Lycian Timeline

2000 BCE – 1500 CE · 10 sites

All sites in this period

Myra

500 BCE – 1300 CE

An ancient Lycian city famous for its rock-cut tombs carved into cliff faces and the Church of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus). The Lycian rock tombs are among the most dramatic archaeological monuments in Turkey.

411

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

57

Featured

Patara

800 BCE – 700 CE

Capital of the Lycian League and birthplace of St. Nicholas, Patara housed the oldest known lighthouse in the world and served as the political heart of one of antiquity's earliest democratic federations.

411

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

57

Kekova

400 BCE – 700 CE

A partially sunken Lycian city whose ruins shimmer beneath crystal-clear Mediterranean waters, destroyed by a 2nd century earthquake and now one of Turkey's most haunting archaeological seascapes.

312

ClassicalRomanByzantine

53

Olympos

700 BCE – 1500 CE

An ancient Lycian city hidden within a lush river gorge, where the ruins of Roman baths and Byzantine churches meet the Mediterranean shore — and nearby, the eternal flames of the Chimera have burned from the mountainside for at least 2,500 years.

312

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

53

Xanthos

800 BCE – 700 CE

Capital of ancient Lycia, famous for its monumental pillar tombs and the Nereid Monument. The city was twice destroyed by its own inhabitants rather than surrendered to invaders.

312

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

51

Kaunos

900 BCE – 400 CE

An ancient harbor city famous for its magnificent Lycian rock-cut tombs carved into cliff faces above the Dalyan River — one of the most iconic archaeological vistas in Turkey.

312

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

50

Phaselis

690 BCE – 700 CE

A scenic Lycian-Greek harbor city nestled between three bays on a wooded peninsula, where Alexander the Great wintered in 334 BCE and the ruins of aqueducts, a colonnaded main street, and Roman baths meet pine forests and turquoise sea.

321

Iron AgeClassicalHellenistic

50

Letoon

600 BCE – 300 CE

The federal sanctuary of the Lycian League, dedicated to the goddess Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. This UNESCO World Heritage Site near Xanthos yielded the crucial trilingual inscription that helped decipher the Lycian language.

321

ClassicalHellenisticRoman

45

Tlos

2000 BCE – 1400 CE

One of the oldest and most important cities of Lycia, dominated by a dramatic rocky acropolis with Lycian rock tombs, a Roman theatre, and an Ottoman fortress crowning its summit.

411

Bronze AgeClassicalHellenistic

45

Oenoanda

300 BCE – 700 CE

A remote mountain city in northern Lycia where a 2nd century CE philosopher named Diogenes carved the world's largest known ancient philosophical inscription — an entire Epicurean treatise spanning over 25,000 words across a massive stone wall.

321

HellenisticRoman

37