The Photography of Nicolas Sapieha: Turkey's Lycian Coast


Turkey's Lycian Coast 4	"The Photography of Nicolas Sapieha" February 13, 1998

Hadrian's gate in Antalya was built to commemorate the emperor's visit in A.D. 130. [LARGER IMAGE]

Attaleia, modern Antalya, was founded by Attalos II, the king of Pergamon, ca. 150 B.C. It rose to prominence because of its harbor and its location at the juncture of Lycia, Pisidia, and Pamphylia. A visit by Hadrian in A.D. 130 was commemorated by a monumental gateway that has been reconstructed. This gateway and its ancient walls, towers, along with other gates around the old harbor are Antalya's only archaeological ruins. There are, however, early mosques near the harbor: the Fluted Minaret (Yivli Minare) of the thirteenth century and the shell of the Truncated Minaret Mosque (Kesik Minare Camii), originally a fifth-century church, destroyed by a fire in 1851. In the Antalya Museum there are exhibits ranging from Palaeolithic tools from Karain Cave north of the city, to classical and Byzantine antiquities, to folk costumes. North of Antalya are the Pisidian cities of Termessus, Sagalassus, and Kremna; to the east are Perge, Side, and Aspendos in Pamphylia.

Second-century A.D. garland sarcophagus from Side, now in the Antalya Museum [LARGER IMAGE]

To reach Termessus, we drove some 45 miles west and north of Antalya into the mountains, then hiked to the site through a narrow valley flanked by forest-clad heights on either side. So strong was the city that Alexander walked away from it in 333 B.C. Arrian gives this account:

...the town [Termessus] stands on a lofty and precipitous height, and the road which leads past it is an inconvenient one, because a ridge runs right down to it from the town above, breaking off short with the road at the bottom, while opposite to it, on the other side, the ground rises again in an equally steep ascent. The two cliffs make a sort of natural gateway on the road, so that quite a small force can, by holding the high ground, prevent an enemy from getting through. And this is precisely what the Termessians did.... Concluding that it would not be possible to reduce Termessus without a long siege, he [Alexander] now proceeded to Sagalassus..."

Facade of the gymnasium at Termessus (left) [LARGER IMAGE] Termessus' theater, Hellenistic with an added second-century A.D. stage building, seated 4,000. (right) [LARGER IMAGE]

Surrounded by mountain peaks, Termessus' gray stone ruins--the city walls, a gymnasium, a gateway dedicated by Hadrian, and massive sarcophagi in the necropolis--are largely overgrown with scrubby trees. Many of the buildings still stand to a considerable height, giving the impression that the city was abandoned not long ago, and that its citizens might soon return. Nick's photographs capture this evocative mood brilliantly, and his images of the tomb of Alketas, a Macedonian general who died in 320 B.C. during the complex struggle for Alexander's empire, are outstanding. Alketas' youthful supporters in Termessus buried him with honor in a tomb at an angle formed where two rock faces meet. On the left Alketas appears on horseback, his cloak billowing out as the horse rears back. A shield and greaves depicted next to the horse have been disfigured, perhaps by looters searching for treasure. Cut into the rock on the right are offering basins and a couch, above which is carved an eagle holding a snake. Nick worked furiously at the tomb, racing the fading light as the sun set behind the mountain, but the images do not betray the rapid yet precise work that it took to obtain them.

A weathered tomb relief at Termessus depicts Alketas, one of Alexander's generals, defeated in 320 B.C. by Antigonus in the struggle for control of Alexander's empire. [LARGER IMAGE]

The history of Termessus after Alexander is sketchy. In 189 B.C. it attacked the neighboring town of Isinda, but the Romans, under Manlius Vulso, intervened and fined Termessus 50 talents, according to Livy. There was a war between Termessus and the Lycian League, but the outcome is not known. In the first century B.C. it sided with Rome against Mithridates of Pontus, and subsequently signed a treaty of friendship with the Romans.

Goats climb atop a shrine near the agora of Termessus. [LARGER IMAGE]

Termessus was the end of our journey. The trip had been enormously rewarding but was not without disappointments. I know now that you must go to Pinara early in the morning if you are going to photograph the tombs cut into the cliff, and regret that Nick was unable to capture it on film. Steinbeck, following his trip to the Sea of Cortez, had words of consolation:

"For many little errors like this, we have concluded that all collecting trips to fairly unknown regions should be made twice; once to make mistakes and once to correct them."

We returned with Nick Sapieha's photographs and a host of impressions, not unlike those collected by Steinbeck himself:

Below in the hold, packed in jars, were thousands of little dead animals, but we did not think of them as trophies, as things cut off from the tide pools...but rather as drawings, incomplete and imperfect, of how it had been there. The real picture of how it had been there...was in our minds, bright with sun and wet with sea water and blue or burned, and the whole crusted over with exploring thought.

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