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The
Lycians
The Kingdom of Lycia stretched from Antalya all the way round to Ekincik. Mainly
en-compassing the coast. A region of mountainous and a wild landscape found nowhere else
in Anatolia. During the Ottoman period it was known as "Uc" the frontier. An
area encased on all sides by mountains. To the east and west two high mountain ridges, the
tallest (Baba Dag) peaks standing well over 3000 meters (10,000 feet) high, cut off Lycia
from neighbouring Caria to the west and Pamphylia to the east. Towards the north, a less
rugged range but large plateau isolated Lycia from the rest of Anatolia. The inhabitants,
like the landscape were wild and tough. The Lycian race had a reputation for being
independent and protected this at all costs, often as not to the very last man. The last
statement is not said without proof. On at least two occasions we know this to be fact. In
546 BC the Persians defeated Croesus, the last Lydian king, and advanced upon Lycia its
self. On the Plain of Xanthos the Lycians faced the much superior forces of the Persians.
Herodotus writes factually about the out come of this battle. "When the Persian
General Harpagus and his army marched onto the plain of Xanthos, the Lycians met them head
on, though they were greatly outnumbered, they fought courageously and with great
determination. However, they were defeated and forced to retire within the boundary of
their walls, whereupon they collected their women, children, slaves, and other properties
and shut them up in the citadel. Before the start of the next engagement the men set fire
to the citadel and then went out on to the battle field and fought to the last man. Five
hundred years later in 42 BC history was to tragically repeat its self. When Brutus
besieged Xanthos. Against a superior force the Lycians once again fought to the last man
and when they saw there was no hope of victory, they once again slew their women and
children and burnt the city down. Plutarch recorded Brutus' feelings on this second mass
suicide: "It was such a tragic sight that Brutus could not bear to see it, but wept
at the very mention of the scene.
The actions of the Lycians have been written down in the form of a poem and its
translation is this: "We made our homes graves, and our graves homes to us, Our
homes burnt down and our graves were looted. We climbed to the summits; we went deep into
the earth. We were drenched in water; they came and got us down. They burnt and destroyed
us, they plundered us, and we, for the sake of our mothers, our women, and for the sake of
our dead, and we in the name of our honour and our freedom, we the people of this land,
who sought mass suicide, we left a fire behind us never to die out"
Such was the feeling of the Lycians towards independence that they were the last region to
be incorporated into the Roman provinces in Asia minor. Herodotus explains where this
noble race of people originated. The Lycians, he says, came from Crete after Sarpedon and
Minos fought for the throne, and the victorious Minos expelled Sarpedon and his party.
They were then called the Termilae, and only adopted the name Lycian when the noble Lycus,
son of King Pandion was expelled from Athens and came to join Sarpedon. From Lycus they
adopted the name Lycian. The Hittite record that a maritime people called the Lukka lived
here sometime in the 14th century BC. Egyptian records mention a race of people called the
Lukki living here, a people feared as pirates. The Lycian coast has often been referred to
as the 'pirate coast', and with it's many strategically placed coves and islands, pirates
could lie in wait for rich merchant ships that sailed up and down the coast. Many attempts
were mounted to clean up the coast from as early as 1194 BC right up until the 19th
century. A relief at Medinet Habu in the Nile delta records how Rameses III put together a
great fleet to take on the Lukka and totally annihilated them, leaving the coast free of
piracy for a while. When Xerxes assembled his huge force for the invasion of Greece in 480
BC the Lycians contributed fifty ships and Herodotus gives this description of the crew
that manned them: "They wore greaves and corselets; they carried bows of cornel wood,
cane arrows without feathers, and javelins. They had goatskin slung round their shoulders,
and hats stuck round with feathers. They also carried daggers and rip-hooks." In this
remote region the sites of over forty cities have been found and much remains to identify
the culture of the Lycians. The features that stand out as you tour this area of the
Lycian landscape are the tombs and sarcophagi that they left behind. They are everywhere
and it is difficult not to think of the region as a vast necropolis peopled with the
shadowy figures of Lycian nobles and warriors. Ancestor-worship was evidently important to
the Lycians and the tombs are extravagant affairs, the more grandiose decorated with a
frieze and inscriptions placing a curse upon anyone tampering with the tomb. Five distinct
types of tomb can be distinguished: pillar-tombs, temple-tombs, house-tombs, pigeonhole
tombs, and the ubiquitous sarcophagi. Pillar-tombs are specific to Lycia and consist of a
long tapering pillar set on a stone base with the grave chamber at the top. These were for
important dynasts and the best examples are at Xanthos Temple-tombs are maybe the most
impressive of the Lycian tombs and consist of a temple facade with a grave chamber behind
it. Those at Caunos are the most romantically sited while those at Fethiye the most
accessible. House-tombs were modelled on the wooden houses of the Lycians and so give us
some idea of what everyday accommodation were like several thousand years ago. They are
smaller than the temple-tombs, though often several stories high, and the stone has been
chiselled to imitate wooden roof beams and the doorway and portico. The house-tombs were
sometimes decorated with reliefs and painted as at Myra where fragments of a painted
relief have miraculously survived. Pigeonhole tombs were the down-market version of temple
and house tombs, small-unadorned chambers cut into a cliff-face. The best examples are at
Pinara where the cliffs are pockmarked with these tombs. Sarcophagi are to be found
everywhere: widely scattered over the entire area. The older sarcophagi are the largest
with very large stone bases, grave chambers, and heavy lids often with a peaked 'gothic'
look to them. This type of sarcophagi has also been associated with sea faring people that
have died. If you look at the lid you will notice that it closely resembles an unturned
boat.
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