Knidos Archaeological Site

Knidos stands on Cape Tekir at the far end of the Reşadiye peninsula in Datça, where the Aegean and the Mediterranean meet. It was one of the important cities of the west Anatolian coast. Strabo described it as a double city: one part on the mainland and one on an island called Kap Krio, later joined by infill so that there are two harbours. The northern, smaller one was military, the southern one for merchant ships.

The town follows a Hippodamian grid, with four broad east-west streets crossed by a north-south avenue, adapted to steep, terraced ground with stairs. On the mainland part you can see the acropolis and walls, the Sanctuary of Demeter, the Great Theatre, an odeon and the Sanctuary of the Muses, plus seven known churches and a Hellenistic villa. There is also a Corinthian temple, a Round Temple terrace and the Apollo terrace, where the Apollo Karneios festival took place with spectators seated on the north side.

Excavation has also uncovered a large drainage system, the bouleuterion, the Pink Temple, a stoa on the northern terrace, the Harbour Street with a fountain built by a water official, and shops and workshops on Kap Krio, occupied up to about the 5th century AD. The necropolis on the east side extends over roughly 7 km.