Arykanda Archaeological Site

Arykanda sits on the south side of the Bey Mountains, at the foot of a sheer rock face called Şahinkaya that closes the settlement to the north. Its name comes from Luwian and means roughly "the place beside the high rock". The British traveller Charles Fellows first identified the site in 1838, from tomb inscriptions and coins found on the surface.

The city was densely settled in the Hellenistic and Roman periods; its earliest architecture is rock-cut tombs of the late 4th or early 3rd century BC. Although it played no major political role in Lycian history, Arykanda lay on one of eastern Lycia's main roads and grew rich on the timber trade. Abundant water made it a safe stopping place in the Roman imperial era, and its peak came in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

As a typical hillside town, it is built on terraces. On the lower terrace lie a gymnasium and a bath; on the upper terrace a theatre, odeon, stadium, agora and a small bath. On the acropolis are the temples of Trajan and Helios, while a basilica stands on Nal Tepe and tombs fill the east necropolis.