theater. At the end of the avenue was a triple-arched gateway, built to commemorate Hadrian's visit in 129 or 131. Inscribed blocks from the gateway lie along one side of the street.

When Alexander visited Phaeselis in the early months of 333 B.C., he was welcomed with a gold crown. Plutarch records an episode from Alexander's stay:

...finding the statue of Theodectes, who was a native of this town and was now dead, erected in the market-place, after he [Alexander] had supped, having drunk pretty plentifully, he went and danced about it, and crowned it with garlands, honoring not ungracefully, in his sport, the memory of a philosopher whose conversation he had formerly enjoyed when he was Aristotle's scholar.

An orator, writer, and tragic poet, Theodectes had studied with Alexander under Aristotle.

Section 4

			Theatrical masks ornamented the stage building of the second-century A.D. theater at Myra.
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